Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 Deluxe Suite review

Roxio's Easy Media Creator 9 Suite picked up a Best Buy award in our December 2006 issue, thanks to its comprehensive collection of photo, video, audio and disc-burning programs.

There aren't many media-related tasks that it can't handle, but Roxio has come up with a few new ones and added them to the Deluxe Suite.

The most significant new feature is the bundled video capture device. The Dazzle DVC90 has composite, S-Video and audio sockets at one end, and a USB plug on the other, and captures high quality video in MPEG-2 or DV format. If you've got a pile of home movies on VHS that you've been meaning to convert to DVD, the DVC90 and the software's Plug & Burn option handle the task effortlessly.

Other new features include Sightspeed Pro - video-conferencing software that supports up to four simultaneous users. Bias SoundSoap SE provides highly effective audio cleaning, while the DivX Create Bundle offers a range of advanced options. However, the standard version of the suite includes basic audio cleaning and DivX encoding facilities, which we suspect would be enough for most people's needs.

The DVD-authoring program, MyDVD, is surprisingly powerful, but rather short on menu templates, so it's good to see a further 10 included here. However, the surprise gem in the Deluxe Suite's new features is a simple little utility called Disc Gallery. It catalogues the contents of optical discs, allowing you to search for specific files without having to insert discs one by one.

Easy Media Creator still has room for improvement. We'd like to see online photo album and online backup facilities, and the video-editing program could be better. However, we can't fault the sheer quantity of features, and ease of use is extremely high. If you need analogue video capture, the Deluxe Suite is perfect, if a little pricey.

Author: Ben Pitt