Product Reviews

It's only a few months since we reviewed DVD Solution 3 (What's New, March 2005), and already a new version is upon us. We found version 3 was mostly good but had a few flaws, so we're delighted to see that most complaints have been addressed.

The disc-burning application now supports two-layer DVD media and the CD-Extra format for combining audio and data on a CD. PowerDVD 5 has been upgraded to PowerDVD 6, the latest version of CyberLink's excellent DVD-Video playback software. There's also a new label printing utility, the only notable absence from

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version 3.

There are plenty of other improvements, too: PowerDirector Express, the video-editing program, now has the Magic tools we described in our review of PowerDirector last month. PowerProducer, the DVD authoring program, now supports DVD-VR on top of the DVD+VR support previously included, allowing users to edit DVD Video discs created on DVD-RW as well as DVD+RW media.

However, DVD Solution 4 is marred by a few annoyances. During installation, it sneaked MusicMatch Jukebox on to our PC, which promptly assigned itself as our default program for playing audio CDs. Every single program and utility asked to be registered each time we loaded it; why not just have one registration routine? PowerDVD 6 has some interesting new features, but this version supports only stereo playback, while the version with DVD Solution 3 - which was automatically uninstalled - supported surround sound.

DVD Solution does have plenty of good points. We like its backup tool and its image editor, both of which are unchanged since the previous version. However, compared to Nero Reloaded it's awkward, at times annoying, and over £25 more expensive.