Customer Reviews

Roxio Easy Media Creator Deluxe Suite 9 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Unquestionably the best program. If you like to delve into the details of disk burning and so on then try something else. But if you like the cut and run approach, try this. It takes little effort to burn disks with the program assistants. The same approach is used for the portable player transfers. I plug in the cell phone and the program does the rest. It id's the device and chooses the right digital format. I'm not stressing over choosing the right options and that makes it fun.

A word about video transfers. Last year I bought a Dazzle video converter and it came with transfer software. The original software is okay for the transfer but I can do more with the roxio program. I tried putting the converted video onto a disk directly from the vcr. VideoWave, which is also in the suite will allow edits too. However I did find some lag working from the dvd and would only recommend it in a pinch. I ended up transferring to the hard drive and the editing speed was much better. I think I'll get another HD and use the disks for storage and playing on other media players.

Simple, useful, comprehensive, and a pleasure to use.

Buyer beware. The video editting part of this tool is buggy in Vista. I've noticed two major problems. One, it will hang when adjusting your position in a video clip. You have to kill it and lose your changes. Two, it gets the audio and video out of synch on occasion when adding clips to a movie.

The worst part is customer service is non-existant. You can either put in a ticket or call them and pay one third the cost of the software to talk to someone. I have uninstalled it and will not use Roxio products again.

I have found this product to be very beneficial and easy in creating slideshows of my kids, as well as DVDs of video clips. Don't bother calling Roxio's Outsourced Support though because they weren't very helpful in solving my problems.

The listed features can be intimidating, but my experience is that the menus are so literal that anyone can find anything. There is a major menu which lists all the programs and tasks. I find that it is much easier to use the task based menus then you don't have to know all the names of the programs. Basically the whole suite manages music, video, photo, ringtones, mobile player files. The programs are for making projects out of the files, backing them up, and converting them.

The very first thing I wanted was to edit some photos to put in a frame. I was able to resize the photos very easily as well as crop them. One thing about digital photos, sometimes the quality is not as good as film. I changed the contrast so more of the details popped. The photo program is very good and I now use it all the time. The program also took care of burning a cd so I could have a store print out the photos. I also saw the program will burn a set top player dvd. I made a slide show out of more photos. As I was going through the show, I saw some flaws and was able to change them while still in the show program. I saved the show as a video and sent it to the raw dvd. The program listed the format options and I chose the set top one. This is a good way to share photos for people w/o email and a computer dvd.

I don't have a camcorder but I do have a lot of video clips. Again the program has a good editing program. I identified the clips with text and again burned them to a set top dvd. I can watch them on my tv set too.
I could go on about other features but you get the picture. The many programs will cover all aspects of the media projects.

No matter how many versions of Roxio "Easy" Media Creator I have purchased, they all have had one thing in common: problems. Before you buy this product, read the reviews. Dont rely on Roxio's hype. The product has terrible bugs and the "fixes" dont fix anything. For example, when you install this product on a Vista machine, you will get a pop-up from Microsoft warning about driver incompatibilities. When you go to Roxio's site, they say there is no problem...hmm, wonder why Microsoft thinks there is? Also, you must have a very powerful computer for this software to be of any value...I advise several GB's minimum. (I have 3 GB)... If you are not very conversant with video editing, dont even think about buying a product like this, as it will be way over your head, you will have little success, lots of frustration, and Roxio will be zero help (check out their "Help" on-line and try to find something really helpful)...and for a real joke: "Ask Roxanne."...And then there's the massive Roxio "Drag and Drop" program which they insist on starting up every time Windows loads, and which deposits a giant icon on your desktop every time. They say you can uninstall D&D -- just try it and see if "Easy" Creator runs at all....I've seen some lousy software in my day, but this wins the booby prize...I'm going to Photoshop Elements Video product: cheaper, and has some glowing reviews. Photoshop (Adobe) is a very reputable company, which has a history of producing premier imaging products, and which really stands behind their products... or if you buy Vista, try their included video editing feature - its basic, but then thats all most home user really want anyway.

Sure, there are some products that have glitches under Vista, but despite the Easy Media Creator 9 box indicating "Compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista, it does not even install never mind run. Despite copious amounts of complaints on the Roxio website (wish I had found them before buying), Roxio has not issued a patch to correct this as of this writing.

I'm a 20 year IT veteran and know to disable anti-virus software and firewalls before attempting installation. Even with all startup software bypassed, Roxio's latest EMC9 installation fails.

Steer clear and read the Roxio website's message boards full of customer complaints. Oh, and don't bother to call. It's cost you an extra $35.

Save yourself a lot of trouble. Don't buy this.

I ordered this primarily, because it includes the dazzle device. I thought that I could use the device and the software to easily copy some family VCR tapes to DVD. Wrong! The dazzle ships without any instructions. There are two cd's containing the software and and drivers and some other junk. But when I attempted to install the dazzle, the installer complained about missing drivers. I went on-line and found that this is a common problem. I had to search out the drivers on my own. Finding and installing the drivers was not a trivial task. Once the drivers were installed, I still could not get Dazzle to work. A complete waste of time and money. Stay away.

video conversion - good Dazzle converter, good conversion software, you can bypass the tv and use the pc as a monitor with emc9; conversion is close to real time; 2 editing programs to choose, both have their pros and cons; portable device conversion

audio - not just music although it is the best for handling music; hooks up to a song database and it will provide song data; noise filters; compression and conversion for portable devices, even phones; audio recoreder to capture interviews, music, soundtracks, etc.; ringtone creator

photo - strong editor, batch processing, resizing, red eye corrector, photo projects such as albums, calendars, and slideshows; portable device conversion

This is the 2nd ROXIO suite I've bought over the years. Although version 10 became available soon after recieving version 9, I have been very happy with the ease of use and the bundle of codec features including DIVX. I do a lot of music CDs for the car and Home videos. The compression feature makes the video files much smaller for archiving. I like ROXIO because it is easy to use and loaded with features for the general user.

Unlike the poor folks who shelled out their hard-earned money for this waste of megabytes, mine came bundled with my new computer - a lightening fast, high voltage, very expensive desktop from a popular manufacturer based in Austin, Texas.
Upon installation (if one could call it that) not only did the @$&*( thing lock up, but it also ate my RAM, thus causing every other program to slow to a crawl. Never got the stupid program to open, and, after reading all of the negative review on this site, I just gave up and uninstalled the @$#&*( thing. Which, by the way, took forever.
Do note, while my software box is labeled "Certified for Windows Vista", upon further investigation I noted that the "certification" is just a sticker slapped over the "Compatable with Windows 2000 and XP".

So, can anyone recommend some media software that works????