Roxio Speeds CD Copying

Roxio is raising the bar on CD and DVD duplication with the ambitious release of Easy CD and DVD Creator 6.

Roxio is targeting consumers with its tools, but there are enterprise uses for CD and DVD duplication. Organizations of all sizes need optical media backups of their data and programs as well as high-quality tools for burning and copying. Version 6 includes DVD building and burning capabilities, as well as an audio ripping option.

Roxio displays an applet that can launch the four major programs: Disc Copier, for creating backup CDs, VCDs and DVDs; AudioCentral, for ripping and burning audio CDs; DVD Builder, for creating DVDs; and Creator Classic, a "skin" of Roxios popular Easy CD Creator 5.

Roxios AudioCentral tool is best in its class in a highly competitive market. Its one of the fastest rippers Ive seen, and it can convert an entire CD to Windows Media or MP3 audio files in about 3 minutes on a Pentium 4 system. The Roxio video creation tool is also fast, and it supports a wide variety of CD and DVD burners.

Roxio ironed out the audio noise glitches that occur in competitive products when converting video files into VCDs. However, some users have reported inconsistent system slowdowns that they attributed to either Roxios AudioCentral tool or the drag-to-disk applet, both of which run in the background on the system tray. I did not experience these slowdowns.

Additional quirks include the lack of drag-and-drop support in Roxio Player, which is not a universal player, as anticipated, but a DVD player.

As you might expect, Roxios powerful suite isnt cheap: $99.95 for the boxed set or $79.95 (with a $10 discount) for the downloaded version.