Roxio today launched Roxio Easy Media Creator 9, a substantial upgrade to the company's suite of CD and DVD authoring, burning, photo, video and music applications.
The latest version is packed with over 100 new features and capabilities such as mobile entertainment support, Blu-ray Disc (BD) recording, Microsoft Windows Vista compatibility, and high-definition video creation tools. For the first time, Sonic is executing a near simultaneous release of its market-leading suite across multiple channels and regions to fully support its massive global installed base of customers and distribution partners. Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 is available today at www.roxio.com and will be in retail stores throughout North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region later this month.
Sonic's Roxio Easy Media Creator has led the North American retail market for over 10 years, including the most recent 12-month period ending July 2006. Creator 9 is designed to entice a new audience to the benefits of a single software package for working with all forms of digital media and next-generation devices, as well as providing an upgrade path for the installed base of almost 300 million customers worldwide.
Making Entertainment Mobile
Creator 9 provides support for portable devices including a wide assortment of video players such as the iPod, PSP, as well as Windows-based media players such as Samsung's Yepp, audio players, and mobile phones. Within Creator 9's Media Manager, the application used for quickly organizing and accessing photos, music, video files, and multi-media projects, users can now upload selected content to their multimedia mobile phones through a USB or Bluetooth connection. Users can send photos and video clips to a phone to create a mobile digital album or even upload music segments as personalized ringtones. Consumers can also transfer their favorite entertainment such as DivX content or recorded programming from a TiVo system or set-top DVD recorder. Consumers can use predefined settings to auto-format files for sending to an iPod, PSP or select from a list of supported file formats that can be customized to suit any device.
Securing Memories
Creator 9 includes support for Blu-ray Disc. The software allows consumers to record to both single and dual-layer BD discs and archive as much as 50 GB of personal data. Creator 9 also enables users to span large projects across multiple BD discs and secure content through disc encryption. In addition, Creator 9's Drag-to-Disc packet writing software offers consumers the convenience of dragging and dropping files to a Blu-ray Disc in the same way they would place files on a hard disk or flash drive.
Music Support
Creator 9's music capabilities are enhanced with new applications including the Audio Capture Widget, which is a desktop application that lets users easily record any audio playing on their computer such as Internet radio programming. The Capture Widget includes a unique Pre-Roll feature that can automatically record and store audio even before the record button is selected. Another feature of the Audio Capture Widget is the Mute System Sounds feature that lets consumers hear system alerts, while suppressing them from the resulting recording. All programming recorded through the Capture Widget can be modified in Creator 9's Sound Editor and easily converted for output to a portable audio player or disc.
Also new to the audio capabilities in Creator 9 is AutoMix, a feature that automatically generates playlists. Using sophisticated algorithms to analyze and fingerprint each song in a consumer's library, the AutoMix feature defines a complementary mix of music based on a 'seed' track chosen by the user. Consumers can use AutoMix to quickly generate a selection of songs to motivate them at the gym or a relaxing set to use as background during their next dinner party. Resulting playlists can be defined to fit the size limitations of a portable player, recorded to CD, uploaded to a mobile phone, or used as the basis for creating a DVD Music Disc. DVD Music Disc turns any standard DVD player into a virtual music jukebox with up to 50 hours of Dolby Digital quality music. DVD Music Disc now offers attractive new customizable menu styles and an option for shuffle play.
Hollywood Capabilities for the Home
Easy Media Creator 9 includes a selection of authoring and video editing tools. For creating professional-quality videos, consumers can use the high-definition enabled, 32-track timeline editor with advanced video overlay tools and fine-tune editing controls. Easy Media Creator 9 also delivers a host of automated features including a one-click color correction tool, automatic background noise removal feature, a fit-to-disc encoding option, and an automated scene editor that allows consumers to omit unwanted content from their video programming. The enhanced CineMagic 2 takes consumers' raw video footage and favorite song and automatically generates a polished production complete with professionally-stylized video introductions, special effects, and appropriate transitions that are all synchronized to the tempo of the selected music.
Creator 9 also includes an enhanced version of MyDVD, which allows users to generate blockbuster-style DVDs with new professionally-designed menu styles that include matching scene menus -- coordinated with the CineMagic styles.
Additional capabilities typically found only in higher-end DVD authoring applications include advanced support for object and sub-menu linking and end action controls, which allow users to precisely dictate the sequence of events following a DVD navigation selection such as playing a title or returning to a menu.
Easy Media Creator 9 will be available in September in stores and direct from Roxio at www.roxio.com for $99.99 SRP. Registered owners of Roxio and Sonic products, as well as owners of select competitive products, may be eligible for special upgrade offers. Details are included in the box and at www.roxio.com.