Which Nero SW version?

[Newman007]

I've been reading a lot of people are not happy with the new Nero 7 so I am looking to buy a copy of Nero 6. I am a bit confused of what the differences of the retail, OEM, and also seen noted, Essential editions are. Are there features missing from say the OEM that maybe only an experienced/advanded user may miss? I will mainly be using it for burning DVD's that have been edited with VideoRedo and burning CD's of course.
All comments are appreciated. Thanks.

[AlanHK]

If you're authoring with other apps and only want Nero for burning, then any version will do.

Its not highly regarded as an authoring app, you can do better with the free software catalogued here.

As for burning, though I mainly use ImgBurn, installing Nero OEM also set up all the drivers I needed for my DVD burner (as it was bundled with it, you'd hope so).

[Newman007]

I guess I like the all-in-one aspect of Nero since I am a novice user and don't have a lot of time to learn new products. I understand it's also a favorite among others doing as I am- converting dvr-ms files to mpeg and then buring to DVD with light authoring.

Am I barking up the wrong tree or should I broaden my horizons? I haven't spent much time on this forum but think I can learn a thing or two.

I would still like to hear your suggestions on retail or OEM Nero.
Thanks again all!

[Ai Haibara]

If you're authoring with other apps and only want Nero for burning, then any version will do.

Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Older versions of Nero might not recognize newer drives (and, I think 5.5 was the earliest that worked with XP, wasn't it?). Otherwise, I'd probably be using Nero 5 now.

One thing, at least, I liked about using Easy CD Creator many, many years ago was that Adaptec/Roxio offered drive support updates you could download separately, so you usually didn't have to update to a new version of the burning software if you just wanted to get it to work with your new drive.

[kschang]

True. I think we can agree that Nero 6 seems to be the "pinnacle" of developement, and 7 seems to be a bit of backslide.

[AlanHK]

If you're authoring with other apps and only want Nero for burning, then any version will do.

Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Older versions of Nero might not recognize newer drives (and, I think 5.5 was the earliest that worked with XP, wasn't it?). Otherwise, I'd probably be using Nero 5 now.

I thought it was obvious the question was about which current version (OEM, retail, etc), not chronological.

[vico1]

The major reason I upgraded to v7.xxx was to get the
latest version of Recode.
I resisted the upgrade for a very long time...
Now that I'm using v7, it's not that much dif from v6.

[Ai Haibara]

I thought it was obvious the question was about which current version (OEM, retail, etc), not chronological.

Well, yeah, I know, but since we were on the subject of Nero 6 (any version of 6, really), I thought I'd still point out the possibility that earlier versions of Nero may not support the newer drives. I'll admit I don't know if there are any drives that v6 lacks support for (works fine with all our drives), but it's theoretically still a possibility.

[Newman007]

So is there a consensus that the OEM and retail versions have the same funtionality for the most part?

[Dv8ted2]

So is there a consensus that the OEM and retail versions have the same funtionality for the most part?

The OEM versions will often not include certain parts of the suite, like one version would not include Nero Express.

I am a very happy user of Nero 7. I use Nero 7.5.7.0

[AlanHK]

So is there a consensus that the OEM and retail versions have the same funtionality for the most part?

The question is, whihc functions do you need?

Every version will allow you to burn data or DVD video or CD audio. The other components are concerned with backing up and media creation. Possibly useful, but none of those are considered the best choice in the field.

[smitbret]

Let me vote for 7.5.7.0, it's been more stable than any version of 6 that i've used. However, any earlier version of 7and it's glitchy and 7.5.9.0 has been completely unstable on my system and has had a hard time recognizing my drives. But, like many others here, there are better tools for many of the things that Nero does. ImgBurn being the foremost. I do like Recode because it is slightly faster than DVD Shrink and has better quality output than CloneDVD (in my opinion) when compressing anything more than 80% of normal. Nero Vision is nice for it's ease of use. I rarely install anything more than Burning Rom, Recode, Vision and the Nero Tools, though. The rest of it is pretty much garbage.
-Brett