Roxio Creator 2009 [OLD VERSION]
by Roxio
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Software Reviews of Roxio Creator 2009 [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Wish I could rate it a minus 5
Summary: 1 Stars
Roxio reminds me of Norton, if you load it and it starts messing up, (and it usually does), you can never completely get rid of the program. I unintentionally installed it when I loaded Blackberry Media Manager. I love the BB but you would think they could figure out how to sync your songs between a BB and your PC without using this Roxio garbage. Sonic Solutions, the parent company of Roxio, has gone from a $20+ stock to $3.00 in less than 5 years. Bad products > falling stock prices > layoffs > no customer support > bankrupt. What really gets me is when you go to Roxio's website help and type in the error message, you get zero results, as if it's not a problem. If you type in the error message into Google, it auto completes before you're half finished typing and you get thousands of results. How could it be so prevalent on the internet and Roxio support doesn't have a single comment? Avoid this company and this horrible software.Customer Review: Unusable program
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased Roxio Creator 2009 and it locked up during installation. I then tried to install it in another computer and it also locked up during installation. I returned it to store for credit. Customer Review: Problems with Creator 2009 package received
Summary: 2 Stars
Roxio Creator 2009
When I first installed Creator 2009, it would not work. I had to download a patch to get it to work. Then, I could not use the "plug and burn" feature. I uninstalled, then reinstalled the software and again had to download a patch to get it to work. The "plug and burn" feature still does not work. I have contacted Roxio support with this particular problem, but as yet have not received a reply.
One other feature that I used was to create DVDs from videos edited in Pinnacle and this worked fine. However, the "plug and burn" feature was the one I required for converting video tapes directly to DVDs and this has not worked.
Customer Review: A Frustrating Mess
Summary: 2 Stars
This is my third Roxio program (5, 7, and 2009), and it'll be my last.
Setting Up
The software loaded well and has run well, but when installing, it says it's loading the specific programs you chose, but it never gave you any such choice - it just gave you everything, whether you wanted it or not.
Audio Recording
Unlike Roxio's earlier Spin Doctor (version 5), which had nice grey and blue curves, "Roxio Easy Audio Capture" is blocky white and grey. Also, the recording time, which counts up when you click Record, is really annoying `cause it's not only in bold red, but blinking, like warning you there's something wrong.
When you're done recording, it doesn't simply shut off, but another menu page pops up, asking you whether you want to delete the file or close the program or record more. There's no "shut up and do nothing" button, so you have to close it with the x.
The "Roxio LP and Tape Assistant" program is basically the same program as above, but allows you to automatically detect track breaks in albums. Spin Doctor (which I reloaded from version 5) had this right up front, so you don't have to dig through Advanced Options - Track Detection - Settings.
The only improvement Easy Audio Capture has over the earlier Spin Doctor is if you happen to be a beginner, there's a Recording Setup Guide, a tutorial with diagrams of what to do. So in all, I never use this program, but still use Spin Doctor.
Sound Editor
I like how you can preview a track before opening it, but after importing, I was soon lost. Like what the heck is the difference between a clip and a track? All it tells you is a track is something you export, made up of clips. There's no examples of what they're talking about, whether adding samples to a song or songs to a playlist. I still don't get what the clip editor's layers is all about. The Help section says it's for "fun projects." Like what? Put a dog barking over Pavarotti? Put narration over a soundtrack to a slide show? There's no explanation or examples, either here or on their website.
You'll be able to get it to work, but it's an odd mix of advanced tools and silly things like RoboVoice. And it doesn't help that if you copy a song to a new file, you can't edit it right then, but have to save it and then open it again.
In the end what we have here is like a fumbled four-track program that doesn't even tell you that's what it is or what you can do with it. In the end I stuck with a free program I found on the web, which is much less cluttered and confusing.
Burn Audio CDs / Music Disc Creator / CD Creator
Let's say you have a dozen songs you want to put on a CD. You go to Audio and see "Burn Audio CDs" and "Create Music Disc Projects." Let's start with Burn Audio CDs.
First thing I found is you can't drag a file into another spot - you have to click on it and then use on-screen arrows to move it. It also repeatedly puts the last track of the dozen I selected right at the top, so I had to click the button 11 times to get it back to the bottom of the list. Also, there's no way to put in the title of the CD or artist.
It has some really nifty visuals when you're burning a CD, but after I'd popped out the CD and tried to make a label, even with the project still there on the screen, I couldn't get the tracks to list. On the back of the CD label it just says, "Track List." You have to click on Create Label immediately after it's burned or you can't get the tracks to list.
Next I tried the Roxio Music Disc Creator. There you actually can drag the files about, but it looks like crap - all stark white panes. You can also add the names of the CD and artist here, but you have to click on Project Settings to get to that. Finally, the Label Creator works here as well, but again, you have to dig it out of the Tools menu.
I wondered what happened to the great Creator Classic part of the program I always used. Turns out it's still there, but doesn't do audio CDs anymore - just data.
In the end, I loaded up CD Creator from Roxio 7, and finally everything was clear and open and I could easily name the CD and Artist and adjust the burn speed and drag songs around as much as I pleased. And after burning, when I click on Create Label, it's all there - every track.
How they screwed up such a good program for all this useless filler is beyond me. In fact, for making data CDs and DVDs, I actually use Roxio Creator DE, which came with my Dell, simply to avoid Roxio Creator 2009 altogether.
Videowave
And finally we have the program I bought this software for - to edit video files and burn them onto DVD in quality shows.
While I don't have other programs to compare it to, there's a lot here I liked, including how you can size the screen bigger, the trim tool, the narration feature, the Media Selector, and previewing transitions before adding them. I also like how you can save custom settings for titles of projects, so they all have the same font and size without having to go and check what the other ones were.
Still, it's hard as heck to learn `cause the built-in tutorials are useless, and the Help section has you going in circles. The online tutorials are nothing more than advertisements. They show what can be done, but gloss over exactly how to do it.
Like let's say you want to put a blank panel at the start of a movie, as for the title page. You won't find "Insert Color Panel" in any of the menus. No, you have to right-click on the first movie clip, and then find it in the sub-menu there. And then to adjust the duration of that panel? Right-click again, right? Nope, it isn't there under Edit at all. You have to accidentally click on it twice, and that'll allow you to adjust the time.
The menu creation is a bother as well. You have four movies lined up perfect on the first menu page, and you go to add another, and when it asks if you want to add a new menu page, and you say sure, it not only makes a new menu page, but moves two of the movies from the first menu to the second. Argh. You straighten it all out, dragging the movies to the right menu, and when you add a third menu page, it does it again - giving you a half dozen menus. It takes ten minutes of wrestling with it just to get it the way you want.
And finally, when you pop the finished DVD in your DVD player, the highlighted movie isn't just highlighted, but completely red, so you can't even see the photo that shows what the film is about.
Help Resources
When you register, you get an e-mail telling you about access to their "advanced knowledge base, community forums, tips & tutorials, and so much more." But when you click on it, you just get the support page, with everyone's problems listed. The videos aren't tutorials, and the knowledge base is just the same Help section in your program (and usually for a different version). Only in the discussion group did someone post some helpful tutorials, and if there's something this program needs, it's a quality tutorial.
Like let's say you're making a slideshow. The duration of each photo is up at the top, so it's easy to change, but to apply that to every other photo? Right click? Nope. You gotta dig around for five minutes before you go to File - Properties and find it hidden there. And after fifteen minutes of trying to get a song to loop in the slideshow, I found by accident that you need to have the slideshow set at the first frame for that to work.
Summary
In the end, it's a big, colorful collection of crap. The DVD Creator isn't all that bad, and after all the time I've put into trying to figure it out, it works well enough, but it shouldn't be this difficult. Next time I'm going for a program dedicated to just video editing and DVD burning, so I don't get all this garbage with it, and there might actually be a book on how to use it.
Customer Review: Roxio Creator 2009
Summary: 4 Stars
This product copies CDs and DVDs just fine. My one dissatisfaction is with the label creator. It is not intuitive, has almost no documentation, and is not flexible. Adjusting the label image to print in the proper place on the page is very difficult.