The eighth version of this excellent disc-creation suite
doesn't offer many surprises, yet it's exactly what we wanted.
Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 (EMC 8) keeps up with the new formats
of the day, adding DivX import and export and
support for double-layer DVDs. It also throws in a few novelties,
such as photo sharing, while wrapping those changes in an
interface that's clear, easy to understand, and consistent across
the various applications. While the recently released Nero 7
Ultra Edition offers more control over some tasks, most people
will find Easy Media Creator 8 easier to use. It can handle
nearly any media-related task you throw at it, and it's a
pleasure to work with.
Installing Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 is a simple and fairly quick process for such a large program. If you want to control which of the included apps get installed, choose the Custom option. If not, you can take the express lane and select the default installation. The package comes with a second disc of content, such as templates, that you can use after you've installed the program and restarted your computer.
When you start Easy Media Creator 8, the redesigned launcher app (Media Creator Home) asks you to select from a list of tasks. We like how clean and intuitively designed this and the other EMC apps are. You get a list of main function groups (such as Audio and Backup) in the left column and a list of common tasks (Create Audio CD, Copy Disc) on the right. The clearly organized interface does a good job presenting EMC's multitude of features. With this release, EMC looks a bit more like Toast, Roxio's fantastically well-designed media suite for the Mac, which has a clean, white look and a simple control layout (but far less functionality). EMC definitely triumphs over Nero, its main competitor, in interface design. By maintaining a clear, approachable look across all its apps, Roxio has made the suite even easier to use. That's a lesson Nero has yet to learn. Even the audio editor, usually the most inelegant and user-unfriendly part of any suite, is simple here.
The Media Creator Home window serves as the launchpad for all of Easy Media Creator 8's functions.
Features
In addition to an improved interface, Easy Media Creator 8 offers
support for the latest formats and tasks. It adds DVD-music disc
creation with the new DVD Music Assistant (this version is full
of assistants instead of wizards, which will please people who
always thought wizard was a silly term in the first place). Like
many tasks in EMC, creating a DVD-music disc is a simple process
made clear by the three-step assistant. We're not sure who's
burning these DVD music discs or where they're playing them, but
Toast, Nero, and EMC now all support them.
The DVD Music Assistant helps you create music DVDs.
Speaking of DVDs, we like that Easy Media Creator 8 now offers two different ways to build a DVD, depending on whether you want the process quick or customised. When you're pressed for time, the new MyDVD Express lets you quickly toss together a few videos and select a template for them. The more detailed MyDVD, redesigned for this release, captures video and gives you more menu options. We weren't crazy about how slowly both of them ran on our 2GHz Pentium 4 test system, though. The only other performance issue we experienced was that the video tools froze on start-up a few times (or perhaps we weren't patient enough with their very long launch times). You can use them to burn double-layer DVDs, which EMC now supports.
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