Magix Xtreme Photo, Video & Graphic Suite review

This suite of media-related software from Magix follows its recent acquisition of Xara, a UK-based company best known for its vector-drawing software Xara Xtreme.

Magix is clearly rather taken with the word Xtreme, as it has tacked it on to various existing Magix applications. As well as Xara Xtreme, which is now Xtreme Graphic Designer, the suite includes Xtreme Photo Designer for image editing, Xtreme Movies on CD & DVD and Xtreme Photo & Videoshow Deluxe for burning videos and slideshows to optical disc, plus Xtreme Photo & Video Manager.

A launcher program presents various tasks and loads the relevant program in the correct mode. These tasks are organised into five categories - photos, videos, graphics, web design and online services - and include fairly specific projects, such as designing a business card or copying VHS tapes to DVD. However, while the photos and graphics sections include a range of creative projects and simpler tasks, the video section is less ambitious, with no editing options at all. The web design category is misleading, as the suite doesn't include any HTML tools, just a smattering of web graphics tasks. The suite also includes a disc-burning application, although this isn't mentioned on the website or packaging and isn't built into the launcher. Instead, it has its own independent launcher program. The freely available Magix Music Manager is included on the installation DVD, and installed even though we asked it not to.

Xara Xtreme 2 received a five-star review in Shopper February 2007. Xtreme Graphic Designer is based on Xara Xtreme 3, a highly capable vector drawing program that's simple enough for new users to use straight away. The screen updates continuously as you adjust settings, making it extremely fast to use. It can't open Illustrator or CorelDraw files, though, and unlike Xara Xtreme 3, Xtreme Graphic Designer can't export files as PDFs or Flash animations.

Xtreme Graphic Designer can incorporate photos and manipulate them to some extent, but Xtreme Photo Designer 7 is for image editing. It has some powerful features, including blend modes for combining layers in complex ways and a good replica of Photoshop's Liquify tool for freehand warping of images. Its Task Assistant mode makes simple edits easy to perform, but the rest of the software is frustrating, and its layer handling is seriously flawed.

Xtreme Movies on CD & DVD 6 takes video from a wide range of sources and burns it to optical discs. It's reasonably capable but its interface is frustrating. Basic video editing is included, and would be its best feature, except that edited video can only be burnt to disc and not rendered to a video file. Xtreme Photo & Videoshow Deluxe is very similar but handles slideshow creation, and it's baffling that Magix hasn't combined the two into a single application.

Xtreme Photo & Video Manager is a mythical program: its name appears on the splash screen during loading, but the software is actually Photo Manager Deluxe. This has some useful quick fixes for photos, but numerous flaws and a baffling interface make it pretty much useless for organising photo and video files.

Xtreme Photo, Video & Graphic Suite can't seem to decide whether it's for creative or home tasks, and it fails to satisfy either camp. If you want highly capable vector drawing software, Xara Xtreme 3 is available for $110 (around £54) and adds various key features that are missing from Magix Xtreme Graphic Designer. Photo and video tasks are handled far better by Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, which are available together for around £75. Alternatively, Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 Suite (£33 from www.scan.co.uk) isn't as ambitious as Magix's suite, but it's less frustrating and, ultimately, more useful.