Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum

"Burn your world on CD!" proclaims the blurb on the box. That might be stretching it a little - there's more to life than computer files - but a quick roll call of Easy CD Creator 5's features is impressive indeed.

There are programs here for making music CDs, backing up and archiving files, turning video clips and digital photographs into CD-based presentations, and imaging your hard disk.

As always, the excellent Direct CD packet-writing program - the one that makes a recordable/rewriteable CD act like a giant floppy disk - is included. There's also a basic design application for printing CD stickers and case inserts.

From the control panel

Easy CD Creator has adopted something of the look and feel of a utility suite with this release. A central control panel has four main sections each hosting an array of applications dedicated to particular tasks.

Thus, to make a data CD you can choose from Direct CD for piecemeal work, the Data CD Project for file-by-file control, or Take Two for backing up an entire hard disk. We found that the one-tool-per-job approach meant much less time fiddling with menus and configurations.

The Music CD Project is broadly similar to earlier versions of Easy CD Creator: just drag and drop audio files from one window to another, arrange the playing order to suit, and click Record.

All the usual options are on hand - finalise the disc or leave it open; disc-at-once versus track-at-once; test first or go straight into recording mode - and MP3s are converted to audio CD tracks on the fly. It's all straightforward and efficient.

Sound on Stream

SoundStream, another audio application, is a new entry in this edition and offers a greater degree of flexibility. Say you want to record a compilation using MP3, WMA or WAV files on your hard disk and tracks from an audio CD. Usually you'd have to rip the audio CD tracks first, but SoundStream copies them directly from the original disc and inserts them at the appropriate points in the play list on the fly.

That's assuming you have a CDRom drive alongside your recordable drive, of course; failing that, the application creates temporary copies of the tracks on the hard disk (in an uncompressed format) and so still does away with the need for disc shuffling.

If you want to transfer your vinyl or tape collection onto CD, you might give Spin Doctor - a tool for cleaning up all those irritating scratches, crackles and pops - a whirl.

Hit and miss

We found it a rather hit-and-miss affair, marginally better than nothing. But one truly welcome improvement over earlier versions is full support for ripping audio CDs. Now you can extract tracks at a quality level ranging from 32Kbps to 320Kbps at 44Khz (128 is the near-CD-quality norm).

We were also impressed to find a program for burning MP3 files onto CD without turning them into audio CD tracks - usually a decidedly counter-intuitive process that involves fooling the recording software into treating audio files like raw, non-musical data. The result is a disc that plays for around 10 hours on just about any computer or one of the new devices that supports both regular and MP3 CDs.

The packet-writing, disaster recovery and multimedia tools add welcome value and flexibility.

One quibble: Easy CD Creator should pluck track and artist information from an online database, but it failed to identify any of the CDs that we threw at it, both old and new.

Specifications

• Burn audio and data CDs
• Rip tracks from audio CD
• Make direct copies of CDs
• Create video postcards and photo albums on CD
• Capture and clean up music from analogue sources
• Hard disk imaging
• Packet-writing software
• Jewel case and CD label design
• Supports most recordable drives including BurnProof models.

Contact
Roxio: 0049 2405 4450 870 www.roxio.com

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