Customer Reviews

Nero 6 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

I switched from Adaptec/Roxio software about two years ago, and have never looked back. In fact, I'm so far removed from Nero's competitors that I can no longer provide a survey for comparison. I don't think it's necessary, either: Nero does for CDs, DVDs, and audio-video files what Microsoft Office does for documents and spreadsheets. Everything.

Nero burns CDs and DVDs, extremely well and with a feature-set largely unmatched by its peers. You can read RAW, write RAW, create bootable CDs and DVDs, burn a variety of image formats, create images for later burning, and so on. The interface is intuitive and customizable, and you'll find a way to do nearly anything you can imagine with respect to transferring data to blank media.

If that was all Nero did, it might not be a bargain at its current price, but it would still be the best tool for the job. So Ahead bundles it with a packet-writing tool called InCD, which makes rewritable DVDs and CDs look like hard drives. Then Ahead bundles Nero Recode, and you know you've got something special.

Recode will take a DVD and copy it, either in user-arranged pieces or entirely. It will not copy protected DVDs, but if your DVD content is unprotected, Recode will let you resize it to fit on a single 4.7Gb disc, or split a large movie over multiple discs. You can even set menus and titles, and create master images for later burning. Recode is extremely easy to use, and one of the best DVD utilities today.

Ahead isn't finished yet. Also with the bundle are speed tools for checking your drives; an Image tool that will mount saved image files to appear like virtual drives; a cover designer for the jewel cases; a WAV editor with some fairly hefty ability; a mixer that allows a user to pull together multiple sources into remixed output; a DVD-SVCD-VCD- player; and a VCD/SVCD tool to convert movies to popular compressed formats.

What I'm trying to tell you, gentle reader, is that even if your PC shipped with Roxio's software, you should buy this bundle and use it. It is updated quite frequently -- updates free within the major version -- and its abilities will unlock a great deal of the power of that PC you have.

Fred

Like many other reviewers here, I bought Nero because of frustration. I'm not a computer neophyte, but I don't want to struggle for hours in order to do something simple (like copy files onto a DVD writer). I don't really want to learn 900 new terms. I just want to accomplish certain things that ought to be easy.

After I installed my new DVD writer (a Plextor, which I love), I had a whole raft of software--old Roxio that only worked with one drive and a new copy that only worked with the Plextor with CD media and... well, a whole raft of software lurking on my machine and wanting to own every DVD inserted into either DVD drive. Ick.

I tried them all and couldn't get the drive to be recognized or various conflicts between various bits of software to be resolved. Was it the media? The drive? The USB cable? What's up? Why is this so *hard*?!?

It was really hard to select a product to fix this, since they all promise the moon, but based on reading the fine print and crossing all fingers and some toes, I purchased this product.

The good news: it works and most of the pieces are really easy to use. It copies the DVDs made from our video camera. It saves files to disc. It can get the 4x performance my drive can deliver. It can record Video CDs of my photos for the relatives. It works!

The bad news: there's a whole raft of software in the collection and some of it is of doubtful utility. Some of the programs are harder to use than they should be (but not crack-the-manual difficult to figure out). And the user interface is the ever-so-annoying all graphical flavor.

Finally, and this almost certainly doesn't apply to you, I run my computer in another language (usually Japanese and sometimes French). The install CD and software complain bitterly that they don't support running in "the current language" (and then fire up in English and work perfectly) and some portions display in one or another language (I can live with that).

Otherwise... the tasks I wasted days trying to accomplish with other software takes the appropriate number of minutes with this product. I recommend it strictly on the basis that "it works"!

I recently bought a multi-format external DVD burner for my computer. The burner came with Roxio 7 Basic software. I had Roxio 5 on my computer. Neither version of the software resulted in much success with burning DVDs on this new burner(although Roxio 7 did burn half of a DVD before calling it quits; Roxio 5 wouldn't even start burning).

For a while now, I've read a lot of good things about Nero 6 Ultra Edition, but I felt it was too pricey for me. But a local retailer had a sale where the price was significantly reduced, so I took the plunge. A very good decision. I have burned several DVDs in DVD+R and DVD-R format without an error and have also burned CDs and MP3 discs with no problems. I haven't checked out all of the many fetures of the software (there are photo and video creation applications, a DVD player, an MP3 ripper program, a sound recorder and even more). You probably could get by with this as your sole source for digital media and I may someday. But for burning, it's the best.

Nero 6 is 99.9% effective but has a tendency to corrupt now again simply because it has a vast configuration system. Nero is a core burning tool. This means that several backup packages out there will actually find Nero on install and use it for burning. One example is DVDshrink that runs Nero in the background while backing up DVD movies on DVD-R. I/O errors with these programs, including DVD Decrypter, are usually the result of a configuration problem with Nero. One example is updating your firmware. Sometimes this requires you to reinstall Nero. This problem however is the only bug I have found with Nero. Just on the side - I highly recommend a Plextor external DVD burner for reliability and Imation, Memorex, Verbatim as relatively cheap good second class media (80% or higher burn success rate). DVD is still in its early days of development and some media is garbage so don't blame Nero or the Plextor if you make coasters (half burned DVD-R Discs that are useless to you) with this software. I also recommend a healthy supply of at least 3 DVD-RW Discs for TESTING your burning so that you NEVER make a coaster and waste money. Okay, now back to Nero.

Nero Burning Rom is the real tool in the bundle. It is the most configurable burning tool in the package while Nero Express is for those who do not know a thing about burning and works like a Wizard. A word of advice is to stick with the Rom and learn it without using the Wizard. You can choose from burning 12 CD formats and 6 DVD formats, including several variations of each format. There is not a Disc format you can not Burn with this program. The Plextor burners have great hardware based error correction systems and in conjunction with the Nero software make a perfect burn almost every time. Nero also happens to be extremely fast, if not the fastest out there, however fast is also in terms of how fast your burner is, but the software package requires little to no processing before a 8GB DVD is being pulled onto your HD. You can create ISOs with Nero and even use Nero to open up ISOs so you can read the content (However Daemon Tools does that better). There is an amazing amount of free software out there that uses this burner as their base and rightly so. It is the best burning software out there at this time of writing.

Pros:

- If you can learn tutorials for all types of backups then this and a DVD burner will change your life if you play games and watch movies.
- Solid performance. With good hardware and media almost flawless burns every time.
- Nice configuration. Can even backup your PS2 Games.
- All burning formats.
- About 70mb in size.


Cons:

- Let's face it. DVD burning and backup does have a bit of a learning curve. Read plenty of tutorials that use Nero to do specific backups.
- Corrupts if hardware and other software is updated. Needs to be reinstalled again.
- You really need a top of the range machine to backup a DVD in less than 2 hours.

I have been nothing but thrilled with Nero 6 Ultra.

I had the previous 5.5 and HATED it, but with Nero's new StartSmart - I'm a believer again.

Just about anything you wish to do with CD-R/DVD-R's and RW's can be accomplished, I use Nero's Vision Express (comes with Nero 6 Ultra) to make DVD movies from my favorite TV shows - I put 4 shows on a DVD with chapters, menu's and everything and it only takes a few minutes, the encoding and everything is so fast.

I read a few other reviews that claimed the data wasn't written properly - to answer that - Nero has a box that says "verify data when burn completes", I select this everytime I backup anything to a disc, it verifies everything is fine, and I've never had a corrupt disc since using Nero 6 Ultra, EVER. In fact, nearly all corrupt discs are because of bad media, not your burning software- Nero fixes this issue.

The inteface is intuitive and works great, and the tools included are fantastic also, test your CD/DVD drives, get the speeds correctly and refined properly, make case covers, and just about anything else you want to accomplish.

Also, with the new Start Smart - Nero did away with their old hard to use interface (Nero 5.5 anyone!) - Now with the click of a single button, you can click between "express" and "advanced" - unless you are making a bootable cd, burning an image, etc... You will just use express - to make a data disc, you would simply drag the files (or select them) - and click "next" select the speed to burn at, select "verify data when burn completes" and click "burn".. hmm... doesn't get any easier! The entire Nero software works much like this, including the DVD authoring, you can make awesome DVD's with all the features, just this easily.

Nero has absolutely done it with this program, I literally uninstalled Pinnacle and Roxio after using Nero, I for once have NO other CD/DVD software on my computer anymore, and thats a great thing!

I've used a number of media burning software over the years; including several previous versions of Nero, but 6.3 is the best so far. Nero's latest edition bundles a great set of utilities and tools together into a really simply and easy to use package.

Users can now burn CDs and DVDs with either a simple/quick interface or a more detailed application giving you complete control over every option. The starter application logically groups together every function possible with Nero by media type, making it a breeze to find what you need quickly.

Software performance is through roof! While I run a higher-end system, no other burning software has enabled me to burn CDs or even DVDs as quickly as Nero. I'm always amazed at how fast I can get a CD (filled to capacity) burned, often it is finished before I have time to get up, get a glass of water, and come back.

Aside from being a powerful media burning application Nero provides tools for music, movies, which support the creation of, playing or archiving.

And the best thing about Nero Ultra Edition is the steady stream of updates that they put out for free. Each edition (update) only makes the software that much better (whether it is bug fixes or enhancements (like DVD Dual layer support)); Ahead supports their products far better than the competition.

I've tried a dozen or so burning packages, including Roxio (they scare me), Intervideo, Pinnacle (they also scare me), DVD Express, and several others. Nero is the only one that I can actually use, and doesn't make we want to scream from excrutiating pain.

Nope, its not perfect, but boy it sure is the best in class. I can sit down, and make a DVD or CD without spending hours trying to figure out what the software designers were thinking. With Roxio or Pinnacle, I have NO idea how to get a DVD done. And those 2 companies spend more time trying to sell me stuff than helping me use their products.

Yup, Nero, after many years of working on their software, has finally gotten to be best in class. Its the only one that you can install, get to work, and use almost immediately.

I also find it funny how almost ALL of the bad reviews here are by folks who have trouble with the Free or Demo versions. While I too, find problematic demo software frustrating, Nero probably does a better job than most of giving people a pretty good idea of their software with free product. But they do have a right to limit functionality of demo software, as they are trying to earn a living from the product.

But hey, I'm just one guy. All I know is that all the other titles I've mentioned just plain stink at being usable. Lots of neat features that I simply cannot use. With Nero, the features are their, and the basic product just works.

After trying 2 Roxio & 1 Ulead products -- none of which would enable me to edit my MP4 videos -- a relative suggested Nero. While I had to jump through MSCONFIG and ROXIO remove exe hoops to get the Roxio off my machine (Roxio and Nero do not play well together -- in fact, Roxio if still installed causes Nero to crash, and other problems, but that's another review...). As a fairly sophisticated computer user,albeit new to burning etc, Nero has been a snap to make DVD movies from my home MP4's and is fairly intuitive. It has backup features and more which I'm only beginning to explore. As one who believes that if you want good software you should be willing to pay (a reasonable price), this is a purchase I feel good about.

I've been around for a little while now, and I've always like Nero, but every software has a few features that they do better than others. So I've always ended up with 2 or 3 Recording programs on my system.

Not any more! Now with Nero 6.6 Ultra Edition, I can finally get rid of the rest and stick with the best!!

I'm able to create DVD's that I can play on any of my DVD Players, or send to my In-Laws so they can play it on theirs. I've created dozens of slide shows with NeroVision Express 3 and they are of very good quality. Nero has obviously improved the performance and quality from NeroVision 2. My daugher even uses the Nero PhotoShow Express software to create her own Slideshows. She loves it, and she's only 5 years old!

This software has it all, and for such a good price. I did have one issue with creating a DVD and was able to contact support at Nero and resolve it quickly. They are very freindly and knowledgeable. They offer free Email support and are prompt in their responses.

Since I have been around for some time, and I do have other programs, I did a comparison in speed and quality, just to be sure it was the better software for me to use. And Nero wins hands down.

And non of the other prorams provided me a solution to copy DVD's like Nero's Recode 2.1 software does. Very fast, very easy to use, and very good quality. Out of 1 of 10, I give it 100%!!!

This was my first purchase of burning software. The appeal of Nero 6 Ultra was that it does so many things instead of having to buy separate software for each. Well, one of the main reasons I purchased is to put together slide shows of my digital pictures using Nero Vision 2. The "transcoding" process fails almost every time...very frustrating! E-mail support non-existant & phone support costs $1.29/minute...credit card is automatically charged for 59 minutes! Did a Google search and found bunches of other folks having same problem. Ahead Software (Nero) has known about problem has done nothing to warn people. Other parts of the suite seem to work OK (reason for even 2 stars) but user interface is not windows type, no drop down menus, no "save as" commands etc... I have now gone out and purchased different software so am out the $$ spent on Nero. Also, read fine print..."Rebate" reflected in pricing is for upgrade only not purchase for initial installation.