Price Tag: $79.99 (download), $99.99 (retail box packaging)
Official URL: nero.com
Rating:

Ahead Nero is a dazzlingly full-featured software suit that allows you to create, rip, burn, copy, share, backup, and enjoy digital media. Nero allows you to play and edit video, audio, photographs, data files, and even live television or old LP records using your computer. On top of that, it has a full featured backup program and software for designing and printing CD and DVD labels, wraps, booklets and covers.

Since Nero consists of an entire suite of applications we will discuss the general features of Nero9, and the “SmartStart” software that ties them all together in this review. We will be following up with reviews of each of the individual tools.

FEATURES

Nero offers a huge range of features that include data, video, audio, photos, design, and backup.

Photo: You can create photo slideshows that will play on your computer, the web, or your DVD player. You can preview photos on your computer and perform basic edits such as autofix, exposure, color balance, resizing, cropping, lens distortion, brightness and contrast, noise, sharpen, red eye removal, rotation, hot pixel fixing, and advanced effects.

Video: You can copy entire DVDs (non-protected DVDs) either keeping the menu or only copying parts of the DVD, watch DVDs (including protected DVDs), you can edit your videos, add sound tracks and other effects, trim the length of your videos, apply visual effects, play videos,  and create DVDs, VCDs or Super-VCDs out of your video so that you can play your videos on home DVD players or send them out to family members that aren’t tech-savvy enough to use a computer.

Audio: You can play your audio files (MP3 and other formats), you can edit and record audio, you can create new audio mixes from your digital audio files, transfer LPs and records to CDs (with the right hardware), and create other interesting audio projects.

Design:You can design and print CD and DVD labels, covers, wraps and booklets.

Backup: You can back up your entire computer or just sections of your computer to CDs, DVDs or other media using a quick and easy to use interface.

Data: You can create CDs and DVDs of files on your computer so that you can send off your word document to publishers, or burn photos to a CD to send out to your family or to bring to the printer. Advanced CD and DVD burning capabilities are available, too.

INSTALLATION

Note: The installation process below was the process I followed using the disc version of Nero, not the downloadable version. Many of the steps are the same, but there might be some slight variation in your experience if you’re using a downloadable version. For example, you  might need to download the Nero Vision templates as a different file rather than simply clicking a button in the installer.

When you insert your Nero installation CD and run the installer you’ll see a screen asking what you want to install: Nero 9 (the bulk of the Nero toolset), Nero BackItUp (the backup utility), Nero Vision Templates (Extra templates for the Nero Vision DVD authoring software), Nero 9 Help Files, and General Clean Tool (which helps you clean up botched installs or previous versions of Nero, or remove Nero from your system completely.)

Installation of “Nero 9″ can take quite a while, as the Nero suite is rather extensive. You can choose to install all of the applications by choosing the default options, or you can customize the installation to only install the items you plan on using. The full installation of Nero 9 took about an hour on my computer which I would consider an average desktop computer. This included Nero 9, Nero BackItUp, the Vision templates and Help files.

Installation itself is simple. A wizard steps you through setting some basic options and then installs all the files to the correct locations. If you’re running Windows Vista you might need to click a few extra buttons to allow the installer to run.

One thing to note: When you run the installer it will ask for your “Demo” serial number regardless of whether you have purchased the software or not. Nero allows everyone to try out the full functioning software suite for 15 days rather than offering a feature-limited demo.  If you enter your purchased serial number, the application will not time out. If you enter a trial or demo serial number, you will be able to try the software for 15 days before being asked for a new serial number.

THE APPLICATIONS

To avoid completely frying its users brains by putting all this complexity into a single application, Nero divides its feature set into different applications: The Nero Burning ROM,  Nero Cover Designer, Nero Express, Nero Live, Nero Photosnap Viewer, Nero Recode, Nero Showtime, Nero Soundtrax, Nero StartSmart, Nero Vision and Nero WaveEditor. On top of that, Nero comes with a variety of media utilities including BackItUp, BurnRights, DiscSpeed, DriveSpeed, InfoTool and RescueAgent.

EASE OF USE

Each Nero application has a similar interface. When you run the application it opens up in “wizard” mode that basically asks “What is it that you want to do?” and gives you the different options in a clear easy-to-understand fashion.

Nero Start Smart (shown to the right) acts as a wizard for the entire suite. If you’re new to the software, it’s a great place to start. Along the top are different categories of things you might want to do: Rip & Burn, Create & Edit, Home Entertainment, or Back Up. Along the left are common tasks that you might want to do: Data burning, Audio burning,  Audio ripping, Copy Disc, Auto Backup or Play File. At the bottom you see “News” which provides links to different Nero discussions or tutorials. If you choose options from the top, you’ll be presented with more specific options. For example, “Rip & Burn” will give you options for ripping different type of data (video, audio), or what type of disc you want to burn. If you choose options from the left you’ll simply be popped into the interface for the task that you chose.  Depending on what you choose to do, Nero Startsmart might minimize and launch one of the other Nero applications. When you complete your task and close the application Nero Smartstart will pop back up so that you can move on to the next thing that you want to do. It’s all very seamless.

Once you’re familiar with what each application does, you can run the individual applications directly from the Applications menu. Nero makes it easy to remember “what does what” by making ample use of “tooltips”. Simply move your mouse over the application icon in the applications menu and a short paragraph will pop up to remind you what each application does.

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

Because of the nature of Nero9, there’s a rather extensive list of requirements for running the software, and for using different parts of the software suite. You can view the full list here: Nero 9 Requirements. Note that for basic use of some of the software elements such as the Nero Burning ROM, the actual requirements may be lower than what is listed. Other “advanced” features such as the ability to copy old LP records to CDs require specialized hardware such as a USB turntable.

NITPICKS

Nero9 tends to intertwine itself with your system. While I’ve never personally had any problems with installing, uninstalling or modifying the installation.. Others have. There’s a reason why Nero includes a “general cleanup” tool with their software.

I find that this software tends to work best with a mid to high-end PC running either Windows XP or Windows Vista. On low end or older machines, or on 64 bit “pro” versions of Windows it can be a bit on the buggy side.

BOTTOM LINE

Nero is a HUGE software suite that provides the average (and most above average) computer user with more capabilities than they could ever possibly hope to use.  I’ve been using it for nearly a decade now, and there are still parts of it that I haven’t even touched. It can seem a bit overwhelming when looking at the feature list or reading through the list of applications, but it is so well handled that any features or applications that you don’t use simply stay out of your way.