BRIEF ASSESSMENT
Roxio Creator 2010 offers a rich set of essential tools for data copying to DVD or other media, video copying, conversion and editing, an excellent music/audio package and a useful photo conversion, organizing and editing toolset that includes the ability to create multi-media presentation - slideshows or more sophisticated presentation that incorporate audio. In addition, the Learning Center section features presentations that encourage the users to build and sharpen their skills in specific areas - the users have the ability to vote/request specific topics to be included in the future.
At this price point, I found Creator 2010 to be more than adequate and, depending of the user's expectations, it may be the only 'media' tool one will ever need. My expectations for this package were:
- solid DVD/CD burn capabilities
- the ability to rip CDs
- a set of easy to use photo enhancement tools
- basic video playback and some editing
Potential users should understand that Roxio is and - as a user of an older version I can remember that - always was a rather demanding application when it comes to CPU utilization. This shouldn't be surprising when we are talking about live capture of data streams - audio or video - or converting/compressing large files, all done while integrating more than one software module. The complexity of interactions with the operating system and the various data channels and peripheral devices could and it did cause Roxio to misbehave from time to time but a little bit of patience and willing to learn and sometimes adapt to the software's quirks could translate into a happy user experience.
Everyone should also be aware that a package this inexpensive that attempts to do so much is not and cannot be at 'pro level' for any of the tasks that it performs. While I found Roxio's modules to be generally more than adequate when it comes to meeting MY needs, there is little doubt that dedicated high-end packages for any of the tasks attempted with Roxio can do 'more'. This being said, Roxio can do a lot IF one takes the time to actually learn it and learning takes place on a curve - in other words, no one should expect pro-level results after 5 minutes of Roxio. However, I WAS able to get some pretty cool things out of it after taking a little time to learn and explore it.
MY SETUP
It's probably useful to provide some information on what I tested Roxio with because my impression is that the hardware and the OS versions could sometimes make a difference between a good experience and a total failure. So, here it is:
- Roxio Creator 2010 SP2 - make sure to install the January 2010 service pack by selecting 'Check for updates' from the Help menu.
- Hardware:
These are the specs for my machine, with the last number showing Microsoft's Windows Experience Index score:
* Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz 5.9
* Memory: Operations per second 5.5
* Graphics Desktop performance for Windows Aero 4.7
* Gaming graphics: 3D business and gaming graphics performance 4.7
* Primary hard disk: disk data transfer rate: 5.9
Since install, I upgraded my RAM to 4GB and the OS from Vista Enterprise (32-bit) to Windows 7. I am pleased to testify that the upgrade process was flawless - there was nothing I had to change in Roxio - and it works as well post-upgrade as it did before.
My monitor displays 1680x1050 32-bit color.
INSTALLATION - very good
Not much to say here. I took the precaution to reboot my computer before starting and I started the install with nothing running in the foreground. It proceeded smoothly and uneventfully. I believe it completed in about 15-20 minutes followed by another 5-10 minutes needed to run the SP1 upgrade dated November 2009. Since, SP2 was released in January 2010. It installed quickly.
As far as I can tell, Roxio did not install any spyware or malware and did not force me to get any third party products that would add toolbars to my browsers or force themselves as my primary search engine.
DATA COPY - Excellent
This is Roxio's bread and butter. As far as I know, it's always been good at burning CDs/DVDs and it's still the case with Creator 10. Roxio can easily create data disks or bootable disks, disk images or file copies and so on. In addition, you can create labels (did not test it myself but it's good to know that the capability exists).
Again, for the money, it doesn't get much better than this. No complains whatsoever and the user interface is good. As always, when it comes to 'burning' disks, make sure that you fully understand what Roxio is about to do before you give it the go-ahead.
VIDEO/MOVIES - Okay, but...
I may be a little unfair here but I subtracted 1 stars for Roxio's inability to handle copy-protected sources. I spend money to buy my DVDs and I believe that I should be trusted with me transferring my disks to a hard disk for viewing convenience but Roxio would not touch these. The only thing you can do with a copy-protected DVD is to watch it on Roxio's CinePlayer. This is NOT a big deal because there are other ways but it's worth knowing that Roxio can't help with transferring your property from one medium to another.
When it comes to your own video, Roxio is most helpful. It will get video directly from your camera, allow for some basic editing and convert it to the format of your choice - numerous formats are supported, from DVD to iPhone and PSP. Remember that Blu-ray support is extra.
Haven't tried it yet but I noticed that it's possible to produce a video and have Roxio auto-publish it on YouTube, provided that you have an account there.
MUSIC/AUDIO - Spectacular, it exceeded my expectations
This is my favorite set of tools. You can easily rip a CD to the highest MP3 bit rate supported by today's hardware (320 kbps), there is support for variable bit rate and for a long list of file formats other than MP3. The conversion is quick and everything comes out organized the way you want it - again, take some time to learn your software and good things will come out of it.
Roxio even supports the ability to digitize LPs and tapes. I didn't try this yet but there is a step-by-step on how to do it.
One most impressive feature is the ability to capture audio from your computer sound card. Practically what this means, is that you can open an Internet radio station such as Pandora (I mention Pandora because it's easy to make it play pretty much exactly what you want) on your browser and Roxio will capture everything that goes to your speakers and produce up to 190kbps if the output is an MP3 file - there are good settings worth experimenting before trying but this is very easy to set up. Once you stop recording - and this could be hours later (I tried that) Roxio will look at the file and, if set properly, break it into separate song tracks. It will then identify the tracks (artist/album/song) and it will place them into the proper folders with the proper file name. Even better, the commercials are removed and dumped into the 'unknown' folder for you to dispose. Based on about 12 hours of audio capture, the recognition rate is way over 90% and you can still go back to the unrecognized tracks and manually try to have them matched or you can name them yourself if that fails. For this feature and the rip capability alone, this Roxio package is worth the money.
Of course, you can burn CDs, MP3 CDs, create DVD music disks and, why not, make labels.
PHOTO - Good, in line with my expectations
Roxio probably offers the 10% of those Adobe Photoshop features that most of us need and use 90% of the time and they are easy to use. Much more powerful than, let's say Picassa and quite adequate for most tasks. My untrained eye found outputs of the same photo 'auto' enhanced by Roxio and Photoshop to be identical.
In addition, Roxio supports the creation of slide shows, multi-media shows (incorporate music tracks) and so-called 'projects' where you can add your own text, clip art and apply various template to create goofy 'books' - take the time to experiment and learn and good things are likely to come out of it.
One more example of Roxio's power: with the 'Enhance multiple photos' option set to 'Autofix', Roxio fixed 820 large photos - 6MB or larger each - in less than one hour, all by itself. I posted one before/after example which shows, even at Amazon's low-res, the improvements of the 'after' picture - much sharper with more vibrant colors, set at the proper exposure, sharpness and and saturation level.
LEARNING CENTER - Okay but not impressed
The presentation included there are good and useful but I found the help facility in general somewhat lacking. Roxio is NOT a difficult to learn package but it does take SOME time to learn it and it could take a lot of time if anyone will use all the features.
INTEGRATION - Good, but...
Naturally, for a bundle of this scope, not everything is always smooth and seamless but modules integrate reasonably well. As a new user, tricks and ways learned to accomplish one task can't always be applied on other tasks but, let's think of a famous bundle known as Microsoft Office and determine how much do Word, Outlook, Excel, Project, PowerPoint and Visio have in common - not a lot. By THAT standard, Roxio is pretty well integrated.
MY RATING - 5 Stars
For a 'Swiss Army Knife' type of software, Roxio does an unexpected number of tasks well and some of them incredibly well (see my paragraph on capturing audio). Certainly some features are just average (photo handling) and some behaviors can be frustrating - and it's not always Roxio's fault (think operating system).
Overall, for this low price, Roxio's Creator 2010 is an exceptional value. Yes, it's true, it does not support Blu-ray but the extension is available separately and, in my view, it's only fair not to force the 95% of current users who lack a Blu-ray drive in their computers to pay for the the a Blu-ray capability they won't use - this may change in the future and Creator 2012 may have the Blu support as a standard.
Some 'stability' issues - Roxio occasionally freezing or locking files - seem to have disappeared after I applied the SP2 update so make sure you install it.
I will be rating Roxio Creator 2010 a 5-star overall (means "I love it" on Amazon's stars scale) because it's a package that I'll be using almost daily and, for what I saw so far, it will serve me well. It's possible that I'll be using Photoshop half of the time when dealing with photos and I will need something else to handle copy-protected DVDs and I will find Picassa the quicker solution but, now that I have Roxio installed, I know that I'd miss it if it wasn't running on my computer.
________________________________________________
NOTES ON INSTALLATION/PERFORMANCE/STABILITY
Since Roxio seems to be running smoothly on my Vista Enterprise machine and installed without a problem, I thought I'd suggest some little things that maybe would help someone because, in my view, Roxio is way too good and useful not to be worth the effort of making it run if at all possible. So, here's what I'd suggest:
- install after a clean reboot - make sure that nothing else running during installation
- log in with an Admin-level account when installing or make the account that you use an Admin
- look at some over-aggressive anti-virus that may prevent Roxio from running or installing properly (I have MS Defender and Forefront running on my machine)
- Install the service packs and whatever other updates Roxio may have for the product.
- Roxio MAY conflict with certain apps. For example, it was very difficult (but not impossible) to capture audiostreams from Aluratek but Roxio works perfectly getting me music from Pandora running off Chrome.
- Roxio does demand a lot from your computer and it may not run well on slower machines - mine has a 2 x 2.4 GHz CPU, very fast RAM and HDD and decent graphics - it's still slow but it's pretty stable.
As far as it's features, I disagree with those complaining that it has 'too many' features and that should be a problem. All you get when you start Roxio is a menu interface. Those who feel that Roxio should not have anything to do with 'video' are free not to ever access that option. I understand that it would have been nice if the installation would offer not to install 'video' if one didn't want it but... this is a $60-80 piece of software not some thousand-dollar pro package and for that price, it over-delivers and it does it in spades.
________________________________________
Note:
It's probably fair to note that I've never had to call Roxio's support and, therefore, I can't rate it or discuss it. However, there is a comment to this review implying that Roxio's support is not good. It's the one Mr Gomez, Posted on May 3, 2010 9:17 PM PDT.
Roxio Creator 2010
3.8 | 6 ratings
Price:
Last update: 02-05-2025
Top reviews from the United States
CthulhuDigital Media's Swiss Army Knife
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Digital Media's Swiss Army Knife
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2010
Roxio Creator 2010 offers a rich set of essential tools for data copying to DVD or other media, video copying, conversion and editing, an excellent music/audio package and a useful photo conversion, organizing and editing toolset that includes the ability to create multi-media presentation - slideshows or more sophisticated presentation that incorporate audio. In addition, the Learning Center section features presentations that encourage the users to build and sharpen their skills in specific areas - the users have the ability to vote/request specific topics to be included in the future.
At this price point, I found Creator 2010 to be more than adequate and, depending of the user's expectations, it may be the only 'media' tool one will ever need. My expectations for this package were:
- solid DVD/CD burn capabilities
- the ability to rip CDs
- a set of easy to use photo enhancement tools
- basic video playback and some editing
Potential users should understand that Roxio is and - as a user of an older version I can remember that - always was a rather demanding application when it comes to CPU utilization. This shouldn't be surprising when we are talking about live capture of data streams - audio or video - or converting/compressing large files, all done while integrating more than one software module. The complexity of interactions with the operating system and the various data channels and peripheral devices could and it did cause Roxio to misbehave from time to time but a little bit of patience and willing to learn and sometimes adapt to the software's quirks could translate into a happy user experience.
Everyone should also be aware that a package this inexpensive that attempts to do so much is not and cannot be at 'pro level' for any of the tasks that it performs. While I found Roxio's modules to be generally more than adequate when it comes to meeting MY needs, there is little doubt that dedicated high-end packages for any of the tasks attempted with Roxio can do 'more'. This being said, Roxio can do a lot IF one takes the time to actually learn it and learning takes place on a curve - in other words, no one should expect pro-level results after 5 minutes of Roxio. However, I WAS able to get some pretty cool things out of it after taking a little time to learn and explore it.
MY SETUP
It's probably useful to provide some information on what I tested Roxio with because my impression is that the hardware and the OS versions could sometimes make a difference between a good experience and a total failure. So, here it is:
- Roxio Creator 2010 SP2 - make sure to install the January 2010 service pack by selecting 'Check for updates' from the Help menu.
- Hardware:
These are the specs for my machine, with the last number showing Microsoft's Windows Experience Index score:
* Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz 5.9
* Memory: Operations per second 5.5
* Graphics Desktop performance for Windows Aero 4.7
* Gaming graphics: 3D business and gaming graphics performance 4.7
* Primary hard disk: disk data transfer rate: 5.9
Since install, I upgraded my RAM to 4GB and the OS from Vista Enterprise (32-bit) to Windows 7. I am pleased to testify that the upgrade process was flawless - there was nothing I had to change in Roxio - and it works as well post-upgrade as it did before.
My monitor displays 1680x1050 32-bit color.
INSTALLATION - very good
Not much to say here. I took the precaution to reboot my computer before starting and I started the install with nothing running in the foreground. It proceeded smoothly and uneventfully. I believe it completed in about 15-20 minutes followed by another 5-10 minutes needed to run the SP1 upgrade dated November 2009. Since, SP2 was released in January 2010. It installed quickly.
As far as I can tell, Roxio did not install any spyware or malware and did not force me to get any third party products that would add toolbars to my browsers or force themselves as my primary search engine.
DATA COPY - Excellent
This is Roxio's bread and butter. As far as I know, it's always been good at burning CDs/DVDs and it's still the case with Creator 10. Roxio can easily create data disks or bootable disks, disk images or file copies and so on. In addition, you can create labels (did not test it myself but it's good to know that the capability exists).
Again, for the money, it doesn't get much better than this. No complains whatsoever and the user interface is good. As always, when it comes to 'burning' disks, make sure that you fully understand what Roxio is about to do before you give it the go-ahead.
VIDEO/MOVIES - Okay, but...
I may be a little unfair here but I subtracted 1 stars for Roxio's inability to handle copy-protected sources. I spend money to buy my DVDs and I believe that I should be trusted with me transferring my disks to a hard disk for viewing convenience but Roxio would not touch these. The only thing you can do with a copy-protected DVD is to watch it on Roxio's CinePlayer. This is NOT a big deal because there are other ways but it's worth knowing that Roxio can't help with transferring your property from one medium to another.
When it comes to your own video, Roxio is most helpful. It will get video directly from your camera, allow for some basic editing and convert it to the format of your choice - numerous formats are supported, from DVD to iPhone and PSP. Remember that Blu-ray support is extra.
Haven't tried it yet but I noticed that it's possible to produce a video and have Roxio auto-publish it on YouTube, provided that you have an account there.
MUSIC/AUDIO - Spectacular, it exceeded my expectations
This is my favorite set of tools. You can easily rip a CD to the highest MP3 bit rate supported by today's hardware (320 kbps), there is support for variable bit rate and for a long list of file formats other than MP3. The conversion is quick and everything comes out organized the way you want it - again, take some time to learn your software and good things will come out of it.
Roxio even supports the ability to digitize LPs and tapes. I didn't try this yet but there is a step-by-step on how to do it.
One most impressive feature is the ability to capture audio from your computer sound card. Practically what this means, is that you can open an Internet radio station such as Pandora (I mention Pandora because it's easy to make it play pretty much exactly what you want) on your browser and Roxio will capture everything that goes to your speakers and produce up to 190kbps if the output is an MP3 file - there are good settings worth experimenting before trying but this is very easy to set up. Once you stop recording - and this could be hours later (I tried that) Roxio will look at the file and, if set properly, break it into separate song tracks. It will then identify the tracks (artist/album/song) and it will place them into the proper folders with the proper file name. Even better, the commercials are removed and dumped into the 'unknown' folder for you to dispose. Based on about 12 hours of audio capture, the recognition rate is way over 90% and you can still go back to the unrecognized tracks and manually try to have them matched or you can name them yourself if that fails. For this feature and the rip capability alone, this Roxio package is worth the money.
Of course, you can burn CDs, MP3 CDs, create DVD music disks and, why not, make labels.
PHOTO - Good, in line with my expectations
Roxio probably offers the 10% of those Adobe Photoshop features that most of us need and use 90% of the time and they are easy to use. Much more powerful than, let's say Picassa and quite adequate for most tasks. My untrained eye found outputs of the same photo 'auto' enhanced by Roxio and Photoshop to be identical.
In addition, Roxio supports the creation of slide shows, multi-media shows (incorporate music tracks) and so-called 'projects' where you can add your own text, clip art and apply various template to create goofy 'books' - take the time to experiment and learn and good things are likely to come out of it.
One more example of Roxio's power: with the 'Enhance multiple photos' option set to 'Autofix', Roxio fixed 820 large photos - 6MB or larger each - in less than one hour, all by itself. I posted one before/after example which shows, even at Amazon's low-res, the improvements of the 'after' picture - much sharper with more vibrant colors, set at the proper exposure, sharpness and and saturation level.
LEARNING CENTER - Okay but not impressed
The presentation included there are good and useful but I found the help facility in general somewhat lacking. Roxio is NOT a difficult to learn package but it does take SOME time to learn it and it could take a lot of time if anyone will use all the features.
INTEGRATION - Good, but...
Naturally, for a bundle of this scope, not everything is always smooth and seamless but modules integrate reasonably well. As a new user, tricks and ways learned to accomplish one task can't always be applied on other tasks but, let's think of a famous bundle known as Microsoft Office and determine how much do Word, Outlook, Excel, Project, PowerPoint and Visio have in common - not a lot. By THAT standard, Roxio is pretty well integrated.
MY RATING - 5 Stars
For a 'Swiss Army Knife' type of software, Roxio does an unexpected number of tasks well and some of them incredibly well (see my paragraph on capturing audio). Certainly some features are just average (photo handling) and some behaviors can be frustrating - and it's not always Roxio's fault (think operating system).
Overall, for this low price, Roxio's Creator 2010 is an exceptional value. Yes, it's true, it does not support Blu-ray but the extension is available separately and, in my view, it's only fair not to force the 95% of current users who lack a Blu-ray drive in their computers to pay for the the a Blu-ray capability they won't use - this may change in the future and Creator 2012 may have the Blu support as a standard.
Some 'stability' issues - Roxio occasionally freezing or locking files - seem to have disappeared after I applied the SP2 update so make sure you install it.
I will be rating Roxio Creator 2010 a 5-star overall (means "I love it" on Amazon's stars scale) because it's a package that I'll be using almost daily and, for what I saw so far, it will serve me well. It's possible that I'll be using Photoshop half of the time when dealing with photos and I will need something else to handle copy-protected DVDs and I will find Picassa the quicker solution but, now that I have Roxio installed, I know that I'd miss it if it wasn't running on my computer.
________________________________________________
NOTES ON INSTALLATION/PERFORMANCE/STABILITY
Since Roxio seems to be running smoothly on my Vista Enterprise machine and installed without a problem, I thought I'd suggest some little things that maybe would help someone because, in my view, Roxio is way too good and useful not to be worth the effort of making it run if at all possible. So, here's what I'd suggest:
- install after a clean reboot - make sure that nothing else running during installation
- log in with an Admin-level account when installing or make the account that you use an Admin
- look at some over-aggressive anti-virus that may prevent Roxio from running or installing properly (I have MS Defender and Forefront running on my machine)
- Install the service packs and whatever other updates Roxio may have for the product.
- Roxio MAY conflict with certain apps. For example, it was very difficult (but not impossible) to capture audiostreams from Aluratek but Roxio works perfectly getting me music from Pandora running off Chrome.
- Roxio does demand a lot from your computer and it may not run well on slower machines - mine has a 2 x 2.4 GHz CPU, very fast RAM and HDD and decent graphics - it's still slow but it's pretty stable.
As far as it's features, I disagree with those complaining that it has 'too many' features and that should be a problem. All you get when you start Roxio is a menu interface. Those who feel that Roxio should not have anything to do with 'video' are free not to ever access that option. I understand that it would have been nice if the installation would offer not to install 'video' if one didn't want it but... this is a $60-80 piece of software not some thousand-dollar pro package and for that price, it over-delivers and it does it in spades.
________________________________________
Note:
It's probably fair to note that I've never had to call Roxio's support and, therefore, I can't rate it or discuss it. However, there is a comment to this review implying that Roxio's support is not good. It's the one Mr Gomez, Posted on May 3, 2010 9:17 PM PDT.
Images in this review
Hi-Tek-Red-Neckdoesnt work with win7 pro.
SnotmeGreat product until you need help!
Edward M. Lassota