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CD-burning software has become a saleable commodity in the PC market now that most new computers include CD-RW drives. People have taken quickly to the idea of burning music compilations. Preparing video, data and photo discs is now a favourite pastime for many computer users.
Disc creation software often boasts new features and improved usability, but there is usually nothing to set it apart from the crowd. Roxio's new WinOnCD 5 Power Edition, though, fulfils many of its promises.
The first pleasing feature is the main interface screen, where you compile CD lists and edit the tracks, or prepare video/data/photo compilations.
The layout is extremely well designed. Floating windows allow you to use the excellent sound editor without leaving the main screen.
You can click on a track and immediately see the audio graph, which allows you to clip and equalise sound levels so that the recording is as crisp and as sharp as possible.
The interface and simple icon-based toolbar lead you through every task and let you control every function without having to use annoying wizards. This package is designed to make everything as easy as possible.
The sound editor has some very professional features, enabling experienced users to work with a variety of processing and editing effects. With full support for WAV, MP3, WMA and MPEG1 files you can encode and use any kind of audio in your project.
There are professional editing tools for doing cross-fades, pauses, index marks and sub-channel mixing, and the range of sound effects allows you to get a really good compressed audio levels on compilations.
WinOnCD 5 does many other jobs. You can burn any amount of electronic information with the help of the interface. If the chosen data is too big to fit on a single disc, the Data Overspan function will prove handy: it automatically spans large data files or file sets over any number of discs. This is ideal for people who want to back up large files.
The software will automatically encode any video film you transfer to your PC into MPEG1 format and burn it onto a Video CD (VCD). It also has menus and buttons that allow you to create a professional-looking menu and navigation system for your VCD.
It can also create slideshow discs. The VCD format will play in most domestic DVD machines, so you can impress friends with high-resolution snapshots displayed on a television screen.
The program also creates special VCD music albums, which will store up to seven hours of music on one disc as MPEG1 audio files. When we tried this, we managed to fit 88 songs (about six and a half hours worth of music) onto one CD, but it takes much longer than usual to burn. Storing tracks this way is no different to making an album of MP3s, though, so it seems a little pointless.
At present the Power Edition can only encode MPEG1 formats and therefore isn't suitable for burning DVD discs for use in domestic players.
However, we are told by Roxio that an MPEG2-enabling update will be available by the time you read this. This should be downloadable from the Roxio website for around £15 (inc VAT), but check before you buy.
Specifications:
- Includes buffer under-run protection
- CD/DVD Emulator feature creates 'virtual' disc images on a hard drive
- Advanced sound editing facility
- Comprehensive MP3 support
- Data Overspan mode automatically spreads data over several discs
- VCD and SVCD authoring
- Encodes all audio file types
Minimum requirements: Pentium 400MHz PC; Windows 98/XP; 64Mb Ram; 300Mb hard disk space (2Gb for full VCD authoring facilities); CD or DVD burner.
Price: £54.99 (inc VAT)
Contact: Roxio 01908 278 100
www.roxio.com
See also:
An incredibly inexpensive jack-of-all-trades collection of tools. 23 Jul 2002
All Audio Recording, Editing & Mixing
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