Is Roxio really that bad?

[toddang]

I bought Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.0 over a year ago and have used it to create slide shows, and to edit and burn home movies to DVD. It took some time to learn how to use all of the tools, as it would with any software package, but I’ve been pretty happy with my purchase. Now I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been missing something after reading several of the posts on this forum. Roxio is almost completely ignored here. When it’s not ignored, it’s trashed. Hopefully someone can help me with these questions.

Is Roxio really that bad?
If so, what’s so bad about it?
Is the quality of my final product suffering because I’m not using some other software package?

I’d be happy to invest the time and money in a new application if the result is a much better video.

[BJ_M]

yes - imo -- bad

[toddang]

Thanks for the reply, BJ_M.

Would Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 give me a better end product than Roxio? Or would TMPGEnc, along with the other necessary tools, be a better choice? My main concern is the quaility of the video played from the DVD.

[InXess]

Roxio is a consumer level application and by it's nature most likely won't deliver results as refined as a dedicated encoder.
That said no encoding results were presented here or publication that will show its clearly its encoding weaknesses/shortfalls as compared to for example TMPEG.

Be careful with any blanket declarations not supported by hard data. By looking at the prices of Adobe Premiere and Roxio you may infer that this product is not on the same level but again I'd rather see the the evidence of that. Lastly the question is HOW bad is this "bad". According to some magazines it's not so.

Surprisingly you'll find several reviews saying that Roxio favourably compares with Sonic MyDVD and even beats it. It may not be good enough for some but you need to understand that at a consumer level there's got to be some equivalency between price paid and output quality. It would be unreasonable to expect pro outome from a product priced like that. So far I haven't seen anything that would make me believe that Roxio is sooo bad. Never used it though... except for EZCD Creator that's been almost a standard several yoear ago.

[redwudz]

TMPGEnc DVD Author is a good program for basic authoring. For something more versatile, DVD Lab and it's variants are popular. For encoding, I use TMPGEnc encoder. It's a little slow, compared to CCE or Procoder, but it's easy to set up.

A lot of us use individual programs for editing, encoding and authoring. This method gives you the best control and usually the best quality. But it also takes a little more work and lots more reading to get the best results.

I haven't used Premier Elements, but others should be able to give you some info on it.

[whitejremiah]

tmpgenc would yield better results, or if you have the patiance to put up with it (if it's even possible, im not sure) CCE or canopus procoder are way better mpeg encoders.........roxio is garbage, throw it out, forget that you ever touched it, and try never to do so again...as far as making slideshows, im sure there's better tools available, but i've never personally dealt with slideshows to know either way.....and if (god forbid!) you're using roxio to burn dvd's, ya should check into nero, or prassi ones...those are both way better alternitives to roxio in that respect.....

[InXess]

.........roxio is garbage, throw it out, forget that you ever touched it, and try never to do so again...as far as making slideshows, im sure there's better tools available, but i've never personally dealt with slideshows to know either way.....

That's typical. Never used it but already has a fixed opinion... If it was about a book a standard question would be::have you read it?

[Rich86]

I've been using Easy CD Creator since version 3. I currently run 7.1 for most of my needs and I've been experimenting with 7.5 and 8. They all run just fine on my system. The Roxio version 7 burning engine is very reliable - for all sorts of media. Don't listen to folks who just start trashing a software product with unsubstantiated insulting comments. Everyone has their favorite trusted product and program. You need to read the reviews and experiment yourself to learn what best matches your needs and system capabiities.

If you have needs or issues, you might try visiting the Roxio website where a technical forum is hosted with lots of users helping each other out - just like in here - but focused on the Roxio product line which tends to get ignored here.

[hech54]

Roxio was MUCH better than Nero at one time for CD creation....IMO.
I would not buy Roxio again for my DVD Creation needs....but that means NOTHING because I would not purchase any "all in one" software for my DVD-ing needs....including Nero.
And I still use an old $4 version of Ulead Movie Factory 2SE to create my DVD/Photo slideshows.
I use TDA and TMPGnc Plus occasionally too.
That and my old stand-by favorites - DVDDecrypter, DVDShrink, DVDFabDecrypter, IFOEDit, VOBEdit ....etc etc....that is about all I need.

[whitejremiah]

and....erm...yes i have used roxio stuff in the past, and i wasnt throughly impressed with it....don't make assumptions without having full knowledge of what your dealing with.....for cd's yes, it's decent, but even as far as cd burning programs, there's a few other options that work as good, if not better....but as far as dvd burning...well, um...no

[gerryc]

I personally have creator 6, but I basically use it for CD's and data storage. I found that it was too simplistic for what I was trying to achieve on my DVDs. The program seems to be directed at people who either don't have the time or the skill level to make a really involved and more professional looking DVD layout. Everything is preset for you. Very little adjustability. That being said, it does a fine job for what I require of it.
I use Mainactor to edit and encode my MPEGs, Project X to demux, Serif Drawplus to design my menus, DVDAuthorGUI to author. I've found a lot of good programs on this very site, some of them freeware.

[lordsmurf]

Roxio was barely passable in the CD days, then known as Adaptec Easy CD Creator. It was creamed by competition from Nero, which was a much better program. Prassi was an up-and-comer at the time too, as well as the eventual CloneCD.

When it comes to DVD, Roxio has never gotten it right on the PC side. Their Toast for Mac is fine.

Roxio never made anything. They bought out products from other companies, sort of what Sonic Solutions has done. And like Sonic Solutions, they've had a tendency to make things worse instead of better.

Roxio is a joke when it comes to DVD work. It has all sorts of audio/video sync flaws for starters. Then it's just a burning program, a piece of shit "all in one" software that attempts to do everything for lazy ass DVD creators, and does so poorly.

If you want a decent DVD, learn about video. Learn that there are several UNRELATED steps that need to be done: capture, encode, edit, author, burn.
- Depending on needs, you can skip editing.
- Depending on capture method, you can skip encoding.
- If you skip capture, that means you downloaded some crap or are given source to redo, and that can be nasty to work with.

For each step, use appropriate tools.
- Adobe Premiere Elements is an excellent DV video editor. It only does 720x480, made for DV.
- TDA is a decent newbie software for authoring. Eventually you'll tire of it, and want something more complex like Ulead DVDWS2
- RecordNow and Prassi are excellent burning programs. Sometimes Nero can be too.

"Burning" is the process of putting data on disc. Your data should be ready before this, burning software should not have to do anything else but burn, meaning no editing, no authoring (make menus), no nothing. It should only take burn time to burn, anywhere from 5-60 minutes, depending on your disc/burner speed.

[hech54]

Uh oh....it seems someone forgot the IMO - In My Opinion part of their post again.

[ROF]

I used Roxio in the early days of burning. It was under the Adaptec name when I first started using it and afterr Roxio bought Adaptec I figured I'd try it again. In both cases I found the software lacking. The interface was child like and the resulting burns had several compatibility issues even so much as to not allow the drive that burnt the disc to read from it. I dropped Roxio and switched to Nero and haven't looked back. I've heard some good and some bad things about the latest version of Roxio EZ Creator, but with my experience of the product it's not worth my time or effort to explore it again.

In my opinion, it's bad and approaching worthless. I'd much rather use freeware that I can donate to or as I did late last year and upgrade my Nero to the latest version.

[SingSing]

It is pretty much by word of mouths and power of internet.

Roxio was out there first, did a so so job on CD burning, stumbled badly on DVD burning. Nero hardly advertised, and did a solid job on DVD burning ( SVCD, miniDVD, and VCD too ). It was the first time when you made a coaster, you blame on the disc, then the win/pc/software/driver..

Drive makers almost bundle with nero or nothing, to aviod getting complain, exchange request, and questions...

Tech consumers are very unforgiving. Doh.

[TheFamilyMan]

It took some time to learn how to use all of the tools, as it would with any software package, but I’ve been pretty happy with my purchase. Now I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been missing something after reading several of the posts on this forum. Roxio is almost completely ignored here.

What do you think could be missing? Are you really satisfied with the results of you video projects? If so, then there is nothing wrong with Roxio and IMHO I would not worry about it. But what the above posters are getting at is directed at the quality of the finished product. Do your video projects look more grainy, blockly, or fuzzy than you expected? Does the audio seem like it's slightly out of sync? Are the DVD menus overly simplistic for your tastes? It is possible, with the proper tools, not to have any of these problems with your video projects, and to have finished projects that look and sound as good as the source footage. It's all just of matter of what you find to be acceptable.

[toddang]

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

To answer your question, TheFamilyMan, the sound is in sync, but I would like to improve the look of the menus, and my projects do look grainier than I expected. This graininess, or video quaility, is my main concern.
Having used only Roxio I don’t have anything to compare to. I didn’t know if the graininess was a function of the lower resolution of the TV screen, or a result of using bad software to create the DVD. I hadn’t thought of comparing it to the source footage being piped directly into the TV.

Am I correct in assuming that what most everyone here is saying is that the video quailty would improve with better encoding and authoring software?

[unclebud]

Where is "TheFamilyMan" coming from? Recorded from cableTV? How and with what capture device?
If it's ripped from a DVD you should be using something like DVDshrink to reduce it to DVD-5. Better yet would be to use Dual Layer media to burn and keep all the quality.
Quality is dependant on how it's captured, edited and rendered.

[Cyrax9]

This is from personal experiance, but it should be helpful, I'm going to also make note of a certain "other" platform here since I feel it's worth noting that a company, a software package does not make.

Way back in that decade where we "partied like it's 1999" and "Y2K" was the buzzword of the decade I purchased my first CD Burner with a Gateway PC. This PC, made in 1997, came with a DVD-ROM Drive and a CD-R/W Drive that was bundled with this thing called "Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3."

Well Adaptec was decent, but as an OEM program it suffered from a lack of features--two of which were important to me: LP and Audio Cassette Restoration. That Christmas I picked up "Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4" -- the full version.

Again this program was impressive, the LP Restoration feature was great and I didn't know much about remastering then: I just wanted to have portable copies of my "New Christy Minstrels" LPs that I became hooked on as a three year old at my Grandparent's house. I'd amassed quite a few of these and I made some pretty bad "transfers" to CD that I still play today. This wasn't a fault in the software, but rather, in my ability to use it. It was great though and for copying CDs to take outside of my home (I only bring CD-Rs when I leave my primary residence so if someone steals them it's not as much of a loss.) it worked like a charm.

By 2000 I was getting sick of this machine though, I'd kick myself in 2001, or rather, should have been kicked with a steel-toe boot for purchasing an Alienware PC which had five defective Pioneer DVD-ROM Drives before I got one that worked and two defective copies of OEM PowerDVD. I wish I knew who made that Gateway DVD Player because it never crashed and that was on a Pentium III! This machine featured an HP CD-Burner which was far more reliable than the stupid Phillips burner in my Gateway and one of the reasons I upgraded.

Nautrally I needed another CD Burning program as I had loaned the Gateway and all of its software to my brother. I decided to buy the "new" Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 -- formerly "Adaptec Easy CD Creator" which was the first sign of trouble.

That same year, my Uncle bought the same program: we were NOT impressed! His copy came without the lisence key needed to install it in the box which meant he couldn't call tech support to get the key (they require you have it to call them) so he basically told me he "spent $90 on a coaster. I'm writing them a 'Dear a**hole' letter to tell them to send me the d**n key that should have been in the box!"

Then I opened my copy, it worked for about three months and then my computer died. Without getting into that fiasco in detail, I sent it to Alienware who I had 3 years of tech support with (NOTE: NEVER buy an extended tech support plan from these guys unless you want to waste $100.) After the third "reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows" call and the second DVD Drive I went to reinstall Roxio Easy CD Creator 5. There was just one problem: It wouldn't launch the installed program! I went to call Roxio and their "toaster" informed me of the ridiculous surcharge to get a phone call for the program. (Internet info had failed and this PC wasn't connected at the time.) I hung up -- the price of the call was more than a new copy of Easy CD Creator 5. So... I bought a new copy of Easy CD Creator 5. I had the SAME PROBLEM! Finally I just snapped; I called them and they got the program running again but it was sluggish and the filtering felt "poor" compared to the old adaptec filtering. VCDs on Adaptec's encoder were 400MB+ for about 20 minutes of video, but it looked great for VCD-quality video.

Finally this copy stopped working as well. I just decided not to touch Roxio again and when I upgraded my PC with a new DVD-ROM drive, and a new CD/DVD-R/W/+R/W drive, I got a copy of Nero 5 bundled in. It's only OEM but it trounces the $90 dollar program that kept failing me and makes me wonder how Roxio is even afloat. They still send me promotional material and I consider looking into their stuff on occasion but rarely think it's worth the money.

The problem however, is the "Media Creator" line, formerly "CD Creator" as some of you may remember. I used Media Creator 8 last fall and I'm glad I didn't buy it. I burned all of my TV II projects to DVD and it cut off the beginning of the video, the menus were disasterous and it made designing even chapter breaks a headache.

In 2003 I purchased an Apple PowerBook G4 and.. ROXIO Toast 5 Titanium. I was shocked. The CD Burning was flawless for audio, and the DVD Burning was not only much less restrictive, but it was FASTER than my copy of Nero! While Toast Titanium lacks those filtering tools that Media Creator had as well as the "build the whole thing under one program" bundle mentality, it does what it's designed to do, it burns the discs and I've only had coasters using poor media like CMC Memorex Discs.

So what I've learned is that it's not Roxio, it's Roxio's PC division.

Since I'm still running Windows ME (TV II used WinXP) my options for a good program are somewhat limited. I run Nero 5 for burning and I have to reinstall TMPGEnc PLUS and get the latest version for 2.5 to run with Windows ME. I found this combination works great, but alas, I need a decent authoring tool. I used a few freeware ones awhile back but I can't remember what they were.

So to answer your question, Roxio isn't "bad," but their CD/Media Creator line is. It's mostly just poor design than anything else, but there's still no excuse. I have not had similar problems with other programs, but I would avoid Roxio. Now for some people this may be fine -- I've seen people just take VHS Tapes, dump them into DivX files and then let Roxio "conform" them to MPEG-2 files for DVDs. The end result is pretty bad by professional standards, but they're satisfied for their needs.

A lot of people here are looking into higher quality video. If you're not having a problem with Roxio, you might as well not worry, however, if you want to see if there's something better out there, by all means try some of the other programs suggested. I found TMPGEnc through here and in encoding it really beats Roxio all around. I only wish we used it in the school considering 99% of the time we don't burn DVDs, we print to DV Tapes or telestream to tapeless servers. The few times we burn to DVD we use Roxio and it's really not on par with the other software we're using. (Think Adobe/FCP/Avid on Win/Mac systems.)

Hope this helps.

[TheFamilyMan]

The lordsmurf post hits the nail on the head (except maybe for his harsh judgement of all-in-one package users). A quality project comes from:
1. Good capture hardware/software (which could be either be firewire or analog capture).
2. Good editor (only if you need to edit your captured footage).
3. Good MPEG2 encoder (very crucial to quality, most all-in-one solutions fail miserably here)
4. Good authoring tool.
5. Good burning tool.

Check out lordsmurf's excellent site www.digitalfaq.com for more info, and of course this site as well.

What I use:
1. VIVO with ATI video chipset/virtualvcr (analog sources), firewire/winDV (digital sources)
2. Premiere elements
3. TMPGEnc or Mainconcepts within Premiere elements
4. Ulead movie factory (works good, but somewhat simplistic)
5. Nero 5.5 (archaic, but if it works why switch?)

By no means am I suggesting that this is an "end all" list. But I use the above and get excellent results.

[Rich86]

"The problem however, is the "Media Creator" line, formerly "CD Creator" as some of you may remember. I used Media Creator 8 last fall and I'm glad I didn't buy it. I burned all of my TV II projects to DVD and it cut off the beginning of the video, the menus were disasterous and it made designing even chapter breaks a headache.

In 2003 I purchased an Apple PowerBook G4 and.. ROXIO Toast 5 Titanium. I was shocked. The CD Burning was flawless for audio, and the DVD Burning was not only much less restrictive, but it was FASTER than my copy of Nero! While Toast Titanium lacks those filtering tools that Media Creator had as well as the "build the whole thing under one program" bundle mentality, it does what it's designed to do, it burns the discs and I've only had coasters using poor media like CMC Memorex Discs.

So what I've learned is that it's not Roxio, it's Roxio's PC division.

Since I'm still running Windows ME (TV II used WinXP) my options for a good program are somewhat limited."

You are correct - running WinME severely limits your choice of software - and one of those choices is not Roxio EMC8 - it does not run under ME. But it runs just fine under XP.

[SingSing]

It is getting worse. Dell is crazy/cheap enough to put Roxio/Sonic on every PC and Laptop. I just wasted hours on non-stop reuest for activation of Roxio/Sonic on a brand new Dell PC. It sucks.

For folks that can't get a clean start with their Brand New Dell laptop here's the fix :

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sonic Update Manager Requests a CD When No CD is Available

Table of Contents
1. Sonic Update Manager Error Message on Boot
2. Download the hotfix from the Sonic/Roxio website.
3. Additional Information

1. Sonic Update Manager Error Message on Boot

The following error message appears on system boot:

’Sonic Update Manager’ The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM or other removable disk that is not available. Insert the ´Sonic Update Manager´ disk and click OK.

2. Download the hotfix from the Sonic/Roxio website.

To correct the problem, click the link below and perform the following steps.

Click the following link to access the hotfix from the Roxio website:

http://tools.roxio.com/support/dell/isum_hotfix.exe

The File Download - Security Warning window appears.
Click Run
The Internet Explorer - Security Warning window appears.
Click Run.
The Sonic - ISUM Hotfix Setup window appears.
Click Yes.
The Sonic - ISUM Hotfix Setup window appears.
Click Yes when the reboot prompt appears.