Roxio Keeps Creator Rocking

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In the past, the Test Center has examined various suites from Sonic Solutions' Roxio lineup of multimedia software, software that has almost always led to strong recommendations. Its latest offering is perhaps its most ambitious, though still at a comparatively low price point when held next to higher-end professional applications.

To that end, we opted to take a look at Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate.

We can recommend Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate without hesitation. The software works beautifully, whether converting files, creating video or merging audio files. The feature that we liked, in particular, was its one-button desktop backup -- Roxio BackOnTrack. The idea behind this feature is straightforward: Among the files many cannot afford to lose are photographs and videos, so integrating backup software with multimedia management is a natural extension of Roxio's mission.

While not as robust as, say, EMC's Retrospect Express software (BackOnTrack doesn't allow for automated, scheduled backups, for example), or even Apple's Time Machine, BackOnTrack is simple to initiate and provides disaster recovery for the entire desktop. While the software's installation is painless, Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate did take about a half-hour to install on a fairly clean PC running an Intel quad-core chip and Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate. Backing up a desktop with 275 GB of data to a Western Digital MyBook took about 17 hours on the first pass -- slow but not unheard of for a first desktop backup regardless of the application software.

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Sonic Solutions, on launching Creator 2009, pointed to its improved HD support as a nice upgrade to previous versions. Is this true? Mostly, yes. While Creator 2009 permits the editing of HD video in the same familiar drag-and-drop production console in the Roxio VideoWave application that is part of Creator, and while it does manage many file types, sometimes it's kludgy. For example, trying to import an HD video from the NASA Web site into VideoWave wasn't possible until, separately, QuickTime was downloaded, installed and the entire system was rebooted. However, once that was done, the editing was smooth. Graphics (such as a "Courtesy of NASA" credit) and various video effects could be added to the HD video. Once edited, Roxio supports the burning of HD video onto Blu-ray media. As writable Blu-ray drives and media are still at a sizable premium to DVD-RW, we consider this a function that is still slightly (perhaps six or seven months?) ahead of its time.

The suite is also more online-friendly than past versions of the Roxio software, an advance that is geared more toward consumer users than professionals or even prosumers. Online video sharing provides integration with YouTube, for example. Online photo sharing takes the user to Roxio's PhotoShow, an online photo-sharing offering. A nice touch is that PhotoShow provides batch uploading of photos, as well as easy importation of photos from Facebook, Shutterfly and Flickr, leading online photo-sharing communities. A $39.99 "upgrade" also allows for sharing of video via this route.

Roxio has long been strong in the file-conversion game, and it's nice to see that it continues to move forward in this area. With video, it offers drag and drop conversion and, additionally, its Video Copy & Convert function is nicely done. Videos, for example, can be converted back and forth into formats including DivX, WMV HD 1080, WMV HD 720, Windows Media, WMV 9, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, 3GP, Blackberry 8800, iPhone, iPod, H264 AVC, PSP and more.

Converting a video from HD .mov format to iPhone format was straightforward. Roxio did prompt that installation of Apple's iTunes would be needed, but after that the software converted the file in about three minutes with a single button click. The adapted version for the iPhone was in letterbox format, in 320 x 240 resolution at 29.97 frames per second. (In the first quarter of 2009, Apple said it sold almost 4 million iPhones -- continued hyper growth in the platform introduced less than two years ago. Ability in the Roxio software to convert video into iPhone format is not insignificant. In fact, it may be a nice differentiator that Roxio hasn't really gone out of its way to highlight.)

Other notable features:

  • The suite comes with "Creator Classic," which provides a legacy look and feel for some media management and disc burning;
  • A "Create Audiobooks" feature that allows for audiobooks to be ripped from a CD, or created from scratch and cover art removed or changed;
  • "Batch Convert and Transfer," which allows for multiple files to be converted into a specific format, all at once;
  • Photo editing that permits creation of slide shows, panoramas and the enhancement of multiple photos in one job.
  • If there were any quibbles, and we really can't think of many, it would be good if the suite incorporated easier podcast-creation functions and if Sonic Solutions eliminated the links and promos for video releases from CinemaNow -- the Internet-based movie distribution unit that Sonic owns. But given that some competing vendors are even more over the top in cross-product promotions, it's difficult to come down too hard on Sonic.
  • The bottom line: The list price of $129.99 for Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate is pretty darn inexpensive for the amount of functionality provided in the application. We'd hold off on advising anyone to try this software on anything less than a quad-core-based PC, as times for rendering, editing, backing up and the like can be quite extensive on even higher-end hardware. But for smaller businesses and workgroups that lack the budget for higher-end solutions, this suite provides important functionality that can actually save money on outsourced marketing or production while being easy enough to avoid extensive instruction. VARs also can consider this an hors d'oeuvre for higher-end applications. For now, though, consider Creator 2009 Ultimate a nice offering on its own with strong potential.
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