This most recent suite for the editing and playing of media has a sound editor added for the very first time.  This suite has been modernized with a dapper fresh starter interface and even Blu-ray playback.  These modernizations, coupled with topnotch video edition; a graphics card acceleration to enable quicker performance; and a coherent modern UI spread across all modules, serve to keep it ahead of its media editing and playing competitors.

The freshly contoured black start screen is far less messy than the principle UI screens offered by either Nero 9 Reloaded or Roxio Creator 2010, both available for $99.99.  CyberLink’s adaptation makes locating what you need very easy by presenting you with clear choices of Music; Data; Video; Copy; Movie; Photo; and Backup upon starting.  Upon selecting any one of these, a window displaying secondary choices will appear, for example, should you select Music, Make an Audio DVD will appear.  Selecting the heart icon alongside any of these will add them to a list of your Favorites, and you can access these from the larger heart icon found amongst the principal choices.  This system is a good one, resembling that of Nero 9 Reloaded by allowing you to select any 1 of the 10 available applications by name, or even bypass the PowerStarter completely and select the app from your Windows Start Menu.

This suite installs faster than those of the competition do, taking around 20 minutes on 2GHz laptop computer.  You can also choose which applications you would like to install, an excellent addition.  The only criticism applicable to the install process is the amount of popups and graphics trying to up sell during it.

For testing purposes, navigation was made immediately to the WaveEditor application for sound editing.  It doesn’t just allow you to access the ac3; MP3; WAV; m4a; and WMA files that you have stored on your computer, but is also able to get at sound files at the Freesound.org.site, a website offering sound clips that have Creative Common licenses.  WaveEditor is an awesome forepart for the service, since it handles both previews and downloads in a pleasant interface, and does not require you to browse around the website by yourself.

Users are also able to record sound from the microphone on your computer, or the line in, and all the sound that your machine is playing back in either Windows Vista or Windows 7. This includes content found online, although you might have to download a different driver for your soundcard, plus further change the Wave Out Mix, or Stereo Out Mix, in order to be able to select them from the dropdown menu in WaveEditor.