Nero 6 - Burning Ambitions (Nero 6.0)

Member Name: derek-a

Product:	Nero 6.0
Date:	22/08/05 (4073 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use and user friendly.

Disadvantages: None

About six years ago when I first started working with my PC, I was well aware of the importance of making back-ups of all my files. This I had learned to my expense from my old Commodore Amiga days when I lost everything due to a damaged hard drive. And that was only 200 megs! Now I had 40 gigabytes of hard drive on the PC I had purchased, but it had a CD Re-writer fitted so that would make it easier to back-up my work.

Looking at the recordable CD disks, I thought the best option would be to buy, the CD re-writes (CD-RW) as they could be recorded to over and over again and even wiped completely if I wanted.

You can imagine my shock when I ended up throwing most of the disks in the bin because, according to my computer (running windows Me at the time), they had failed to format properly and after what seemed like waiting an age for my computer to do its work and format these disks, I was growing incredibly frustrated. Later I was talking to a friend of mine who asked me why I didn’t use Nero.

I didn’t know what Nero was, but he assured me that Nero would write to practically any disk, so I purchased the program.

The package I purchased was Nero 6. and all I can say is that I haven’t looked back since. I would say that Nero must be one of the most powerful CD burning facilities around and one of the easiest to understand. All I need to do with is to pop a CD disk into the CD burner, launch Nero and not even worry about my previous formatting problems.

Installing Nero:
I found this a painless procedure, with the usual copyright stuff to agree to and it all went without a hitch. I first installed it on Windows Me and later, when I upgraded to XP, it installed just as easily.

Using Nero:
To transfer files from my hard drive to a CD RW or CD-R…
From the start menu, I would select Nero Express and I am presented with a window with a list of selections…

Data:
This is what I use for backing up ordinary files from my computer.
Moving the mouse over this button brings up two sub-menus…
Data – to copy data files to a disk such as documents and pictures.
Make a bootable disk – copy data files over to a disk that boots automatically when placed in the CD drive.


Music:
This is what I use to make a standard music CD playable on our home/car CD player from MP3s I have stored on my hard drive.
Moving the mouse over this button brings up five sub-menus…
Make Audio CD
Make Audio and Data CD
Make MP3 Disk
Make WMA disk
Make Nero Digital Audio Disk.


Video:
I have used this selection with excellent results for burning some of our home movies on to ordinary CDs – this is limited to about 45 minutes per movie per CD, compared to several hours I get since I purchased a DVD burner. This (VCD/SVCD) format is now supported by most modern day DVD players (see your home DVD handbook for compatibility).
Moving the mouse over this button brings up two sub-menus…
Video CD (VCD)
Super Video CD (SVCD)

Disk Image or Saved Project:
I have not used this facility yet, but if you are unable to finish a project or would want to record multiple copies, you can save your work project until a later time.

At the bottom of the Nero Express window there are buttons to…
Change the configuration of Nero to your own requirements.
Save tracks to your hard drive
Erase a CD-RW or CDR.
Get info on a CD disk in your drive.
And a neat facility to create a cover for your CD.

What else is there?
Nero Media Player is also included in the Nero 6 package and when opened, a silver-grey-coloured three-dimensional image of a radio appears that looks just like a cassette recorder, with a play, pause, stop, fast rewind and fast forward and a record button. In the centre is a window complete with track information and timer. This works in a similar way to Windows Media Player and is handy for checking out your audio creations whilst still working with Nero.

Nero StartSmart:
If this button hasn’t placed itself on the desktop during installation and you would like easy access to it, simply go into the Start, then Programs (All programs on XP), go to Nero, then to Nero StartSmart and RIGHT click and select Send to Desktop (create shortcut).

On opening Nero StartSmart I am presented with a window in which I have access to all the previous functions - CD data, music and VCD facilities and if I click on the DVD button on the top, I go into the DVD menu.

From here, if you have the appropriate hardware you can…
Capture video from a camcorder,
Play a video,
Make a DVD video,
Make a photo slide show to burn to DVD,
Record a TV show,
And finalise and burn your project to a standard DVD.

When you go into each of these selections, there are options for transitions (fades/wipes etc) between scenes, adding commentary and music to your work. It seems that Nero has thought of everything!

Finally, built into the Nero 6 program is a very comprehensive user guide with easy-to-follow instructions on everything Nero can do.

All in all, there is nothing I can say that is bad about Nero 6, it has served me well on both Windows Me and XP and is extremely reliable. I have never known it to crash my computer.

Purchasing Nero:
On Amazon a search produced… Nero 6 can be purchased from £2 used.
On eBay a buy-it-now copy can be got for around £5 or bidding usually starts around 99p.

Further information on all products are on the Nero website at http://www.nero.com/eng/index.html

Thanks for reading.

Summary: There is nothing I can say that is bad about Nero 6, it has served me well on both Windows Me and XP

Variety of features:
Reliability:
User friendly:
Installation:
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