Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate - Windows

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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.


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My Opinion (after one week)

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 - A lot of the functions I have no use for. Why use Media Import and Data Discs when Vista already does this?

Sound Editor is cool, but I have Sound Forge (which I'm assuming most people don't, so this could be cool for making ringtones, etc.)

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 - MS Movie Maker does a great job already

So why did I buy it? - I wanted to convert and burn audio and video file formats. $100 is pretty steep for this function, but it's all in one place now. The "Ultimate" plug-ins might be worth it in the long run, especially for the Bluray. I'm going to play around with SonicFire and SoundSoap to see if they're any good.

I guess Roxio is for people who don't know (for example) how to send something to their mobile device, and they need a program to do it for them. Other than that, I'd say it's a good program, but it seems like it is a "doubling up" of programs that I already have on my computer. But for those who don't have all of these programs, or want a main program to manage all your media, this one isn't bad.

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

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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

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PROBLEMS - and there are many!

ANNOYING CRASHING!!!! - Tried converting video file, and keep getting the message " Roxio VideoConvert has stopped working "

Tried converting another file to MP4 (h.264). It took a few hours, the converted file didn't work, and when I went to try to convert the original file again, I get the same "Roxio VideoConvert has Stoped Working" message. It seems that VideoConnvert corrupts the original file somehow, and it makes Roxio crash if you try to use the original file again. I'm definately very disappointed with the video conversion, and it's one of the main reasons I bought the software.

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 meantime. 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?

Lightscribe drivers weren't installed. Had to run a diagnostic that referred me to a page that had the drivers. http://www.lightscribe.com/downloadsection/Windows/index.aspx?id=1106

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.

Burnt a music disc. It puts a propriatary file called "Launch" and with the "user friendliness" there is no way to peruse what actual files will be burned to the disc before you burn, so you can get rid of this.

Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate - Windows

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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.

Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate - Windows

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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.

Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate - Windows

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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.

Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate - Windows

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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.