Product Reviews

Creative's sound cards have been one of the biggest success stories in computer technology, both in terms of sales and critical acclaim. The Live! Platinum 5.1 marks the pinnacle of this pedigree, so we were intrigued on how they planned to improve on a classic.

Creative's new cards have a '5.1' suffix, which is their shorthand for 'Dolby Digital decoder built in'. They can convert a DVD film's surround soundtrack into six discrete channels of audio, to be piped directly to a surround speaker system without the need for an external decoder. This knocks around £70 off the price of surround speakers. Creative doesn't supply a software DVD player, but the hardware is compatible with WinDVD and Cyberlink's PowerDVD, and works a treat.

The Live! Platinum still has all the features that made the Live! range such a hit - four-channel surround and EAX 2.0 for superb acoustic realism in games, a top-quality synth/sampler, a digital out for use with traditional Dolby Digital surround speakers - and a new improved version of the Live! Drive, providing a wealth of professional connections for musicians. The Platinum 5.1 has also sprouted a remote control to smooth the PC's migration from the study to the living room. Alas, the implementation is a little perplexing, but those with a sofa in front

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of their PC (and more patience than me) will no doubt find it useful.

As always, Creative hasn't skimped on software. Aside from the disappointing lack of a software DVD player, both bundles are superb. The Player comes with a new version of PlayCentre, which can encode both MP3 and WMA files, and looks the business. Rage Rally is a middling driving game, but shows off EAX and surround sound to good effect. FutureBeat 3D provides a fun way to produce music, and exploits the card's surround capabilities, while MediaRing Talk enables free telephone calls to be made to a similarly-equipped PC anywhere in the world, via the Internet.

But it's the Platinum 5.1's software bundle that really propels it into the big league. As with the cheaper Player 5.1, there's a new version of PlayCentre, which can encode both MP3 and WMA files, and looks the business. Rage Rally is a middling driving game, but shows off EAX and surround sound to good effect. FutureBeat 3D provides a fun way to produce music, and exploits the card's surround capabilities, while MediaRing Talk enables free telephone calls to be made to a similarly-equipped PC anywhere in the world, via the Internet.

The Platinum adds Cubasis VST, an extremely powerful audio/MIDI sequencer. This has a retail price of around £80 itself, so it's a bit of a result to find it bundled with a £145 card. For gamers, Rage Rally is joined by MDK2, a 3D adventure that's exhilarating, visually and aurally stunning, scary and hilarious in equal measures. Just making Maxx the robot dog scamper about in time to the techno soundtrack provided hours of entertainment.

At £145, the Platinum 5.1 is a fairly pricey purchase, but the hardware and software on offer make it worth every penny. If you're a keen PC musician with a penchant for games and DVD films, The Platinum 5.1 is the only all-in-one card that really delivers.