For a couple of months I’ve been planning to write a positive review of Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 Suite. This package of individual programs will let you do things you want and things you never dreamed of when it comes to home-brewed CDs and DVDs.
The delay can be blamed on an unseemly outbreak of news developments through the fourth fiscal quarter that kept us tech journalists busier than a one-eyed cat watching nine rat holes.
Today I shake off the surly bonds of current events and cover an event that happened back in September when Sonic Solutions Inc. released a $99 Version 9 of its widely used graphics tool case.
The people at Sonic call their product “a burning suite,” which does not mean a bad real estate deal but rather a program designed to record (burn) stuff onto blank CDs and DVDs. The suite (sweet) part comes in as a jewel box of subprograms that let ordinary consumers create acceptable photos, songs and movies.
The big news with 9, I suppose, is the beefed-up programs in the suite designed to let folks with iPods, Zunes, cell phones and hand-held gaming gear like PSPs transfer proper music, movies and photos to their gadgets’ small screens. Also added is a pretty neat set of features for cell phone photos and video clips.
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The photo module takes those postage stamp-size images snapped on cell phones and converts them to passable photo files and prints up to about 4 by 6 inches, sometimes 5 by 7.
The other module imports video clips and ring tones from cell phones. Beyond that it also lets one create customized ring tones from any music file or sound that the user wants to create.
Over several years I’ve seen a large number of folks benefit from various Roxio features. Most visible is the audio recording component that handles recording music from collections of cassette tapes and vinyl LP records. A sound editor lets one further tweak recordings. This audio module even includes a feature that analyzes the sound and removes annoying hiss and rumble from cassettes and clicks from scratches in vinyl LPs.
Roxio’s programmers have come up with some great improvements to previous versions of the subprograms to make movies, mix music, enhance photos and then transfer these items onto CDs and DVDs.
The software comes up as a Home page, which presents a menu to let users find the various subprograms that are in the suite. You also can find what you want to do by going to the Windows Start menu and selecting Programs and then highlighting the Roxio icon. This brings a set of drop-down menus so users can quickly call up their desired module.
At the most basic level, I have found the Record Now module for creating backups on CDs and DVDs rock solid and far better than the Windows XP and Vista burning modules. Roxio will copy CDs and DVDs, but like all major players, it doesn’t work with seriously copy-protected Hollywood discs. You can always play these DVDs through your video capture card or camcorder and use the VideoWave module to record the movie and burn you own DVD.
Roxio maybe pushes to the edge of piracy with a sublime “widget” that waits on the desktop. When clicked it records any audio coming into the computer. This makes quick work of copying tunes broadcast by Web radio stations and other sites bursting with sound. This recording widget has a most welcome sound filter that removes any noise made by the computer’s circuitry and fan and by static from broadcast radio.
Another new module lets users compile huge DVD collections of music that can deliver 50 hours of tunes on a home DVD player. These homemade music DVDs even present thumbnails of what’s playing on the video screen.
I consider the VideoWave module the crown jewel of the Roxio suite with its simple screen display that easily meets the need of everybody from rank newcomers to serious studio HD video producers.
You can crop entire clips and tweak clips by increasing brightness and contrast and color depths. There’s also a CineMagic module that will automatically create movies when a user plugs a camcorder into the computer. These movies include transitions, sound tracks and text introductions with virtually no work at all.
Afterward, the DVD-burning side of the software makes it fairly easy to create Hollywood-type DVDs complete with icons playing thumbnails showing each chapter or each production. Color backgrounds and sound tracks can be made from your own music files and photos, and the software includes clip art as well.
Creator 9 works with the coming Microsoft Vista, and it does something else in regard to Vista: It delivers superior movie and picture editing tools and simplifies burning great stuff onto those towers of blank discs on the aisle caps at the computer store.
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Binary beat readers can participate in the column at chicagotribune.com/askjim, or e-mail [email protected]. Snail-mail him in Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.