Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 is not just CD/DVD burning software. It is a complete package of applications that can be used to perform numerous tasks on media files and equipment. Full versions of PhotoSuite 7, VideoWave 7, Napster 2.0 and Easy CD & DVD Creator are included, as well as Sonic Software's Backup My PC Deluxe 6 and CinePlayer, and muvee Technologies's muvee Auto Producer 3. Extensive User Guides and Tutorials that provide step-by-step instructions are easily found in the huge Home Help Center. How-To tutorials are also available at the Roxio support website, www.support.roxio.com.

The installation provides a choice of a complete, typical or custom install. A Content CD contains templates and sample files, and it can be accessed as desired while using the applications, or it can be completely installed so that all of the files are on your hard drive.

Using Creator 7 is very simple. Launch it by clicking Start/Programs/Roxio Easy Media Creator Home and a window listing all of the tasks is displayed under headings for Music, Data, Photo and DVD. The window also has a list of Applications included in the package. and a list of the Tools available. Most important to me in the Tools list is Help Center & Tutorials. In addition to the usual help area in the pane on the left side (which has hundreds of specific instructions), there is a chart of Applications and Tools with links to the Tutorials and/or User Guides for each application. These can be minimized and accessed as you work with the program…extremely helpful!

I have never used a CD/DVD burner with the ease and speed that I can with Roxio Creator. One delight is the Drag-to-Disc feature with which a file can be dragged and dropped onto the Drag-to-Disk icon, a CD or DVD popped in, and in a few minutes the disk is burned. Discs can be copied with similar ease. Photos can be burned quickly, and if you feel creative, music or text can be added to create an impressive slide show.

I have used photo and video editing software before, but having the integration of Roxio Creator with PhotoSuite 7, Ulead Video Studio 8 and muvee autoProducer 3.1 makes it much easier to capture, edit, create and produce a tape or DVD movie of my own.

I did have problems with Sonic Backup My PC Deluxe 6, although not actually with the application. There is evidently a conflict in which Sonic Backup doesn't recognize the CD-writer installed in my Dell, and Backup will not launch. If I disable the CD drive, I can start Backup and then back up files to the DVD drive (I have both CD and DVD drives) or to an external hard drive. After many e-mails to and from Dell and Sonic, searching in the user forums, trying the work-arounds, and even having the CD drive replaced by Dell (what a surprise that was!), I've resigned myself to disabling it when I want to use Backup My PC.

I haven't addressed some of the tools included with Creator because I haven't used them as yet:

Media Manager

Organizes all of your media files, music, photos, videos, and they can be found by it's search engine.

Label Creator

Provides the tools to create them for your CDs and DVDs.

Sound Editor

For the conversion of music from LPs, cassettes or recordings into WMA or mp3.

Roxio Player

Plays CDs and DVDs.

Roxio Retrieve

Enables automatic retrieval of archived files from disks or media

There are quite a few burner applications out there, some of which include packaged media software, but Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 has incorporated a fine combination of tools that are easy to use and produce great results.