Click here for a screen shot of the product!
The production aspects of InterTrans and SFOD are a team effort. Joey does most of the live work, and I do most of the Post-Production. I handle burning the CDs that we send to BTR to broadcast the show. Between our show and personal use, over the two weeks or so that I've had this product, I've already put it through its paces. So far I've ripped CDs, burned audio CDs, Data CDs, and copied an audio CD. I like this, and would pay money for it if we hadn't already been given a review copy by roxio, the company that made this software. In order to keep what little journalistic integrity I'd have while reviewing free stuff, I didn't read the Press Kit, which includes a "Reviewer's Guide". I might review that in a few weeks, though... Tell y'all what they wanted me to tell you.
I've used the Easy CD series for many years, simply because they came with CD-R drives I've bought in the past. When I got my new laptop, it came with a really wretched prog, and I was in the process of finding a new one when this came in the mail. I never had any problems with the older versions, so this was a welcome product to review.
Installation was a bit of a pain, as the prog does suffer from bloating. I was able to shave 200+ megs off of the install by dropping some very unneeded features, particularly a photo-editing suite. I already have Paint Shop Pro, and it does everything I need, thank you very much. Otherwise, it was standard auto-play CD-ROM install. [Yes], [Yes], [OK], and so on.
The interface is a bit pretty for my taste, but I started back in Windows 3.1, so I haven't really liked this whole new wave of aesthetically pleasing progs. If I wanted that sort of hippie garbage, I'd be on a Mac. ^_^
Operation is pretty basic. Drag, drop, go get a sandwich while it burns. I haven't gotten a chance to futz around with the mixed-mode options, or similar stuff. I want to try the VCD stuff on this one, as the back of the box implies it may be able to handle various formats of video files. The box also mentions that it can't copy copy-protected CDs. That may be true, but it can rip them. I threw my Animetal CD at it, a CD which I've never gotten to rip properly, and I got perfect .wav to do with as I please. The CD ripper offered to convert them to .mp3, but I'm comfortable with CDex and Cool Edit Pro for wav->mp3 fun.
Roxio included an instruction manual, but I've yet to touch it. The prog is pretty self-explanatory. If you can use Windows Explorer without screaming in terror, you shouldn't have a problem with it.
CD copying was a painless procedure, put in the one you want, hit copy, wait a few minutes, put in a blank CD, wait, go home.
I haven't tried copying any PlayStation games, or anything like that. I remember successfully making a back-up of King of Fighters `97 though, so it may still work. No, really! It was really a back-up! I had this buddy who wanted to make sure his legit import game stayed in perfect condition, so he had me make a copy of it. He only played the copy. Anyway, older versions could.
Oh, one more little thing: the CDDB client built in checks the Japanese servers, too.
So if your current CD burning prog fails you, go forth and buy this! If what you've got works fine, meh. This is good, but it won't make your life complete or anything. I have no clue how good a DVD Burner this is, as none of us have a DVD-R drive.