Easy CD & DVD Creator 6

In May I purchased a MiniDV Camcorder and wanted to make DVDs of my home movies. I purchase Easy CD & DVD Creator because it seemed to have all the features I wanted, and none of the features I didnt want. I wanted a simple video capturing utility, a simple video editing tool, and the ability to create menus on my DVDs. I am able to easily download my video from my camera (via Firewire), edit my scenes, and create a Themed Menu very easily. I recently came back from a family vacation and had over two hours of video and nearly 200 digital pictures. I used Easy CD & DVD to create a DVD that not only included my edited video, but a slide show of my pictures set to music. The quality was excellent, and I am very happy with the results.

If you own Easy Creator 5, I cant think of any good reason to purchase this product. The only thing it does well is burn data and files to CDs, and EC-5 does that equally well. The Photosuite section is one of the most exasperating pieces of software Ive ever tried to use - and it deletes EC-5s ability to archive pictures along with a self-running exe player that provides both shortage and self-running slide show capabilities (with music) on one CD. If you need a photo album and picture editor program, first look at what came with your digital camera, possibly augmented by one of the cheaper Adobe editing products, or purchase Jasc After Shot or its latest incarnation. If you need DVD/Video capture or editing software, buy Sonics MYDVD Video Suite - Its significantly simpler and more flexible to use, and produces DVDs with better playing characteristics. The Audio capture/playing/editing features seem only different, not better than EC-5, and maybe not as good. The Drag-to Disk feature is back - but Ive never found that feature to be worth the effort to use it, with any CD/DVD burning program. And lastly, the basic operation of the program seems even more quirky than EC-5, and counter-intuitive to every other piece of software you likely own. Bottom line, I installed it, tried it, deleted it, and reinstalled the elements of EC-5 I use. Was a total waste of $...

I havent used the program too much yet, but the one dvd backup I did make worked fine. My major qualm with the program is that upon installation, it seems to have partitioned my hard drive without asking me and for no apparent reason. I now have a FAT partitioned f: drive containing some system files. I could tell the installation had problems from the start because it kept flashing the same message and rebooting my computer several times. I have a 7 month old Dell machine running Windows XP.

Having used version 5 Platinum, I was filled with joy to see the release of version 6. I probably should have saved my enthusiasm. Although I havent experienced any of the problems that Ive read about here as far as Windows XP goes, it runs flawlessly on my XP system and Im using it on a laptop. My issues are simpler. I just dont care for the way it works. Photosuite is worthless, Audio Central is ok, but you cant apply any effects (and there are several)such as the equalizer or any of the others unless you create playlists. If you want to listen to a few songs from your library, you cant apply the EQ without first creating a playlist. DUMB!!!! I still havent found an audio application that I like better than Musicmatch. I could go on, but if you dont have a real need to burn DVDs and you have version 5, stay there. I havent decided whether or not Im keeping this. Fortunately I bought it at Costco, so I have their liberal return policy on my side.

Well, my trials with Easy CD/DVD 6 started with consistent lockups while loading on my Windows 2000 machines. A reboot would fix it, yet sometimes it would persist. Roxio had no solutions for this and claimed it must have been another program running at the same time. Once I could get it running I attempted to burn a few DVDs, strangely enough it showed some DVD-RW disks as 1x and some as 2x off the same spindle. (Not very promising). Beyond that It continuously coughed up Buffer Underrun errors, when previous software had never given me error (Im using a DRU-500 drive). The Underruns literally wasted the RW disks I was using, Im hoping another program will be able to recover them, Easy CD shows disk unusable. And I am lead to believe it *IS* software related since its happened now with 3 different media brands. Testing on my second PC running Windows 98 with the same Firewire DRU-500 drive produced the same results (tho the software did load properly). All in all I recommend a strong do not buy rating to Roxios newest product.

For DVD-Video editing/creating, I use Roxios VideoWave 7 Professional. For everything else this is great! Ive had great success with win2000; its designed for XP/ME/98 as well. 2000/XP users w/NTFS partitions will be best off; ANY user w/FAT32 partitions will likely experience some craziness! I use Norton Ghost for backup/imaging: so even if my computer spontaneously combusts(!), I can rebuild it pretty quickly. My Faves- attractive interface, excellent html help, Creator Classic with Disc Copier, AudioCentral, Label Creator, and Drag-to-Disc: these are amazing! With *just these* components & a DVD+/-RW drive, this software *should* actually be pretty stable- it works great on my system! (AthlonXP 3000+; 512MB memory.) Disc Copier copies CDs/DVDs that arent copy protected, yet Ive copied a few store-bought items: a music CD; a cheap PC game CD; an instructional DVD(!); a foreign NTSC DVD(wow!). Creator Classic makes all kinds of discs- Data, Music, MP3, Enhanced, Mixed-Mode, Bootable & more! AudioCentral effectively rips, burns, converts & manages MP3s, WMAs, WAVs & OGGs. Its even greater now with the new mp3PRO Plug-in encoder available at Roxios website (highly recommended!). Ive converted audio tapes, with my analog-in sound card, into high-quality MP3 CDs with professional looking labels! Drag-to-Disc is especially important to me because win2000 (my favorite OS) cant write to CDs/DVDs without extra software help. This is a tremendously versatile package! For most of my CD/DVD needs, this product is all I need! Official Caveat Time- *PLEASE BACKUP YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE INSTALLATION!* Glitches, bugs, hangs & crashes can be experienced all throughout this product. Make sure Windows is up-to-date with all recent service packs & patches. If you install the entire product to see what it can do, then decide you can do without a few features, its best to uninstall the whole package, restart the computer, and then reinstall only the needed features with their corresponding updates. Check Roxios support page for common issues/problems to evaluate risk! (Especially win98/ME users!) *UPDATE 2006*: At one point, for whatever reason, my roxio software stopped detecting my drives altogether. I heard someone say: If EZCD6 ever says no drive detected, google search EEZ000005 to find a helpful link & potential fix from Roxio. I did this, and the fix was a small software download called DriveFixEZ_Installed.exe. I ran this and it worked! All my drives were detected again. Still though: Roxio makes it exceedingly difficult at times to find help and potential fixes. They may have even removed that help page I just mentioned(!). Otherwise, this software really *can* be great. It just occasionally seems to be more frustrating than its worth...

This software came with my new Dell Computer and it has been a very frustrating experience. Dell DOES NOT give or offer any support for this software and Roxio will not give or offer any support either (unless you purchase it direct from them, then, I dont know). I was held on hold with Roxio for 1 1/2 hrs and finally gave up. For some reason, although you can compress the VHS capture source down to fit on a DVD (MPEG-1, and four more options), it still says that the files are too large to transfer. I bought the top-of-the-line Dell to handle all the system requirements. There was no manual that came with the software and the help menu was not informative enough. I have had my computer 3 weeks and have been off work during this time and still cant get it to capture all the time, or compress properly when it does work. I even went as far as buying a new VCR and a variety of cables (including Monster cables) in hopes that this would remedy the problem, but to no avail. And now, the video portion has finally stopped working. A waste of good money.

After mucho Hype I made a terrible assumption that spending big bucks on a recording suite that it would include most features as other similiar products but I made a huge mistake. I honestly cant believe that the folks at Roxio actually use this product because if they did they would have noticed the massive holes in standard features that it is lacking. I wanted an MP3 solution mainly, with an option to get a DVD burner later but I have many complaints. * It will not allow you to use your own MP3 naming format. You can only use the 3 presets, so it is necessary to go back after every rip & rename every track to what it should be. Totally ignoring what a customer wants to do- you must do it Roxios way or do it yourself. * Standard features like normalization are simply left out. If you have cds at a different volume level- too bad, buy another product to do what this one should do. * Simple items are made cumbersom such as CDDB- which finds the names but you must refresh everytime you accept what the CDDB finds or your tracks will get named Track1 & so on. This is just extra keystrokes for what should already have been done.... again making it cumbersom. * Comes with a 350 page book telling you everything except what you want to do or know. Want to find out how to burn an ISO? No table of contents to just search ISO. You must wait on pages & pages of worthless timeconsuming Manuals via PDF. This is really the unforgivable part. * Things like DVD builder are amazingly enept. One example is that there are 2 options to save- Save & Save as. Both do the same thing. Save as doesnt allow you to save as anything or to anyplace- Name? OK saved just like the option for Save. This is a total lack of testing & product development & lack of concern for customer satisfaction. Now I did give it 1 extra star due to the baseline of support does pick up my dvd/cd recorders. Many that I have tried in the past dont do that... But I guess I will have to throw this in as a wash of my cash & try to find a product that works. Thanks for nothing Roxio.

I bought this solely based on the Roxio reputation. I installed it, the DVDs I burned didnt work (it crashed). I spent serveral hours downloading the upgrades from the Roxio site, then tried it again. The DVD crashed still!!! The store I bought this from (Best Buy)does not take open software returns (none!) So I stepped outside then threw this entire package into the trash. I gave this product one star only because Amazon doesnt have a lower rating.

I too read all the negative reviews on this product but decided to go ahead with trying it anyway. I have the home edition of Windows XP and it works just fine on mine. I dont use the photosuite or dvd builder, I only needed a burner and something to make my own music discs. I had versions 4 and 5 before and I figured this one could not be as bad as was written. But thats just my experience, Im sure the other people had the problems they say. Its up to each person to decide I guess.