Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.

Subject: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: ard mhacha
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 04:33 PM

I bought this program last week and it has given me a hell of a headache, complicated is being fair towards this shambles of a program.

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Joybell
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 05:20 PM

I'm using CD Creator 5. Don't know how different they are. I did have a hard time working out how to use it but now that I have the hang of it it seems to be OK. At the time I got it I didn't know that you could get a more user friendly program. I use it mainly for saving data to CD and that's fairly easy. Copying a music CD is rather complicated. Sorry that this is not all that helpful. Maybe someone else will come up with more help. I do understand though. Joy

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 05:49 PM

it is 'generally' accepted that the best out there is "Nero", though many disagree. There is also Sony's CD Extreme and several others...all payware.

here are two free programs, but only the first one seems like it would be really user friendly. (I have not used it personally)

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 06:10 PM

It is likely, based on my experience, that Nero (Burning ROM) is more user friendly for making audio CDs, but it's virtually impossible to use to make data CDs, if you're archiving large numbers of files and especially if you use long file names. EasyCD (Roxio) is much better at data CDs.

I have made a few audio CDs with Nero (two versions), and a very few with EasyCD. Most of the ones I made with either were just copies from tapes or LPs, so it was just a matter of recording the separate tracks to the hard drive, moving them to the burn list, and blowing of a disk.

I tried to make quite a few data CDs with Nero, and literally gave up in frustration. I've made over 200 data CDs with EasyCD (3 different versions) without a significant glitch.

Unless it's a direct copy CD to CD, the key is probably in recognizing that creating the individual tracks you plan to record is a separate and independent step that has to be done before you worry about the burn. For anything very complex, there are probably other programs (neither Nero nor EasyCD) that are really better for that, although others are more qualified to comment in that area than I am.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 06:29 PM

hmmm, John..I have made a number of data CDs with Nero. It was a simple drag 'n drop operation. (I archive Rita's and my craft images and my collections of freeware programs) The only issue I had was being sure not to ask for a faster speed than my poor 'old' Win98 machine could handle. (I generally stick to 4X, even though my Yamaha drive says IT will do 16X).

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 06:59 PM

(I will say that, in Nero, I use the 'wizard' to make my choices for type of disk to be burned...the menus were a little fuzzy...but I didn't spend much time there)

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Joybell
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 07:05 PM

Yes I use Nero for music CDs too and find it quite easy if I use the "wizard". Frustrating if I don't. Joy

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 07:39 PM

Bill D

The problems I had with Nero and data CDs may be a "personal thing" that most people won't encounter; but they relate to the requirement for ISO filenaming. When (in the versions of Nero that I tried) a "bad" name is encountered in Nero, it gives you the Joliet name that it's tried to convert to, but makes you either accept its incompletely displayed default conversion or exit the program and try to find and fix the "faulty" file. Since it doesn't give you the DOS/Win filename, and only displays the first few characters of the Joliet name it wants to substitute, it can be virtually impossible to dig through a CD-worth of files to even identify the problem. And it will only identify the first name error it encounters.

An email (.eml) file for a short message may be only 3 or 4 KB, so you might easily put several thousand files on a CD (and I have about 30,000 in archive). If you've named them to include the sender, a few hundred of them all look alike when you're hunting the one file to change, with only a truncated partial "name" to help you. If you get lucky and change the first one the file compilation hits, then you get the next one to go look for. On a couple of fairly complex backups, I made 20 or 30 "restarts" without ever getting a successful "renaming" that would let the burn proceed.

In EasyCD, the original file name and path are fully displayed, along with the full suggested correction, and you can accept or edit, and continue with the compiling of the burn table. That one difference makes the choice clear if you have lots of similar filenames on lots of small files, or if you use a deep tree structure in your data.

If you use an ISO burn, which is recommended, the original DOS/Win file names must be replaced with Joliet-legal names. The differences in character set may require a few characters, legal in DOS but not in Joliet, to be replaced with a different character. In addition, the filename on a CD includes the complete path + filename for each file, with a limit of 64(or maybe its 128?) characters for the whole thing. It's very easy to get a few that will "bounce" when you start to compile the filelist for the burn. Nero makes it impossible to know which file is being changed. EasyCD makes it trivial.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 11:50 PM

I can see, John, that you have a quite different set of needs than I do, so the issue is non-trivial for you. (I did have one instance when Nero would not burn a CD, and in that case it listed the file names that it was not happy with. I went to my directory and re-named them, and it then went fine.)

I guess, like any tool, various CD programs are fine-tuned for specific uses. I'm glad to see your explanation, though...it may save me a lot of puzzling at some future time!

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 12:11 AM

Bill D -

If you have few files, and simple names, it's not too difficult to go re-name them. When you try to burn 2,000 files, all with similar long names, Nero doesn't give you enough info to find "which one to change first" - and it only wants to give you one at a time.

It is NOT quite true that peculiar things only happen to peculiar people, but I'll concede that few people will have this problem to the extent I have.

I keep both programs up. I use Nero mostly with default settings to copy/burn occasional audio files; but I don't do a lot of that, so I hesitate to try to give advice there. I use EasyCD exclusively for data CDs.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Fiolar
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 07:57 AM

I found that Easy CD Creator 5 was very good. I don't know if it's me but I find that every time I buy a new version of well tried and tested program I run into problems. For example I recently upgraded to Audio Cleaning Lab Deluxe 2004 from the earlier version and am unable to burn any CDs whatsoever so reverted to the earlier version.

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Jim McLean
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 08:25 AM

I use Orlogix RecordNow Max and haven't come across any problems yet.
Jim

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 12:19 PM

Easy CD 5 may have been(?) the first version level at which there were separate "models," for CD only, and one for DVD/CD. I have the CD only version on two machines, but the DVD/CD version on my main one.

A fairly significant difference between the two is that the DVD/CD version opens with a "task selector" where you choose whether you want CD or DVD, audio/tv/data, and/or diskcopy. After you make that choice, the "real" program comes up, and looks much like what opens at the first instance in the CD-only version.

The task selector is annoyingly a "tricked up" display that attempts to emulate a juke box, with buttons that "whoosh" and "burp" at you, and give the sense that you should be playing an arcade game, but they are quite functional - once you figure out what's a button and what is just "decoration." I don't particularly care for the format, but have had no problems guessing which buttons to use.

I haven't looked at Easy CD 6, but the trend is to more of this sort of interface. It probably sells better in the juvenile market...

It is apparent that most of the comments here, thus far, have been based on the earlier versions - so we haven't really addressed the original question - "what the #%$@ did the marketeers do to Easy CD 6?"

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Roberto
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 12:34 PM

Easy CD Creator is the program I use, because it has the Spin Doctor function, with which you can put on a CD-R musical tracks taken from LPs, cassettes, etc. I don't think Nero has something similar.

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 01:22 PM

Roxio - Products now shows "Easy CD And DVD Creator 6" as their only "available" product. As seems to be the trend, they apparently assume that only those "with-it" souls who are into digital monster screen home movies with surround sound are viable customers.

The (apparent) intro screen is a "fancy button" selector, that doesn't have a choice for "Make a CD," although one might assume that "Disk Copier" would give you a choice whether to copy a CD or a DVD (?).

There are 5 shortcut buttons at the bottom, but I can't identify what they might do from the screen-shots at the site. Probably those who play a lot of arcade games would recognize them(?)

After examining the blowups of all 5 of the "chooser buttons," it appears that the one called "Creator Classic," at the bottom, gets you an interface somewhat like the older Easy CD versions, but it apparently includes both CD and DVD functions, and the screen shots don't go far enough to show how to select which you want. If it's like older versions, you would select the task (music CD, data CD, video DVD, data DVD, … ) under the File button on the header, but that's just a guess.

If you dig down through the product description buttons on the site, they offer a downloadable "demo version;" but I didn't go there, so I don't know if it's an actual demo version or if it's just a video about the product; but it might be worth a look for anyone with, or interested in, this thing.

Speculation based on previous versions suggests that if you ignore everything except the "Creator Classic" button on the front end, and then - look probably under the "File" button and - select something like "music CD" or "data CD" you will be running "Easy CD 5" as an "embedded program." There's no real reason why they should re-write this portion of what was a good product.

Again, based purely on my own speculation, the key to making this a usable product is in finding the function you want and ignoring all the rest. Once you get into the "CD" portion of the "Creator Classic" you should have a CD burner program. But I'm only guessing…

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 01:30 PM

John..I did some looking and found a copy of Easy CD 5...but it says it is 109,000,000 bytes!! Is that possible? (I have the old Easy 4.02, and can upgrade it to 4.05...but even that upgrade is almost 4,000,000 bytes.)

still researching...

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 02:25 PM

Nero does have a similar program. You might have to use something like Windows Explorer to poke around in the Nero executable programs folder for one called WaveEdit.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: ard mhacha
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 02:31 PM

Thanks for all of your replies, I had CD Creator 4 , nothing too complicated if you had to compile a CD.
I bought this Creator 4 a couple of years ago and without any expanation it was taken off and replaced with Roxio, I still have the Creator 4 Disc but it is now obselete and dear old Roxio would rather you purcahase there new CD 6 ,PC wrecker.
I had to laugh reading one review of Creator 6 from a US Site, the reviewer advised you not to buy, "unless you are a Republican" Yes,it`s that bad.
I have returned to Nero.

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 03:38 PM

I see that Roxio and Adaptec (the original EasyCD owner) have split up...Roxio has changed things a bunch, and now operates very much like Real Systems...they want you to *register* to even get a trial download, and they do their level best to obliterate any copies of older versions. VERY Republican attitude..*grin*

I guess I will keep the updated CD Creator 4.05 and my Nero and Sony CD Extreme..(which 'can' be had for free by a convoluted process..it seems Sony doen't exactly give it away, but they make no effort to hide the process either...which sort of creates an unlimited free trial..*shrug*)

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 09:00 PM

Bill D -

The Roxio folder in my Program Files shows 56,230,000 bytes (DOS) for the whole thing. Nearly all of that is in the "Easy CD Creator" folder, with incidental bits in 3 other folders. Thats for "Easy CD And DVD 5 Platinum."

The other half of your 100M could be reserved for buffer? I don't know how much the program needs, but I suspect at least 5% of the 700MB you can burn would be nice.

The Adaptec folder on my laptop (Easy CD 5 Basic, CD only) shows about 6,733,000 installed, but I haven't checked for "remote" files.

I installed the CD/DVD version (that machine came with Nero). There may have been some video functions that I left off, since I don't have any compatible other equipment; but so far as I recall, it was a "default" install.

The laptop, CD only version, is what came on the machine (and I added Nero). It's probably a "stripped down OEM" version.

I can still recall taking my version of Word to the office on a 1.4M floppy (with a couple of .doc thrown in to work on), but them days are just a memory - and at my age that's getting pretty dim.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 12:05 PM

hmm...then it seems the program perhaps has it's own built-in buffer for burning, rather than finding the space on your HD? Well...ok..*grin*...it is still a BIG download for poor little me on my 56K. (I started it, and it said something like 6 hours at the current rate....so I stopped. I may or may not try later. I am intending to get broadband of some sort soon, so maybe messing with MORE CD programs can wait!)

Thanks for the info!

Subject: RE: Tech: Easy CD Creator 6,Anyone triedit yet?.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 12:45 PM

Biil D -

I don't know whether Easy 'reserves' buffer space, but Windows has some rather vague defaults about how much temp file space it will allow, based on the remaining free space on the system drive.

Some programs cite "requirements" that include the space to put the download plus the space to unzip something plus the space to make the installation - or something like that; but it sounds as though you're talking about the actual size of the transfer.

The "Easy CD 5 Platinum" install CD I have shows 236,840,741 Bytes for a DOS Dir/s, and there's a separate CD for the "bonus offers," so the size you saw may be good if you're getting the whole thing. The install CD would need to include all the drivers and dlls and such for all compatible systems. The "requirements" on the box say you need 200 MB free space, and at least 80 MB "must be on the system drive" for installation. (That would be after you've moved your download to a CD?)

I don't usually mess with them, but there are "download managers" that will let you do partial downloads and then resume later. This sounds like a good time to get one? I don't recall where I saw the last recommendation for one, though.

John