Product Reviews

With a name as direct as Photos on CD & DVD, you might think this was a straightforward application for creating DVD slideshows. This is still the main thrust of the software, but six versions on, it's anything but straightforward.

The main application assembles slideshows in much the same way as video-editing software, with tabs to access photos, music, effects and transitions and a storyboard or timeline on which to arrange them. Slideshows can be animated with pans and zooms, exported to DVD Video disc complete with menus or uploaded to an online web gallery. Version 6 adds themed intros and outros such as a pair of theatre curtains. However, there are only three templates, and we weren't impressed when our selected intro appeared in the middle of our slideshow.

The software supports a range of video formats, although not MPEG4 and preview smoothness isn't great. As with still images, you can add elements such as speech

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bubbles or eye patches to video, and a new Magnetic Objects feature tracks objects in clips so that decorations stay glued to their intended location. Sadly, the software never reached the end of a clip without our false moustaches slipping.

Three extra applications are included. Music Manager 2006 is an uninviting music playback, management and conversion program. Photo Manager 2007 is a competent photo-cataloguing program with basic image-editing tools. Goya burnR is a pared-down version of Magix' disc-burning suite, Goya (Labs, Shopper May 2007), and includes task-oriented links to various features in the suite. However, it does little to help users achieve specific tasks. Most links simply launch the relevant application and present convoluted instructions in a box that you must close before you can start.

On other occasions we were presented with baffling statements or questions, one of which asked us to delete unspecified parts of our slideshow or abandon the current task. We also noticed inconsistencies, such as the fact that we could select more than one image in Overview and Timeline views but not in Storyboard view. Effects can be accessed in four ways, but three of these methods revealed different effects, only some of which worked with the others.

Ultimately, the software's overabundance of features, many of which are fairly basic, tends to result in inelegant slideshows. With patience and restraint it's possible to achieve good results, but it all feels like a bit too much effort.