Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum [Old Version]

Pick just about any file format and this program provides an innovative way of storing it on CD. Burning an audio CD is a piece of cake for this tool, as is creating a video CD and picture slide shows, transferring audio from a cassette or phonograph to CD, and archiving a hard drive. A nifty CD label creator helps organize your archive as well.

As expected, audio CD burning options are comprehensive. In addition to CDA-formatted audio (playable in most CD players) a great feature converts MP3 tracks into CD audio (and vice versa) and pumps up the audio quality of MP3 files lost during compression before transferring the batch of tracks to disk. A sound-transition control allows you to fade songs out or in, add a gap between tracks, or crossfade songs (great for mixed CDs featuring live recordings). For those party-mix CDs culled from various sources, a normalizer function smoothes each track's volume levels across the CD.

Easy CD Creator 5 is much more than an audio-CD burner. A photo-sharing tool frames pictures into self-running slide-show presentations that can be backed with music. Videophiles will enjoy the video-CD capabilities. You can add any Quicktime, AVI, or series of still images to the layout interface, configure the layout, then burn the CD as an MPEG-1, viewable in compatible DVD players.

CD burning is a CPU-taxing endeavor that'll spit out flawed disks if the hardware isn't up to the task. Easy CD Creator 5 requires a 200 MHz CPU or faster, and the recommended 64 MB RAM should be doubled to avoid those annoying buffer-overrun error messages. But if your system is up to par, Easy CD Creator 5 should churn out CD after CD of beautifully formatted disks. --Eric Twelker

Amazon.com Product Description
Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum allows you to burn and share any type of data on CD. Create your own high-quality music CDs, create photo slide shows and video presentations, and archive all of your important files safely on CD.

You can create high-quality customized music CDs from any source, including music CDs, cassettes, and Internet downloads. Easy CD Creator automatically converts MP3 files to create CDs that can be played in home and car stereos. The MP3 encoder allows users to go the other way as well, and transfer CD tracks to MP3 files. And the MP3 CD music project allows users to create CDs with over 100 MP3 songs to play in a computer or on an MP3 CD player. SoundStream 2 is an MP3 enhancer that allows users to improve the sound quality of MP3 files. Gap-edit control allows users to set the amount of silence between tracks, and track-transition effects add fade-in, fade-out, and cross-fade effects between songs. The software fully supports Red Book Audio for musicians and audio enthusiasts. You can also record from analog sources (phonograph, tape, or microphone): sound filtering removes pops, clicks, and hisses, and adjustable silence detection and track-splitting allows for the recording of entire albums.

Easy CD Creator is also a solution for archiving and storing data. Protect your data from computer disasters; backup is achieved in three easy steps. The image-based backup allows system restoration and provides protection from crashes and viruses. There is support for automatic spanning across multiple CDs to backup large partitions. You can also create your own DVD movies: edit and save your videos to CDs that can be played on VideoCD players and many DVD players. Included is VideoImpression, an easy-to-use basic video editor with an MPEG-1 encoder that allows users to save their videos in a format that is compatible with Video CD Creator.

If you try and load Easy CD Creator 5.0 Platinum edition on a computer (running Windows 2000 professional and boots from a SCSI hard drive using an Adaptec Controller card) put your (money) back into your pocket and step away from the product.

Here is my horror story. I had been running Easy CD creator 4.0 and was interested in version 5.0 for some features that would help me in transferring my old LP collection to CD. I tried to get an update, but I guess the fact that I had 4.0 registered on line was not sufficient to qualify. The ongoing emails were not worth the cost savings, so I decided just to shell out the (money) and get a full retail version. Since Version 4.0 was purchased when it was part of Adaptec (and now is was Roxio), I guess computer registration information doesn't translate between companies.

On Saturday I was in (a local store) and decided to purchase the full version. It would have been less painful for me to just burn the (money) instead of going through the events of the following week. I want to point out the packaging clearly states this product works with Windows 2000. The only disclaimer is that it won't work on Windows 2000 server. I went to upgrade from version 4.0 to version 5.0. Most well written software, from the same vendor, knows how to handle an upgrade from one version to another. Not in this case, after the reboot the screen put up an error message stating no supportable CD/RW device was detected. After further investigation, the event log reported errors that DCOM could not find specified file. I then read the installation instructions that said to uninstall version 4.0 first. With that information I knew I needed to uninstall version 5.0. First it told me it could not uninstall because it did not have rights to delete a registry key that the installation process created. I had to go into the registry to change the rights on the KEY so I could manually delete it. Now, I could complete uninstalling version 5.0. Then I removed version 4.0 with out any problems. I rebooted the computer and tried to install Version 5.0 and got the same results it did not work.

I then visited Roxio's WEB site and downloaded the patches that were posted. I uninstalled version 5.0 and had the same rights issue with the registry. Now I tried to install version 5.0 using the instructions from the WEB. The instructions say to apply both patches before doing the reboot of the computer. The first patch loaded fine. The update patch said no valid version of Roxio product was detected on this machine or something to that effect. I rebooted thinking maybe the registry needed to be refreshed and tried to load the update and got the same error message.

I am now into Sunday with this problem. I decided that since the computer has been running for over a year with no major problems that maybe the registry has some corruption. So, I reload the Windows 2000 operating system. Same result as before, version 5.0 still does not load correctly.

Now my weekend is gone, and I am at work Monday morning. I decide to call Roxio's tech support line. The line is not toll free. I was on hold for one hour before a technician came onto the line. I tell him the problem and the configuration of my computer. He tells me he has heard of this before, and said the fix is to uninstall the Adaptec SCSI card and load the software. He also says that I need to go into the registry and delete any key that makes reference to Adaptec. This sent shivers down my spine!
My problem is I have no IDE drive and boot from the SCSI subsystem. At the technician's suggestion, I removed the Adaptec drivers replaced, them with the generic drivers, hacked the registry, and loaded version 5.0. I rebooted the computer and got the same error messages. Now I have a new problem. The computer detects the Adaptec card and wants to load the appropriate drivers. So, I do. Every time I reboot the computer it detects the Adaptec controller and wants to load the drives. This obviously was a result of hacking at the registry. To fix this problem, I had to reload Windows 2000.

Monday night I decided to go to Roxio's WEB site and post the problem on line. I can't afford an hour of long distant charges to their tech support. I recap the problems and ask for a document that would allow me to take this product back to (the store) and get my money back. (The store) will not take back software they will only exchange software with bad media for same software.) This is not bad media, just bad programming. Wednesday I get e-mail from tech support suggesting something else to try. There is no mention of me getting my money back. I try the suggestions, same results. I went back to the WEB site, posted the results. It's been almost a week now and all I have for my (money) is a shiny box the software came in, an hour of long distant phone charges and an unstable computer from trying to load Easy CD Creator 5.0. I have a feeling, the ploy at this point, is to keep running suggestions to me until the free support runs out so they can charge me more money. I am not that stupid Roxio.

Save yourself and stay far, far, far, far away from Easy CD Creator 5.0. At this point I will not even install Easy CD creator 4.0. I am researching other CD burning software solutions.

Rick Shope


When You Care Enough to Write the Very Best   February 21, 2001
Marc Ruby™ (Warren, MI USA)
56 out of 61 found this review helpful

If your CD writer came with the free version of Adaptec's EZ CD Creator 4.0 you really do want to upgrade to this package. Even if it didn't, this is one of the best back-up/writer software packages I've seen.

First of all, it works with an immense number of CD writers. I have tried several packages which have very limited lists of supported machines. This can be very frustrating. Adaptec is one of the most long-lived companies in the market place and Roxio is their new software branch. Lots of experience -- very reliable.

The backup software is quite sensible. It offers complete backup and restore facilities AND will write out the backup in appropriately size untis so that even if your CD writer is not directly supported you can parcel out the backup and then write the sub files out. Notice this means that it will also work with sip drives, jazz drives, etc.

My CD writer is a brand new Yamaha 2100EZ, which I absolutely love. One of it's nice features is that it can write CD's at 16x. However, the 4.0 version of EZ CD Writer didn't handle this speed very well. This new version does everything perfectly. I can write a CD in as little as 4 minutes (big grin). I am throwing out my erratic, cluncky, time consuming tape drive right now.

This software also comes with uncountable features for writing music CD's as well. It includes software for cleaning up audio input before writing the analog to disk. And there's a whole CD of free stuff as well.

If you want media writing facilities that make your system run it's best, this is well worth the price of admission.


Great product - Especially for those new to CD burning   June 7, 2001
52 out of 57 found this review helpful

True to the software's name, making CD's with Easy CD Creator 5 truly is easy. I use Windows 2000 on my computer and unlike many other who say to stay away from it if you have Win 2000, I have had no problems with the software. The catch is, you have to go to Roxio's web site and obtain 2 patches and the instructions. They don't advertise this as well as they should and I do feel that is pathetic on their part, but if you follow the procedures (very simple) the software installs in under 10 minutes without any problems. The thing I like most about the software is the ease of use. For a CD burning amateur who has not learned the CD burning lingo yet, it was very easy for me to figure out how to make CDs. I love the DirectCD application. It's very cool how it can allow you to use your CD-RW drive like a floppy drive. I also like the music creation programs. I had some MP3 files I wanted to put on a CD to listen to on a car CD player and without having read the instructions I was able to quickly figure out how to do it; the CD worked on the first try. I think I'm going to love the Take2 application which allows you to create an image of your entire hard drive for disaster recovery, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet. So far, the only thing I do not like about the software is that it does not seem to have as many advanced configuration options as other programs such as Nero. I'm usually one of these control freaks who can't leave well enough alone. To be honest though, I downloaded Nero and I did not know what half of the configuration options meant. If you are looking for a program which is easy to use and you don't want to spend time learning CD burning lingo, technologies, etc, Easy CD Creator is definitely worth looking into.


If you have XP, Easy is GARBAGE, GARBAGE, GARBAGE!!!   December 20, 2001
52 out of 54 found this review helpful

This is without a doubt the worst software upgrade in the history of CD software, from a software company whose cred was shaky to start with.

I just upgraded to XP and subsequently had to upgrade to Roxio's Sleazy CD Destroyer 5 (Easy CD Creator 5) from version 4. While 4 has been *OK* for the past few years I have been running it, I can't say enough bad things about version 5 with XP. The software doesn't work... the patches for XP don't work... MS still won't put their seal of approval on it for good reason. It blew up numerous times for no apparent reason, it has no new functionality over v4, locks your system up repeatedly and slows it down to excruiciating levels, AND the UI is more poorly designed than in version 4.

And you wonder why this product is 33% off retail?