Ez Software Review

An Ez Software Review of
Easy Media Creator 7.0

Rating: *****  (5/5)

Roxio, the company that produces Easy Media Creator 7.0, has built a well-integrated, easy to use, digital media and disc burning software suite. It allows you to edit all types of media, including photos, video, data and audio files. If you’re looking for digital media software that can capture, edit, author, save, and share almost any CD or DVD project, look no further.

Easy Media Creator comes on two CD’s. The suite of media applications is on one CD while audio, video, text and graphics supplements are on the second CD. Roxio recommends that you uninstall any packer-writing or drive-emulation software on your computer before you install Easy Media Creator.

Installation is quick and straightforward. The program will detect previous versions of Easy Media Creator and offer to remove them for you.

Roxio has done a very good job of integrating the various applications. They all have the same look and feel. Easy Media Creator allows the user to create his/her own three-tier user interface. This top row of the task oriented interface displays a list of possible jobs divided by category: Music, Data (CD), Photo, Video and DVD. The middle row displays a traditional list of applications and options. The bottom row displays a list of recent projects for quick access.

Although the Easy Media software is very well integrated, it is a software suite composed of separate applications. When you select an option from the home menu, the software loads the requested application, which can take a little time on older computer systems. Each editing application has its own browser and preview interface.

Although Easy Media Creator divides up the capture and management features for photo, video and audio, it is very easy to combine them into an easy to use production, such as creating a slide show or DVD.

Roxio’s CD burner for CD’s and MP3”s, Creator Classic, can do scheduled backups to help simplify data backup. The retrieve utility can be included on backups to make it easier to restore the files to your computer.

The latest version of the Creator allows you to create audio in the new audio compressed Ogg Vorbis format. It also includes a utility option to create disc labels, jewel case inserts and booklets. It’s much more than just a disc-copying program. The Disc Copier utility will allow you extract materials from unprotected DVD-Video discs. 

The Creator includes a Capture tool to import photos from cameras, scanners, camcorders, and TV tuners. I can also capture audio. The SmartScan option allows the user to prescan and preview scenes before capturing.

The PhotoSuite application provides the user an easy interface to do photo editing tasks and enhancements. It is ideal for beginners, but is not as in-depth as other dedicated photo editors.

VideoWare provides a wealth of options for video editing, regardless of skill level. You can use Cinemagic to automatically edit your video project, StoryBuilder to manually help you step-by-step through the editing process or the Production Editor to create a project using storyboards and time lines. This multiple mode video editing should appeal to almost every user.

Easy Media Creator has many additional features such as a DVD authoring system, a DVD menu design system, a plug and burn feature to record directly from a DV camcorder to a DVD disc, an Edit DVD option to directly edit a rewritable disc, and a Napster 2.0 program for legally previewing and downloading music.

Easy Media Creator comes with a 90-day free email technical support, links to the PDF user guides, as well as many online helps. Telephone support is 9 am to 6 pm EST, but costs $35 per incident.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive suite of well-integrated digital media software programs, you should seriously consider Easy Media Creator by Roxio. It has nearly every option you could ask for in digital editing with in an easy to use interface.
 

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