Mossberg Dislikes Roxio's Easy Media Creator 7

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB108743029846739612-IFje4Nmlal3nZ2tZnSIbKeIm5,00.html' target='_blank'>http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB108743029846739612-IFje4Nmlal3nZ2tZnSIbKeIm5,00.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"After testing Media Creator, I believe it is a good step forward in Windows multimedia software. Roxio has done a lot to create a more unified user interface, and the new cross-program modules do help to tie the program's functions together. But in my tests I found these efforts to be mainly skin deep and sometimes confusing. And I encountered a number of flaws and defects. Screens and functions launched slowly, occasionally froze or quit unexpectedly. Worse, it took three tries to create a multimedia DVD that actually played."</i><br /><br />Walt came, Walk saw, and Walt didn't like what he saw. I haven't tried this product yet, so I'm not sure what to believe - Maximum PC, the only magazine I trust, did a head to head review between this product and the latest version of Nero, and they picked the Roxio product as the better product. Any users of this product? What do you think?<br /><br />You can also check out a <a href="http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid=2IjvFhOosIewTpiqW50aqoWomNqWU9oe&UserName=Unknown">video of Walt commenting on the product.</a> (CNBC calls that "high bandwidth" - sheesh!)

[Janak Parekh]

I don't normally agree with Walt, but if 7 is anything like 6 was, I can see the reasoning behind his logic. 6 was a mishmash of applications, just like the last 5 versions before it. The difference? They renamed the main creator program to "Creator Classic". :roll: A lot of customers on the Roxio forums were also very upset because open issues in 6 were never fixed and they told them to upgrade to 7.

--janak

[mcsouth]

Based on Walt's apparent bias in the past on other reviews (Palm devices, anyone?), I generally don't pay too much attention to anything he writes or recommends anyway.

That said, I happen to have Nero on my PC, mainly because that's what came with my TDK CD burner. My Lite-On burner came with Sonic MyDVD - I can generally figure out how to burn DVD's that work (no coasters yet...), but it sure doesn't seem as user friendly as Nero. As far as Roxio is concerned, I haven't used it for a few years, when we had it on a work PC for CD burning.

Since Roxio and Nero seem to always be neck-in-neck for most reviews, I figure I'll stick with what I know for now - there doesn't seem to be any real compelling reason to upgrade...