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The most helpful favorable review
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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
Takes advantage of better pc speed and power
For me version 8 was the ultimate. It brought me into the digital media world and I've been archiving and organizing my media. My dad had a bunch of old home movies on vhs. I decided to get Ultimate 2009 with a video converter. The converter is very small, like a thumbdrive. Before I started I used the new roxio utility to backup the hard drive. I know there are a...
Published 23 months ago by Ht. Bryon
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34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
Worst Software
I've come across some awful and expensive software (like Cakewalk 6~9), but this one takes the cake. It's an intrusive, clunky, resource hog which wouldn't work correctly if the hand of god glided over it.
Right now, it's 12:41AM and I've been trying for the past 8 hours to get MyDVD (Part of this Roxio package) to make a DVD of a vacation I recently took...
Published 21 months ago by SiNMiN
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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
Takes advantage of better pc speed and power, September 21, 2008
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
For me version 8 was the ultimate. It brought me into the digital media world and I've been archiving and organizing my media. My dad had a bunch of old home movies on vhs. I decided to get Ultimate 2009 with a video converter. The converter is very small, like a thumbdrive. Before I started I used the new roxio utility to backup the hard drive. I know there are a lot of programs that do this but since it's included I won't slack off about backing up.
Starting the conversion wasn't very hard. Whatevers playing on the vcr shows in the roxio creator window. After I found this out I freed the vcr from the tv and moved it closer to the desktop. It captured video in 720 x 480 resolution. My next step was editing down the video. The video programs are so much better than the one in 8. I think it is worth getting the hang of videowave even if its more difficult than cinemagic. It does a lot more and I had tighter control over the cuts.
Next step was making a dvd. Old tapes didn't have HD quality so I didn't use that feature. I made a virtual disk first so I could make another copy easilly. I chose the dvd-vcr format to make it work in the dvd player. The dvd menu selection is also much better. Even my dad was able to use it like a store bought movie dvd. The virtual disk made the extra copy creation fast.
Just using a few features I can see that there are many improvements from version 8. I didn't use any versions in between so I can't say anything about them. I'm happy that I could make an archive of the videos so easily.
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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
List of features...My opinion...and problems, November 2, 2008
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
Let me break it down...
(I've had this for about 3 months now, and I thought I'd revisit my thoughts on this product (Feb. 17, 2009). In this first part I wanted to cover the features for those wondering what this thing actually does)
Media Import - is one of those organizer things. It detects and organizes your different files
Audio - Rips and converts CD's to MP3, WMA
Records Internet radio
Converts Audio Books to MP3
Tags audio (artist, title, composer, etc.)
Sound Editor - You are able to import and change audio
Create Music Discs - Create CD or DVD with MP3, etc.
Photo - Edit photos (crop, red eye, add text)
DVD - Copy DVD's, put video cam videos on DVD, add titles
Change file formats (ex. .MOV to . MP4)
Data Discs - Put data from your computer on a disc
Movie player - Watch movies on this
Sound Soap (Ultimate) - clean up hissing audio on audio and video tracks
Soundfire Pro (Ultimate) - Mix tracks according to BPM (I think) Mix audio tracks to put over your video (So basically, you could make a music video)
Bluray - (Ultimate) I think the Ultimate comes with the Bluray plug-in, but the box says you must purchase it in one section. I'm pretty sure it comes with it. One interesting feature concerning Bluray is that you can use your existing burner to burn Bluray, and if I'm reading the box correctly, burn Bluray onto regular DVD's?
Disaster Recovery (Ultimate?)- Back up your hard drive
Other stuff - If you want to work with .MOV, you have to download Quick Time from Apple,
Product comes with a 250 page booklet which is a nice touch, although the deeper features of the product are not covered
You can take recorded Tivo and convert the files to be watched on DVD or mobile device
If you have the right hardware, you can import old LP's, VHS and cassettes and manipulate them (I think you can clean up the audio with SoundSoap)
You can make calendars, greeting cards, etc.
*******
My Opinion (after threee months)
The good - you get a good sprinkling of decent apps all in one package. It's user-friendly, and lets you prepare stuff with tags for big names like YouTube, PSP, iPhone etc. without having to be bothered by file types etc.
The bad - Some of the functions are for things that a basic Windows OS already does.
Is it worth it? - It's a little pricey but some of the programs are pretty nice.
Sound Editor could be cool for making ringtones, etc. or editing audio to put in your productions
Movie Player - Do I really need another movie player?
Photo Editor - (Why buy, when GIMP is the nicest freeware out there?) The user friendliness of Roxio makes it easy to touch up a photo or remove red eye, but lacks more sophisticated functions.
Making Slide Shows and videos - MS Movie Maker does a good job, but lacks file support for MPEG-4 so Roxio is now my preferred video editing software. (Some functions like rotating video 90 degrees, Roxio doesn't have and MS MM does. The two combined are great)
So is it worth it? - With the amount of features it has for manipullating media, I'd say it's worth it, now that they've fixed some of the bugs.
Video files supported -
Input (dvd, WMV, DivX, HD DivX, DMF,DVR-MS,MPEG-4, H.264, MP4 (PT. 2),DV-AVI, 3GP, .TS, TiVo, MOV
Output (DVD, WMV, DIVX, 3GP, 3G2, MPEG2, MP4 (PT. 2), MPEG-4
******
After using the programs:
burnt a DVD movie in something crazy like 15 minutes! (Impressed with this) Importing the DVD breaks it down into chapters, etc. so you can just import Ch 3 of a given movie.
Converted a medium sized file from DVD to MPEG-4 and it took a few hours (longer than I expected given the fast speed of the DVD burn)
burnt an MP3 disc in about 5 minutes
Uploaded a file to YouTube, all I had to do was enter my screen name and password into Roxio, and it did it for me.
Edited a video using VideoWave. It does a good job adding titles etc. (like Windows Movie Maker) but is better than Movie Maker because it supports MP4 format. Video wave is a fun way to make videos! It easily imports and converts multiple files.
Converted a Quicktime video to DVD and burnt it to a DVD for play on a TV. It has a program that creates a DVD menu for your video and puts all the videos into chapters. It looks nice.
Burnt a few discs with LightScribe. They look good, but make sure there's a picture on the preview of the disc. If it's all black, you might need to restart your software or your computer.
Converted video files to watch on my phone. They look good
Used SoundSoap - From what I've read about this program, if you can isolate a sound (like a hiss or buzz) this program is great. I tried to take out some of the vibration from a loud concert, and there wasn't much the program could do. It seems like a good program though.
*******
PROBLEMS - (I've experienced many crashes and other stuff earlier, but recent updates have addressed these problems (I think))
**I spent several hours in the past trying to convert videos for play on my cell phone, and only got the sound and a black screen. The problem - I now know - was with Vista and my ATI (GPU) drivers. Updating the ATI patch from Microsoft (and I think .NET update has something to do with it too???) helped Roxio to reconfigure the video settings, and I am finally able to edit videos!
One note to people using VideoConvert. For some reason if you open a file, close Video Convert and later try to access the same file, the program crashes. (VideoConvert has stopped working) A work-around is to simply rename the file, but this can become tedious if you're trying to convert files chapter by chapter.
I haven't experienced this in a while, but in the past kept receiving the message "Roxio VideoConvert has stopped working" and the program would crash. (update - some things still crash, but not as bad as before, and most of the software will work by just re-starting it)
Tried using SoundSoap, but it crashes when I try to edit video in it (The problem with this was my fault. I tried importing an MP4 h.264 video from my Sony
Webbie (camera). I guess the Sony "wrapper" on the MP4 file is not recgnized and made the program crash. Using VideoConvert, I converted the file to MP4, and it worked in SoundSoap)
Another annoying occurance - tried converting a video file with a thing called SyncIt! The nice thing about this feature is that you can select a device that you want your file to go to (ex. mobile device) and it is supposed to convert the file so that the device can play it. First of all, the whole SynchIt! window is tiny (about the size of two desktop icons) Why it's so tiny, I don't know, because SynchIt! will use 90% of your processor, so it's not like you'll be doing anything else with your computer during the mean time. Next, it took an hour to convert the file. During that time, my mobile device went to sleep. Instead of asking me to wake it up, or saving the file, it just said something like, "process cannot be completed" and shut down. So I wasted a few hours of my time, and maxed out my processor during that time....for nothing.
Tried to burn a movie but accidentally put a coaster (bad disc) in, and the burning program tried to burn for like 10 minutes before recognizing that the disc was bad.
Program (home screen) won't fit to screen and you can't drag the sides to make it smaller. The result is that I can't see the bottom of the page. How can a program not fit right on a screen?
[...]
The big icons and clean look take a way a lot of the functionality of drop down menus. It's so spartan that there are no menus to check on settings for things like setting screen size or what drive is linked to a certain program.
Lightscribe drivers weren't installed, and had to go online to find a program to find it. I put the link before, but Amazon removed it.
Music Disc Creator doesn't tell you how much free space is left on the disc when importing, so you either have to guess or add it up yourself
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Still reliable and innovative, October 11, 2008
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
When I got Creator 8 I needed the dual layer burning feature. Now I need HD video burning, better music and video features, and portable device conversions. That's the reason I upgraded to Creator 2009. Like others I wonder if anyone is confused with the dropping of the version numbers and using the year to name the suite. I also got the Ultimate version this time to get the tape converter device.
I agree with others that the interface is much easier to use. With so many programs it's a big deal to be able to navigate around. IT still has user-friendly burning programs. Even making an HD formatted disk on a dual-layer dvd standard burner was straight forward. It also doesn't hurt that it's a way to save money on disks, especially in these uncertain times.
The music features have been pumped up. Ver. 8 did not have custom music tracks like 2009. Sometimes a well known song detracts from video/slide shows so some background music is a good feature. Another new thing is the playlist can be generated from one to many songs and then transferred to the ipod. It supports other devices but I only have an ipod to try it on.
In the video program arena there is no comparison. The programs are much easier to learn and have more tools. It is also helpful that it takes cell phone videos and photos since I have a lot of them. Both the photo and video programs work in layers so you can make one change and save or delete as you work on the same file.
I saw a list of video converters that work with the program and it is extensive. Since I bought Ultimate Roxio has there own brand included. My mom wanted to take a bunch of home video tapes to the drugstore to get them on dvds. The price though would have been outrageous. I took over the chore myself. Once I started the conversion I could go on to other things and cut off the file whenever. All the tools are in the suite to edit the video, label it, back it up, add a soundtrack, add titles.
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34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
Worst Software, December 9, 2008
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
I've come across some awful and expensive software (like Cakewalk 6~9), but this one takes the cake. It's an intrusive, clunky, resource hog which wouldn't work correctly if the hand of god glided over it.
Right now, it's 12:41AM and I've been trying for the past 8 hours to get MyDVD (Part of this Roxio package) to make a DVD of a vacation I recently took. I'm an IT professional, and I was absolutely baffled on GUI on these interfaces. The only consistency here is that every interface has it's own flavor of 'clunk' to it.
INTERFACE BUGS...
For instance, I'm trying to setup the menu and sub-menus; And, while I'm working it's actually flaking out and moving the graphical elements all over the page. I've had to work on the same menu now 20 times. Not to mention, you must click on the sub-menu icon to navigate to it. But when you attempt to click on it, it moves out of position in the page. Which means if you don't like the new position...too bad...because you're going to have to move the sub-menu graphic back to your original strategic location.
Some of the setup menu's for the objects in MyDVD don't work, or have bugs. For instance, there's a color palette fill in one of the sub-menu's which doesn't work.
I can go on and on about all the interface bugs throughout Roxio 2009, but I'm going to spare that chapter and go to the next.
RESOURCE HOG AND CUMBERSOME...
This software is 2gigs+ out of the box. Which means when you install it, you'll probably be left with 2kb of hard drive space left. They could have saved SOME real space had they used the DIALOG boxes that comes with Windows XP & Vista. But no, Roxio had to be different and create new, cumbersome, confusing, over elaborate dialog boxes. This obviously means that whatever you're doing in the new dialog boxes will take 3 times longer. My experience has been that they're clunky, taking sometimes 5~10 seconds to perform a refresh or task in the Roxio dialogs.
UPON INSTALLATION...
Roxio must have designed this software with the idea that you'll never need to have or install other software. Because the installation package loads up many large programs, WHICH MANY after installation LOAD WITH WINDOWS. I'm baffled, as I look at the list of all the new Roxio related programs in Windows Task Manager. Not to mention, ZoneAlarm is prompting me every 10 seconds with some resource it's trying to mess with...or the FACT THAT IT'S TRYING TO ACCESS THE INTERNET constantly. Here's a another snare in the Roxio sucker net...it would be nice if I could choose the Roxio programs I WANT TO INSTALL, versus Roxio INSTALLING EVERYTHING ON MY COMPUTER!!
As you can see in my review... I'm furious. I'm going to make a recommendation here... DON'T BUY THIS SOFTWARE!!! Treat the positive ratings with a grain of salt...because they're probably from the Roxio Sales and Programming staff.
I bought Roxio 2009 Ultimate, but I figured I'd tell you guys who wanted to spend $49 instead of $99.
DON'T BUY THIS SOFTWARE!!!
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Much better from menus, apps, and features, October 8, 2008
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
In many ways Creator 2009 has evolved for the better. My older version disappeared from my usage when I upgraded to Vista. I'm back to using Roxio Creator and needed the BD plugin and tape converter to boot so I settled on the Ultimate box. My new pc has a BD burner. The burner software was okay but there are better graphics and backgrounds in the roxio menu creator. It has specific HD quality menus for the high end disks which is another plus.
Much is being made of the new Smartsound that makes music tracks. Older versions didn't have this and it was always on my wish list. There's over a thousand tracks so I can get set the mood for my slideshows and videos. I can't though compare it to other music programs since I've never used one before. I wouldn't upgrade for this alone but it's useful. The Bias soundsoap is a more advanced noise filter and remover than I've ever used. Tapes scratch and tangle easily so it is a necessity for the converted digital audio. Wise choice.
Photo and video programs use familiar key controls and tools. I haven't seen how far I can go with them but for ordinary changes they suffice. Music playlists can be made with even one song. Of course I got better results picking a few songs though. The playlist itself could be exported to my ipod, another plus.
I could only touch on a few of the suite's features since it is packed with a lot. The unique ULtimate features though stand out enough for me to see its value.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Probably wait for a while till bugs are removed., February 13, 2009
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
Having used computers (large and small systems) for almost 30 years, I have quite advanced knowledge about computers and softwares. However, Roxio Creator 2009 is the first one that I have no success installing it yet. I had used Roxio Media Creator 7 for several years and really liked it untill last Thanksgiving, when I thought it's time for an upgrade. I purchased Creator 2009 from Amazon and installed it on my PC with XP professional. Painstakingly went through the so called 'clean installation' several times as I experienced with the old version 7, it's still not working even with the two new service packs pushed out in the last three months. Many, many hours have been wasted to do research for solutions but still without success yet. Since the product was purchased three months ago I can not return it for a refund.
So my strategy now is to re-install the old but working version 7 and probably wait for another year or so when Roxio really takes out the big bugs and make a mature product. For many others who have successfully installed the software and enjoyed it, I sincerely congratulate them.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
A Nightmare to Install & Run, November 28, 2008
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
I bought this latest version because it is suppose to work with Vista. I have spent hours on installing & reinstalling the software but to no avail. I was on the phone with tech support and followed their very detailed (and long) directions including changing the system registry but the program does not install. Tech support is apparently aware that others are having similar install problems.
I did get the program to work at one time with the main module but not the other sub-applications that are bundled. I must say that I am using a PC of only a few months old and that I fairly knowledgeable with computers from my line of work. I could try to install it on my other systems but, frankly I don't want to!--I already have a headache and don't want my head to pop!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Don't waste your money!, February 12, 2009
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
I'm a long-time user of Roxio products. I bought this to use on a new Vista 64 machine. It turns out to be pretty much useless. Apps that are basic to this Suite work marginally or not at all. Video Copy & Convert works about 40% of the time. Attempting to copy an audio CD causes a my CD burner to spin up then crashes to the point I have to power down the machine. I haven't tried installing it on a 32 bit XP machine; Version 7 runs well there. If you're running 64 bit Vista buy something else.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Awful, February 19, 2009
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
I guess this product was defective but it took me, my experienced brother and my business tech to finally reach the conculsion that this product needed to be removed from the computer. This required removing all my data so my hardrive could be stripped and reloading everything back on. Otherwise Roxio is so invasive you can't get rid of the files even by going to the registry. The hassel and money I spent is not worth any program unless a human comes with it to do all that the program promisis for you.
Amazon's customer service is remarkable.
Roxio's customer service is one of the worst out there.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Worst software ever purchased, December 25, 2008
This review is from: ROXIO CREATOR 2009 ULTIMATE (CD-ROM)
Just tried to install software today, but NOT happening. Tried it on 2 different computers (1 which is brand spankin' new) and neither would take it. It gets to a point that it decides to quit installing then rolls back (uninstalling itself). Discussions on the web indicate same or similar results with no apparent fixes (but does list some attempts to make a fix). Also, there's not a "Customize" option like most other software. This would allow for only installing certain pieces and maybe narrow down the problems.
I Highly Recommend NOT Purchasing this WORTHLESS software!!! What a waste of time and money.
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