First Look: CyberLink Power2Go 6

 

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Posted on 2 Nov 2007 at 15:43

The two most popular and obvious choices when buying CD and DVD writing software are Ahead's Nero and Roxio's Easy Media Creator. They're not the only programs available though. Power2Go 6 is the latest burning application from CyberLink, the developers of the popular PowerDVD video playback software.

Power2Go lacks many of the extra programs supplied with Nero and Easy Media Creator, such as video, photo and sound editing utilities, but as a result the program's interface is less cluttered. The task-based main menu is divided into six easy to navigate categories, Data, Music, Video/Photo, Copy, Mixed and Utilities. Alternatively, basic burning tasks can be accessed from a Sidebar Gadget if you're running Windows Vista.

Power2Go's interface is consistently uniform for most disc burning tasks. The top half of the window allows you to select the files that you want to copy to disc. You can select files using a file browser similar to Windows Explorer. There's also a search field that allows you to find files on your hard disk by typing in a keyword. Alternatively, a set of Vista-like search filters automatically keeps track of files you have opened in the past week, month and year, although you can't create your own filters. If you're burning a music disc, you can browse your music files by artist, album and genre.

Once you've found the files you want to burn to disc, you simply drag them to the bottom half of the window. A bar across the bottom of the window constantly updates to show you how much space is left on the disc you will be burning.

Although Power2Go isn't loaded with extras like its competitors, but it can create a video DVD from your video camera footage, rip CDs into MP3, WMA or WAV format and convert existing audio files between those three formats. There's no support for AAC though.

Power2Go can be bought as a download from CyberLink's website, for only US$40 or around £20. This is around half the price of the latest versions of Nero and Easy Media Creator, which may be enough to tempt budget-conscious buyers. But we're unconvinced Power2Go is compelling and sophisticated enough to entice users away from the basic disc writing software bundled with most new computers and DVD writers.

Author: Alan Lu