Roxio Creator 2009 review

There's such a bewildering amount that Roxio Creator 2009 can do for you, it's entirely understandable when one of the first things it offers is a series of tutorial videos.

They're not bad, either, taking you through tasks such as converting LPs to CDs and editing a home movie. They're very Americanised, but that's not a big deal. Further step by step tutorials, available via the Internet as plain text, are much more basic, and rather drab.

Fortunately, the software itself is intuitive enough to make these largely unnecessary, and the Start screen is a real help. It's been cleaned up and smartened since the last version, and as in the rival suite Nero 9 you can choose what you want to do by function or task. So there's a main option to copy a disc or burn an audio CD, for instance, but down the left hand side of the screen you can click on links such as Video-Movies to be presented with a more detailed list of options.

Whichever you choose, the relevant component of Creator 2009 will launch, be it the Videowave video editing tool, the Photosuite image manipulation program, or the main disc burning element. These all share a common look and feel, and that certainly helps make them all easier to use.

Burning ambition

The main disc burning engine, historically the foundation of the Roxio suite, is as user friendly as you could realistically hope for. You drag in the files you want to burn to disc, hit the Go button, and off it goes. Only if you're so inclined do you ever need to investigate options more sophisticated than that, as Creator 2009 does a very neat job when left to its own devices.

Image editing is simplified immensely by its own useful menu of options running down the left side of the screen. We weren't entirely convinced by the auto fix option that you're invited to apply to your photos; it's better to make individual corrections. But it's quite straightforward to improve your pictures, and there's fun to be had by playing with the special effects, too.

The video side sees the return of the Cinemagic tool, which will mash your imported video footage into shape on your behalf. Even on something as simple as a photo slideshow this does a surprisingly good job, and it's ideal for inexperienced users or those in a hurry. If you prefer getting your hands dirty, Videowave is a solid video editor. As with most of the component parts of Roxio Creator 2009, you'd find rival standalone applications that could do individual jobs better, but what you get here is perfectly fine for the majority of users.

In terms of improvements, this version of the package now supports AVCHD files from the latest high definition camcorders. However, if you want to preserve all that HD goodness by burning your movie to a Blu-ray disc rather than DVD, not only will you need a Blu-ray burner in your PC - currently a rare and pricey peripheral - but you'll have to shell out an extra £15 for a software add-on from Roxio. A further addition is a potentially time saving batch conversion option, which allows you to take a mixed bag of media files and convert them into a single, uniform format. Helpfully, you can also direct all the files to a named portable media device.

Roxio Creator 2009 is an exhaustive collection of media tools that now feels like it's gelled properly together. The key selling point remains its excellent value for money: there are separate packages that can do more, but buying even a few of them would set you back a lot more. And while Creator perhaps doesn't actually excel at very much, at worst it makes a decent job of everything you're likely to need.