 | Version: 7.3 Provided By: RoxioUK Review Date: 2005 |
Introduction:
RecordNow is one of the latest offerings from Roxio aimed at the quick and easy burning market. It has a number of features to copy and burn CD's all with easy to follow instructions. In this review we are going to see how these features perform.
Company Information:
Sonic Solutions, Roxio's corporate parent is the leader in digital media software, providing a broad range of interoperable, platform independent software tools and applications for creative professionals, consumers, and technology partners. Sonic's products range from professional DVD authoring systems used by Hollywood studios to create the most-advanced and highly-interactive blockbuster DVDs, to intuitive, easy to use software for consumers who want to convert their personal data, home movies, photos and music into high-quality DVDs and CDs. Sonic's licensing group enables third parties like Adobe, Microsoft, Scientific-Atlanta, Sony and others to add digital media creation to their PC applications and consumer electronics set-top-box products.
Program Features:
The main program features can be found below.
Integration & Ease of Use
The technologies that make up Sonic RecordNow! are tightly integrated so that you can seamlessly move from making audio CDs, to data DVDs, to copying discs all with a few clicks.
Copy Discs
Sonic RecordNow! Deluxe can quickly and easily make exact copies of your CDs and DVDs.
Archive Important Files
Sonic RecordNow! Deluxe provides quick and easy File Archiving, the best way to protect your favourite tracks, images, files, and folders.
Rip & Burn Music
Create custom music compilation CDs in all of today's popular formats, as well as rip your original music CDs using the included MP3 encoder.
In Roxio Own Words:
Sonic RecordNow! is the state-of the-art CD and DVD mastering tool that takes the guesswork and complexity out of CD and DVD burning. With an award winning task-based user interface designed by usability professionals, it's never been easier to get the most out of your CD or DVD burner.
Sonic RecordNow! Deluxe includes all the features needed for creating music CDs, data CDs and DVDs, exact copies, disc images, file archives, and bootable discs and it can all be done with just a few clicks of the mouse. And now, with dual layer support, you have double the storage space you once had because dual layer support writes two layers of information on one side of your DVD!
Now let's take Software Requirements and Setup of the program.
Test Machines:
This
product was tested on two different machines.
Dee-27's Test Machine
⋅
Processor '“ Athlon XP
1.9Ghz
⋅
Ram '“ 1Gb DDR
⋅
Graphics Card '“ nVidia G-Force
4MX
⋅
Sound '“ nVidia Sonic
Extreme 5 Channel Digital
⋅
Hard Disk '“ 2X Seagate
200Gb
⋅
DVD Drives '“ NEC ND-3520A Benq
DW1620A
Womble's Test Machine
⋅
Processor '“ Pentium 4
2.53Ghz
⋅
Ram '“ 512Mb DDR
⋅
Graphics Card '“ ATi Radeon
9600
⋅
Sound '“ SoundMAX Integrated
Digital Audio
⋅
Hard Disk '“ Western Digital
20Gb
⋅
DVD Drive '“ NEC
ND-3520A
Software Requirements:
The
software requirements for the program are as follows,
⋅
Operating System '“ Windows
98SE/ME/2000/XP Home or Pro
⋅
CPU '“ 450Mhz
⋅
Memory '“ 128 Megabyte or
better
⋅
Display '“ 800x600 or
more
⋅
Hard Drive '“ 30 Megabyte (700
megabyte or more recommended)
⋅
Other '“ Internet Explorer 4.0 or
greater
⋅
Macromedia Flash 6.0 or
greater
⋅
Windows Media Player 7.1 or
greater
⋅
CD or DVD writer
Software Installation:
Installing the software was a painless task. After inserting the program
disc into the drive, the installation wizard was started. After supplying the
correct serial number, various installation options were available.
We chose
the full install option. After the wizard finished copying the required files to
the hard drive, the PC had to be restarted for the installation to
complete.
Now let's have a look at a quick overview of the
program.
Program Run Through:
This it the first screen that you
will come to when you load up the program. As you can see it is a well laid out
program with all of the features sub divided into sections. There is also a
Quick Start Link page that will come up first of all.
Under the options menu you have a
few options that you can play with. These include set option of each of the main
section that are General, Audio, Data and Backup. In keeping this as user
friendly as possible in my opinion there aren't that many options to play with
and tweak. For people new to burning this would obviously be a bonus but for the
more seasoned professional it feels limiting.
That's about it from the general
layout and option. Now lets take it out for a test burn.
Now it's time to test
out the main Audio features of this program.
Audio CD:
Here we have the first window for
the Audio projects. As you can see there are a number of options here all
related to the audio options.
There are options for a general
Audio CD, to make an exact copy of an audio disk, to create a Jukebox CD made up
from newer computer formats, an option to convert your audio CD's to various
computer formats and an option to launch your default system player fro this
program.
Here we will take a look at the
first one 'Audio CD".
Audio CD
Here we will take a look at
creating a normal audio CD.
In the left-hand window you can
see the files found on my machine. If nothing has been found then you can click
on the Find button to let it search your computer.
When you add a file to your
computer it may have to prepare the track so that is can be burnt to the CD. If
so then the following window will come up.
Once the files have been added it
should look something like this. As you can see in the top left-hand corner of
the screen it says I have 6:18 left on the disc. This is good if you want to
squeeze another track onto the CD.
You can change the order of the
songs on the CD by selecting them and hitting the green up or down arrows
depending where you want to place the song. This gives you the freedom to put
your songs in the order that you want them to play.
If you have added a song that you
want to change the title or CDText of, then by selecting the track and then
hitting the button with the question mark on it give you this option.
This is the CD properties for the
track that I selected. As you can there are a number of options available to
edit. Once you have finished editing the new information is saved and updated by
hitting the Ok button.
Once you are happy with the
content and order of the tracks you click the Burn button to start the program
off.
The following warning will come up
when you are about to burn. This is just to let you know that no more music can
be added once the burn has been completed.
The program will then check the
files and estimate the amount of time needed to burn them to disk.
As you can see here the estimated
time is 3:07. It will also display the Current Burn Speed which fluctuated a
number of times during the burn process.
Finally the following windows will
come up telling you if the burn was successful or not. Here we can see that
everything went Ok and that the disc is now finalised.
That's it the new audio disc can
be now playing in any number of standalone CD players.
Audio MP3 CD
Now lets try burning an MP3 CD.
Here I have selected a number of MP3's I have stored and added them to the
project window. As you can see in the top left-hand corner there is 140KB free
on the disc. Now I have added everything lets burn the CD.
Once the burning starts it once
again works out how long its' going to take. Here it said it was going to take
1:28 but after about 30 seconds into it adjusted itself to a more reasonable
3:50.
Here I ran into an error while
burning this disc. Unfortunately the help here was a bit limited. It turned out
to be that the disc was to full to be burnt correctly. This is even though the
program said I had 140Kb left on the disc. Obviously here something is amiss
because the overhead for the disc should be taken into consideration but
wasn't.
By removing a few files and trying
again I was able to complete the burn.
As this was an MP3 CD I tried it
in my car stereo system and it played flawlessly. The CD text for the file came
up on the display and the MP3's played as well as if it had been on my PC.
Now let's take a looks
at the other Audio features available.
Audio Other:
We will now take a look at the
other audio related options available in the program.
Exact Copy
Here we are going to use the Exact
Audio Copy feature. This will take your original CD and create a copy of it. As
you can see here to do this you need two drives. One to read from and one to
write to. Once you have placed an Audio CD in the reader and a blank one in the
Writer the burn button becomes available to you. By clicking it the process will
be started.
Here we can see the copying
process in action. Once again the process time was understated to beginning with
and went up after a few seconds.
Once the CD was burnt I put it
into a stand alone CD player and left it to play. As far as I could tell there
was nothing wrong with it as it played the whole way through without skipping or
unwanted breaks in the music.
Covert CD To MP3
Now we come to the CD to MP3
converter. This will turn an audio CD into MP3's for you to play on your
computer or MP3 compatible player. On the first screen you can change the place
where the Mp3's will be stored by clicking the Save To button. You can also
change a couple of general settings by hitting that button.
As you can see the settings you
have are to change the type of format ripped to and the quality of the files.
Here I have go for 192Kbps instead of the standard 128kbps.
If you have Windows Media player
configured properly then the songs will come up with there names after it
connects to the net. If not then all you will see is Track 01, Track 02 and so
on.
Once everything has been setup you
start the process by hitting the Convert button. The process will start off and
do its thing.
Once done you will find you MP3
files waiting for you in the location that you specified earlier. After playing
them I couldn't find anything wrong with them and they all seemed perfectly
fine
Now it's time to move
onto the Data CD features of the program.
Data CD:
We will now take a look at the CD
Data related options available in the program.
Create Data CD
The load disc button allows a disc
which has been burned previously to be used, providing the disc has not been
finalized.
For this test a blank disc was
used and 555 megabytes of data was dragged and dropped into the create data CD
project window.
The Benq DW1620A drive was
selected for this test. And 40X burn speed selected.
The media chosen was Verbatim
Datalife Plus 52X
The task completed successfully in
4 minutes 09 seconds
The resulting disc was tested on
the Plextor PX-716 for errors.
As you can see from the picture
below. C1 errors are low and no C2 errors were reported.
Exact Copy
Exact copy as the name suggests
will make an exact copy of a CD or DVD
The Sonic Record Now disc was
chosen for this test.
This disc contained 105 megabytes
of data.
As we can see the read drive was
the NEC ND-3520A
The write drive was the Benq
DW1620A
A Verbatim Datalife Plus 52X media
was used to write the data. Burn speed was the maximum supported on the Benq
drive which is 40X
2 minutes 13 seconds later the
task was completed. The application also verified the written media.
The resulting disc was checked on
the Plextor PX-716 for errors. As we can see the disc has been written with good
quality, with low C1 errors reported and no C2 errors.
Now lets take a look at
the Data DVD features.
Data DVD:
We will
now take a look at the DVD data related options available in the
program.
Create Data DVD
The
drive chosen for the create DVD test was the NEC ND-3520A and the media a
Prodisc R03. This media is capable of burning at 12X in this drive.
Approximately 2.43 gigabytes of data was dragged and dropped into the
compilation.
The task
took 4 minutes 5 seconds to complete.
The
resulting burn was tested on the Liteon drive using K-Probe for disc
quality.
As you
can see from the picture below, this combination has produced exceptional
quality
Exact Copy
A
pressed single layer DVD-VIDEO was chosen for this test.
The
reading drive was the NEC ND-3520A and the burning drive was the Benq
DW1620A.
As we
can see below the disc was copy protected and the copy failed.
Running
AnyDVD allowed the copy to continue, and the task completed in 19 minutes 37
seconds. This included verification after burn.
The
media chosen was a PRODISC R03 which has the capability of burning at 12X on the
Benq drive.
The
resulting disc was tested on the Liteon drive with K-Probe and the following
results were obtained.
Now it's time for the other Data features available in this
program.
Data Other:
We will now take a look at the
other data related options available in the program.
File
Archive
Approximately 1.3 gigabyte of data
files were used to for this test.
As you can seen from the
screenshot below, this required 2 blank CDR or a single blank DVD. I chose to
archive to 2 CDR.
After disc one had completed, a
request to insert a blank CDR was received, having done this the archive feature
resumed the task. The completed task taking 10 minutes 38 seconds to
complete.
Save
Image
An audio CD with a playing time of
approximately 1 hour 19 minutes was chosen for this task.
The Benq DW1620A was chosen as the
read drive.
As we can see the task completed
successfully in 4 minutes 16 seconds
Burn
Image
The image already created with the
save image function was used to burn to a blank CDR media.
A Verbatim Datalife Plus 52X was
again chosen as the burn media, and was burned to the Benq DW1620A drive.
As we can see below, the task
completed successfully in 4 minutes 24 seconds
The resulting disc was tested in
the Plextor PX-716 for errors.
As we can see below the disc has a
low level of C1 errors and no C2 errors were reported.
Finally we take a look
at the Utilities that are available.
Utilities:
We will now take a look at the
other options available in the program.
Finalise
This feature is for closing a
multi session disc when you have decided all the data has been burned to a
media, or the media is too full to add more data.
Drive And Disc Info
This feature will display the
selected drive information and any media mounted in the drive, including all
sessions on the media.
Label Disc
The label disk program included
with RecordNow offers you a way of branding your disks.
Here you can see the main screen.
You can change views from the Disc to the DVD case or to the Jewel case
depending upon what you want.
By clicking on the Option button
you will get the options relating to these basic views.
As you can in the options there
are a number of different settings here for different manufactures of labels.
This will affect how the label prints out on your printer.
By hitting the Text button on the
left you will bring up the window where you enter the music track and artist
names. You also get to give your label a title and subtitle if you want to.
To enter music contents you need
to hit the New button and then enter the track details.
As you can see here entering the
tracks details is easy enough. All you have to do is hit the Ok button to enter
the track details.
Once you have entered all of your
details you then hit the OK button to be returned to the main window once
again.
The final options on the left are
to do with the layout, background and font of the label. By clicking on the left
and right arrows next to them you can cycle thought the different options
available to you and create something unique and different.
The same options you have selected
for the CD label are ported to the other designs. This way you get the same
settings for the same project. You can if you want to though print one label out
and then change your settings and print the case out.
The label creator is a nice option
to have here. It gives you the chance to create proper labels for your CD's and
cases so that you don't have to write the contents on the disks.
The one feature here I would have
lied to have seen is an option to scan the CD you can creating the label for and
to import the filenames into the program. Some editing may still have been
needed but this would cut down the amount of typing needed to enter all of the
details.
Listening To An Audio CD
This feature opens an audio CD in
Windows default player and plays the results. In this case it opens Windows
Media player.
Now lets move on to the
Positives and Negatives and the Conclusion.
Positives and Negatives:
While using this program a number of points both positive and negative came up. These are listed below for easy reference.
Positives:
⋅ Very easy to use
⋅ Good results were obtained
⋅ Simple for beginners
⋅ Low price of £24.99 / $49.99
Negatives:
⋅ Very limited features
⋅ Too many features require an upgrade at extra cost to function
⋅ Wrongly reported CD space
Conclusion:
As you can see most of the test that were carried out on this program performed well. Although this program promises a lot there are just to many features missing from it or available at an extra cost to make this program justifiable to any other than the very basic of users.
Looking back to the original statement made by Roxio,
Sonic RecordNow! is the state-of the-art CD and DVD mastering tool that takes the guesswork and complexity out of CD and DVD burning. With an award winning task-based user interface designed by usability professionals, it's never been easier to get the most out of your CD or DVD burner.
I am afraid I can't agree with this 100%. The features that it does offer are simple enough to use and work for the most part but I can't say that this is a State Of The Art mastering tool when simple information like the amount of free disk space is being reported incorrectly.
Likewise the statement,
Sonic RecordNow! Deluxe includes all the features needed for creating music CDs, data CDs and DVDs, exact copies, disc images, file archives, and bootable discs and it can all be done with just a few clicks of the mouse. And now, with dual layer support, you have double the storage space you once had because dual layer support writes two layers of information on one side of your DVD!
Is true enough but there are many other options can could have been made available without the extra fees having to be paid. The low price of the program is a plus in it's favour but if the extras had been there as standard instead of add-ons then this would have looked like a far better program than it does at present.
There are positives here. It does work and it does burn what it is meant to. The question is if you want to burn different things do you go for this and another program for all of the other burning options that you will probably need or do you go straight for an all in one solution to begin with.
The last bit of the review is the Final Word.
Final Word:
What can
we say about this program then? It is a useable program that beginners will get
what they want in a quick and easy fashion. Unfortunately compared to other
programs out there it just doesn't cut it.
The
program did produce some good results in the areas tested and most things seemed
to work as it was meant to. However the lack of options available just give you
the feeling that this program is missing that final spit and polish that is
needed at this level.
This
program is not what we have come to expect from Roxio over the years and
unfortunately for us it has turned into a bit of a disappointment. I (Womble)
personally use Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 for many of my burning needs because I
find it easy and simple to use and have many features that I like with in it.
This program doesn't hold that feeling for me.
Many
will find that unfair as RecordNow isn't the same as Nero or Easy CD Creator and
comparing them wouldn't be right especially as the price between these can
differ by up to £30 or so. However many will know the Roxio brand and the Easy
CD Creator program and will be expecting similar things of this
program.
This
program is not Nero or Easy CD Creator but a program for burning music and data
off of your computer quickly and easily. With the added label creator this is a
package that will appeal to the beginner burner or someone that just wants to
create there CD's and run without having to worry.
The
Roxio homepage can be found here.
The
RecordNow! homepage can be found here.
You can
also discuss this software in the thread here.
