Product Reviews

There was a time when Nero and Easy CD Creator could only burn CDs. Now, if you need to do anything with an optical disc, audio, image or video file, these suites probably cover it. Creative applications such as video and photo editing are fairly basic compared with dedicated software, but as general introductions to the joys of modern computing these suites are tremendous value, and their presentation is generally first rate.

Nero 7 Premium's 15 programs cover CD and DVD burning, video editing, DVD-Video authoring, copying and playback, photo viewing and editing, backup, audio editing, music production, disc label design, packet writing, a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) media-streaming server and two new applications. Nero Scout is a media-cataloguing tool that organises music by artist, album or genre and videos and photos by folder or date. This is unusual in that it appears in My Computer

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for quick access from any program - in theory, at least. In practice we found it slow and unreliable.

Nero Home is Ahead's answer to Windows Media Center Edition, presenting audio, video and photos in an armchair-friendly interface. However, for some reason it plays two audio tracks or video soundtracks simultaneously when the user skips from one to another, which we found very odd.

We were amazed to find that Nero's DVD-authoring tool can encode 5.1-surround Dolby Digital soundtracks, as this feature is rare even in high-end video software. However, using it is convoluted, as only the music programs and not the video-editing application can mix in surround sound; finished mixes are imported from the former into the latter. This makes it nigh on impossible to create surround effects that sync with video, but it does mean that musicians who want to experiment with surround sound can distribute their mixes cheaply. They'll probably want a more capable audio sequencer than Nero's to compose with, though.

Nero and Creator are such sprawling entities that it's hard to generalise. Nero Scout and Home look promising, but until their teething problems are sorted out, Roxio's more conventional Media Manager does a better job of organising and accessing large media collections. Nero's surround sound and HD support is astounding at this price, but who really needs it? Both packages have plenty going for them, but even we long-term Nero users found Roxio Creator more appealing.