Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 [OLD VERSION]

by Roxio

Product Features

• Includes PhotoSuite 7, VideoWave 7, Napster 2.0, and Easy CD & DVD Creator
• Organize with Media Manager; password-protect and encrypt private data
• Transform still photos with stunning pan and zoom effects
• Take complete control of video with advanced timeline editing tools
• Produce professional-looking VCDs, SVCDs, or DVDs

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001BG1NI
• Item model number: 213100
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 13, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (233 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,317 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #11 in Software > Video & Music > MP3 Software
  • #17 in Software > Video & Music > CD Burning & Labeling > Mastering & Burning
  • #21 in Software > Video & Music > Digital Video > Compositing & Effects

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 empowers you to live your digital lifestyle to its fullest potential. Go beyond just CD burning and now organize, edit, preserve and share your digital photos, music, video, and data--all within one integrated product that seamlessly combines the complete versions of the latest, award-winning Easy CD & DVD Creator, PhotoSuite, VideoWave, and Napster brands.

Add an extra level of security to your back-up project by enabling 128-bit encryption and password protection.

Data Back-up

• Schedule reminders to back-up your data
  
• Secure your data with 128-bit encryption and password-protection
  
• Automatically archive large files across multiple discs
  
• Drag and drop files to disc as you would to a giant floppy
  
• Back up CDs or DVDs with one click
  

Sound Editor lets you easily convert analog audio from LPs or tapes into .wma or .mp3 format. Connect a turn table or stereo to your computer's sound input and click play/record. You can even dramatically improve the sound quality by removing pops, clicks and hiss with special filters and effects.

Digital Music

• Convert music from LPs and tapes into mp3 or WMA format--remove pops and hiss
  
• Split, trim, cut and paste tracks; apply professional transitions and cross-fades
  
• Rip CDs, create compilation audio or mp3 CDs
  
• Equalize the volume for all tracks taken from different sources
  
• Legally download and buy digital music with Napster 2.0
  

DVD Builder enables you to create professional-looking DVDs, VCDs and SVCDs. Work with professionally-designed content templates or create your own from scratch.

DVD Authoring

• Create professional-looking DVDs, VCDs and SVCDs with Hollywood-standard Dolby Digital sound
  
• Plug & Burn takes footage from a DVD camcorder directly to a DVD with a click
  
• Copy an entire DVD-Video or just the main movie and selected languages for optimal quality
  
• Import and edit video from previously recorded DVDs
  
• Customize your DVDs--move and resize menu buttons, add titles and text credits
  

Easy Media Creator comes with a whole CD of professionally-designed content that can be shared across many projects.

Photo Editing

• Fix basic photo flaws or let advanced PhotoDoctor automatically improve exposure, sharpness and saturation
  
• Tweak your photos to perfection with professional tools
  
• Save time and touch up an entire batch of photos at once with Multi Photo Enhance
  
• Produce impressive slide shows with photos, video clips, music, transitions, and effects
  
• Transform photos into movies with Motion Pictures dynamic pan and zoom effects
  
• Combine your own photos with hundreds of impressive templates to create custom calendars, invitations, greeting cards, collages and other one-of-a-kind projects
  
• Seamlessly combine multiple photos to create stunning panoramas
  

Use professional editing tools with the new timeline, which supports up to 14 tracks and in-place editing. Exercise complete control over the timing of specific assets in your production, including background audio, narration, video clips, titles, and more.

Video Editing

• Save time and hard disk space with SmartScan--only capture the selected video scenes
  
• Organize your photos, video clips, and other assets with Media Manager
  
• Exercise complete control over the timing of specific assets in your production timeline, including background audio, narration, video clips, titles, and special effects
  
• Let CineMagic automatically edit your raw video footage and a song into a polished 'music video' complete with transitions
  
• Make a movie step by step with StoryBuilder templates for all occasions
  

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

157 of 166 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb product, February 22, 2004

By 

seamus (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I got the product based on the PC Mag review which said it was great. It's quite simply an incredible product when you consider what previous versions were like and what you get for less than $100. It's not perfect but it comes close. Here's some pros and cons. On the pro side, it basically has everything you need for anything to do with music, burning, video, photo and DVD. Everything looks and works the same way (it might the nicest looking software on the PC - actually it looks like Apple made it!) All the tools work well together. The burning is really fast. There's a nice data back up feature with password protection. It has this very cool feature where you can create slide shows of pictures that move, which is an amazing effect. The whole slide show app is pretty clever. It's actually a video app (which might seem scary at first) but it's so easy to use you never realize it. You can use it for both pictures and video. The disc label app is pretty extensive(I didn't think people actually use these) it's a full featured graphic app just for disc labels and it works while you burn CDs. The photo app seems no different in features than Adobe Elements but is much easier to use (more about that below). The DVD application is very full - you can move and resize buttons and text, you can animate buttons and menus, it even has Dolby audio. You can edit DVDs. You can even create a full DVD with just one click with a digital camera. There's a tool that comes up when you plug in digital cameras to bring your photos or videos in. I've never seen such a tool (usually every digital camera has it's own software). You can record audio from LPs or tapes and the software finds the different songs automatically. The help system is pretty good - there's like 1000 pdf pages for everything and even video tutorials. On the con side, I would say the photo app is a bit too wizardy for my taste. Napster is kinda connected but not like the other applications -and there's no free trial or free downloads which would have been nice. There's no printed manual like the previous version but the online help is extensive. The launcher is kinda big - it can be made smaller but there's a big graphic of the product name they should lose.

On the whole though, I think it's a great product at an amazing price. I highly recommend it.

102 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING "MUST HAVE" SOFTWARE, June 1, 2004

By 

Fabio Milano (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I recently bought a new PC and then also bought Roxio Easy Media Creator 7. I'm a knowledgable PC shopper and asked everyone if this software came bundled on a PC and the answer was no everywhere I turned. Those "in the know" told me the only Roxio bundled software was older versions, not EMC7. So, I don't know what our previous reviewer is talking about?

This product is amazing! Before I purchased EMC7 I did a thorough search for the best digital media software for my budget (under $100) and Roxio was the clear winner. Here are just a few examples I discovered:
>> Basic Burning: EMC7 supports desktop drag and drop with automatic handling of file types, Nero does not.
>> Photo Editing: EMC7 allows you to add pan and zoom to slideshows, not Nero. EMC7 offers advanced photo editing (cloning, masking, stitching, etc) and paint tools, Nero doesn't
>> Video and Slideshows: Nero does not allow you to mix photo and video with transitions, where EMC7 does. EMC7 allows 7 track audio support, while Nero allows 3 tracks for video and only 1 track for photo slideshows. EMC7 offers over 150 transitions, Nero only has about 40.
>> DVD Authoring: EMC7 allows multiple storyboards in a single window, Nero doesn't. EMC7 allows you to drag and drop photos and videos between storyboards, not Nero.
>> CD/DVD Copying: EMC7 CD and DVD copy module uses same component with same or similar workflow, not Nero

This is just my extensive research on talking to other users, reading press coverage, product literature and searching the web, to making sure I spent my money wisely and bought the best software for the job. I suggest you also read the reviews done by the professionals, such as CNET, EMEDIALIVE and PC Magazine to name a few that I used.

I hope this helps. I think this software is amazing and recommend it over Nero or other products in this class.

189 of 204 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, March 3, 2004

By 

Peter Wright (Calgary, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I decided to upgrade my ageing version of Easy CD Creator 5 last week, and picked up Easy Media Creator 7 on Saturday. My main interests are managing and archiving all the photos on my system and getting more into digital video and DVD - which I've found hard to understand in the past.

I really like the application launcher that starts up when you first run Easy Media Creator, it immediately gave me a bunch of great options across Photo, Video, Music, Data and DVD. Having the type of tasks I'd want to complete right there rather than just a list of applications is very cool.

The first thing I tried was video editing .. I have a Sony Digicam but I've just been collecting DV tapes and not attempting to edit them. I selected 'Capture Video' from the task list and Capture popped up showing my Sony DV camera in a list of possible things I could capture. I then used SmartScan - this is cool, rather than copy everything onto my hard drive it tells me what I've captured on my DV tape and let's me select what to capture. I did that and then left it for a few minutes to capture only the scenes I wanted. Kind of freaky hearing the DV camera fast forward, stop, play for a while, fast forward ... nice automation!

When I came back tried out VideoWave, the video editing application in the suite. I've only ever tried using the editor that came with my camera, but it was so bad I gave up right away. I had been meaning to buy a full-on editor for a while, but I'm glad I waited. VideoWave is much more than I expected, it's a complete video editor with hundreds of effects and transitions. I spent ages just playing with all the effects before I got into serious editing. I did have to check with the manual a few times to understand Timeline, but I'm blown away. I would have spent the hundred bucks just to get this never mind this plus photo, data, music etc.

Next I checked out DVD Builder. I don't know what Roxio are smoking but I like it. This is a fully fledged DVD authoring application with again dozens of themes to create your DVDs. It also had something called DVD on CD which I didn't understand, but the control this thing gived you to create amazing menu designs and buttons of any size. I dragged a couple of my movies onto the menu, changed the theme, typed some text and hit burn. It took about 30 minutes to burn a DVD, but it played back no problem in my Panasonic DVD player and it looked perfect!

That's as far as I've got with Easy Media Creator to date, but I find very little to criticise and plenty to recommend. I don't think this suite is missing anything! My only suggestion to Roxio is to maybe put a more meaty getting started guide in there as this is a huge suite and I wasn't sure where to start. Overall though it's so easy to use I don't really need a manual all the time. I'll post another review once I've had more time to get into more of the other applications in here.