Bruce Von Stiers

I have a little horror story that ended well. I have a PC that’s about two and a half years old. A while back I evaluated Windows XP and kept it on my machine. Several programs wouldn’t work with this new version of Windows. One such program was a CD burner program that I used constantly. The program was Easy CD Creator. The problem was that I had version 3 and it wasn’t at all compatible with Windows XP. I found out that the version was too old to upgrade for free. I would have to buy at least version 4. I decided not to do that and started using another program that I didn’t like nearly as well. Then the opportunity came up for me to evaluate version 5 of Easy CD Creator. I now had an opportunity to start using the product that I was familiar with and liked. But wait a minute. How many changes had been made between versions 3 and 5? And was I going to like the changes enough to still want to use this program all of the time? Well, I’ve got to say that this new version, Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum, is everything that you would want in CD burning software. I liked it far better than my substitute for version 3. This program comes from Roxio, which bills itself as the Digital Media Company from Adaptec.

I started looking at the program and couldn’t believe how many things that were thrown in together in one package. You can convert your music CD’s into MP3’s.Then in turn, you can burn a MP3 CD using the program. The program comes with filtering tools that will help eliminate pops and scratchy noises from LP’s that you are converting to digital music.

You can create a data CD in a matter of minutes. Mix the content of a CD with both data and multimedia. The program allows you to create a CD with a self running slideshow. And you can put together a CD photo album. Then, if the rest of it wasn’t enough, you can create video CD’s with clips from your favorite videos.

As a test project, I tried out the CD Copier function. I needed to make copies of a few of my son’s CD collection. He was leaving on a three week trip to Australia and his mom didn’t want to replace any lost, stolen or broken CD’s. I followed the directions the program gave me and all was well. At least for a short time. Then the program seemed to lock up and my computer froze. I was finally able to get everything unstuck, but the target CD wasn’t good any longer. I tried it a second time with about the same results. Then I used a different program to try to convert the songs on the CD to MP3’s. That is where I found the real culprit. It seems that Track 2 on the source CD couldn’t be read and was causing a glitch in the program. I then went back and tried the CD Copier function with one of my CD’s that I knew wasn’t scratched and it worked perfectly.

As I didn’t trust my son’s CD’s to be scratch proof, I thought I’d try out the conversion process from straight audio to MP3. But I got kind of gun shy, so I used another program to convert the songs to MP3 format. I figured that I might as well see if the program would do a better job of creating a music CD than my current program, Music Match. What I found out is that it is a lot easier to make a music CD using the SoundStream function in Easy CD Creator. The user interface is a lot better and the visual representation of the CD being burned is pretty good.

Pick out what songs you want to have on the music CD. They will appear in a window on the left hand side of the SoundStream interface. Then use the arrow buttons in the middle to move the songs from the Source list to the Destination list. Select the destination from one of the buttons above the Destination list. After doing so, the amount of free disc space will appear in another window underneath the Destination list. This window will help you keep track of how many songs that can be added to one CD. In the case of burning a CD for my son, I was able to get two CD’s worth of comedy albums onto one CD. Click on the red Record button when you are ready to burn the CD. When all of the songs have been burned to the CD, you have the option to have the program finish up the CD burn or stop and wait for another session at a later time. If you bypass the Finish portion, the CD might not play in a conventional CD player.

Next I tried making a data CD. This feature looked a little like the one in version 3, only the interface looked a little better. Drag and drop your files from the Source window into the Data CD Project window. Or better yet, highlight the folder or files you want to copy and click on the Add button. This will add the folders and files to your CD Project list. Then simply click on the red Record button to begin the copying procedure. The process worked very well and after completion I was able to look at all of the files on the target CD.

The program comes bundled with a couple of pieces of third party software. One is PhotoRelay which allows you to make video postcards. The second piece of software is ArcSoft VideoImpression. This program is very familiar to me. Once upon a time this program was called Video Home Edition and was part of the Canon software family. The last run of the product even had a quote from me on the box cover. But alas, Canon sold off its software assets and Arcsoft got the Video Home Edition and renamed it to VideoImpression. It is a really good video capture and editing program for those people who don’t need a lot of bells and whistles for their videos.

The program also come with software that will let you make your own CD labels and jewel case inserts. You will have to type in the song titles and duration for the jewel case insert. That information can’t be copied or translated from any other program elements. The program accepts most common Cover and Label stock for printing.

Is Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum the best CD burner program out there? I believe it is. The ease of operation, the sleek interface and all the goodies thrown in make this a program that anyone with a CD burner should not be without.

To get the latest information about Easy CD Creator Platinum, visit the Roxio web site at www.roxio.com.

You can buy the program at retailers like Best Buy. The list price for Easy CD Creator Platinum is $ 99 US.