NTI CD & DVD Maker 7—Titanium Suite

A Review  by  Bill Alwin

 

 

Being an intermediate computer user, I was eager to install and use this program, in an effort to ascertain the ease of which I would be able to use the program.  I additionally have an above average interest in digital photography and the sharing of the photographs I take.  I have used other CD maker programs, like Picasa and Ulead, without any major problems and have been pleased with the ease of use and the results.

 

The NTI software was nicely packaged.  It was slick, attractive and colorful, peaking my interest almost immediately.  Unpacking the program I found it to be secure and undamaged.  I especially liked the fold open cover on the box: very eye appealing—particularly the use of the beautiful blond in the filmstrip.  The manuals seemed well written, with pictures.

 

Installation was effortless: the program loaded up automatically and went directly to the Install Wizard.  The automatic opening feature was to my liking, as some CD programs require you to actually enter a path, to start the program installation.

 

Opening the program was a breeze, again very smoothly to a home page that was well done and easy to understand and navigate.

 

During the installation, the program would not let me proceed without putting in a company name.

 

 

CD & DVD Maker

 

The first time I tried to copy a disc, I received an error message: “The layout type is incompatible with the target disc type.” This message did not make a lot of sense to me.  I tried several times with various media, including DVD-R, DVD+R, and CD-R.  Every time, I received the same message, and I found it to be very frustrating.

 

I found adding more photographs to a CD difficult.  It would not accept certain files in JPEG format if the photographs were taken from within certain programs, i.e. PICASA.

 

Overall, creating a CD slideshow is very slow and cumbersome: dragging one photograph file at a time into it and then having the program re-size it.  Additionally you could not see the photograph until it was dragged into the proper space.  This further slowed down the process and sometimes necessitated deleting a duplicate picture or a picture not desired in the slideshow.

 

I liked the ease of extracting music files [tracks] from a CD and turning them into a .wav file.  However, I could not get this .wav file to copy to the CD: I would get an error message—“Layout type is incompatible with the target disk”.  I tried DVD-R, DVD+R, and CD-R to no avail.  Again, very frustrating!  After trying several times, I lost the entire slideshow I was trying to create: it simply disappeared!

 

This program seemed easy to use, and at first I thought it was going well with each step, however the final product (a copy of a disc) was not delivered.

 

I was never really able to create a CD or DVD to my satisfaction.  Time after time I was confronted with error messages that were confusing and difficult to figure out.  At one point, I lost all my photos out of the program and had to start all over, dragging them back into the program.

 

 

Backup Now!

 

This program seemed very user friendly, but it did take a long time to complete.  It involved a two-step process—“compare” being the second step.  I’m not sure what this second step is all about.  In my case it took over an hour.

 

After the program advised me that the CD had been successfully completed, it additionally advised me of a number of folders that had not been copied, due to some sort of error.  Not being real comfortable with the results, I tried to open the CD to see what had been copied.    I could not open the CD: I tried numerous ways to no avail.  This was not reassuring.  I suppose the only way to tell what was copied, is to run the restore program.  However, at that point it may be too late if the back up was not complete.  I did not try to go any further with this back up CD.

 

 

Home Video-Maker

 

I clicked on the button to make a video and the page opened OK.  Step one was to select and drag a video clip into the menu pane.  I did this and it initially appeared to drag in just fine.  However, it did nothing.  I waited awhile, and in about a minute, an error message appeared.  It stated, “K:\bill alwin home video. Wmv; invalid mpeg/avi file format”.  I tried this several times to drag other video files into the menu to no avail.  I was unable to get this program to function.

 

 

DVD Playback Software

 

The DVD Player menu indicated when clicked “Unable to locate NTI DVD player” so no evaluation was possible.

 

 

NTI DVD Fit

 

I was unable to evaluate this program, since I do not have an 8.5 GB Dual-layer DVD movie to compress.  Additionally in reading the manual, I found no instruction on how to move an 8.5 GB dual-layer DVD into a “Video-TS folder”, which is essential to creating a dual-layer DVD into a single-layer size.

 

 

NTI FileCD

 

I could find nothing in the instruction manual on this program.

 

 

NTI JewelCase Maker

 

This program was not easily found.  It was not one of the primary program buttons.  It was located after some searching around under “tools” at the top of the home page.  It opened just fine and I began making an insert for a CD.  The program was rather easy to follow, however the results were not what I had expected.  After making and printing several inserts, they never lined up like they looked in the program prior to printing.  It may have been something I was doing wrong, however I could not get it to do what I wanted [or expected] it to do.  I have used other CD insert makers with no problem.

 

 

NTI Wave Editor

 

This program opened up to an empty layout pane, but it didn’t look right.  I tried to open a wave music file, which was on my hard drive, but the program simply would not open the file.  I tried to open several files to no avail.  I was unable to get this program to function.

 

 

NTI Music Café

 

I could not get this program to work on my computer either.  The player came up but would not play.  Microsoft’s Media Player was the default player and I could not change the setting so it would use the NTI Music Café.  This obviously is not necessarily the fault of the program, however, the program gave me no instructions on how to change the default player.  My thoughts are, if the program is truly user friendly, it would perhaps automatically switch players, or give me a menu with player choices.

 

 

In Conclusion:

 

This Suite of programs may be suitable for someone with a lot more experience than I have.  However, for someone with modest experience wanting a program that is user friendly -- this program is not it.  It did not perform to my satisfaction.

 

 

Evaluation completed on January 29th, 2006.

 

CD & DVD Maker 7—Titanium Suite

NTI—Newtech Infosystems

http://www.ntius.com/default.asp?p=cdmaker/cdmaker_main

$79.99