Nero 7 Premium

...one does.

NERO HOME
Simply put, this is an interface which lets you manage all your media files from one place. Using Nero Scout it will scan your drive(s) for image or sound files when can then be viewed/watched/listened to etc. from Nero Home. I personally haven't found much use for this, I know where all of the stuff I use is located anyway. If you like the idea of a 'one-stop shop' to centralise everything though it may ...
...uninstalled soon.

NERO BURNING ROM
An advanced media burner offering lots of options for burning CD/DVD/VCD/miniDVD/CD-Rom (and more besides). If you get stuck, the instruction manual is fairly helpful, but it's mostly self-explanatory anyway, although not really for the beginner.
For something simpler, try NERO EXPRESS - this is a very quick, very easy way to create music/video/data discs. A step-by-step wizard guides ... more

If you're at all familiar with this software, then you may also be familiar with some of the less than complimentary reviews it's had. After agonising over whether or not this was a good choice or a fatal error for my laptop (based on other reviews), I decided to try the demo and see how I got on - and now I can say that I was more than pleasantly surprised.

Costing 59.99 Euros for the downloadable serial number version and 69.99 Euros for the CD Retail pack direct from Nero, the program has an impressive number of applications. These are:

· Nero Home
· Nero Burning Rom
· Nero Express
· Nero Vision
· Nero BackItUp
· Nero CoverDesigner
· Nero WaveEditor
· Nero SoundTrax
· Nero Showtime
· Nero MediaHome
· Nero Recode
· Nero PhotoSnap
· Nero PhotoSnap Viewer
· Nero ImageDrive

I chose the download version, which at 105MB really made me thankful for broadband. Once installed, a typical installation will take up around 600MB. You also have the option of associating file types automatically with Nero, which can be useful, if you know what you're doing, but confusing if you don't. if in doubt you have the chance to untick all the boxes (so none of your current settings will be changed) so it won't really matter if you make a mistake here. There is also a custom installation option which can save you space, as you pick and choose the applications you want/need. In the hope it might help, here's a brief rundown of what each one does.

NERO HOME
Simply put, this is an interface which lets you manage all your media files from one place. Using Nero Scout it will scan your drive(s) for image or sound files when can then be viewed/watched/listened to etc. from Nero Home. I personally haven't found much use for this, I know where all of the stuff I use is located anyway. If you like the idea of a 'one-stop shop' to centralise everything though it may suit you better. For me, I think this will be getting uninstalled soon.

NERO BURNING ROM
An advanced media burner offering lots of options for burning CD/DVD/VCD/miniDVD/CD-Rom (and more besides). If you get stuck, the instruction manual is fairly helpful, but it's mostly self-explanatory anyway, although not really for the beginner.
For something simpler, try NERO EXPRESS - this is a very quick, very easy way to create music/video/data discs. A step-by-step wizard guides you through and gives good results with the minimum of hassle. If you want to save hard drive space, install this and get rid of the CD burner program you probably got supplied with your PC, it really is that easy to use.

NERO VISION
This is without a doubt my favourite application. Using this I can transfer recordings from my miniDVD+RW to a standard DVD+R (usually getting around 3 mini's to 1 DVD) with very impressive results. All that you need is sufficient hard drive space to store all the data from the source before burning the DVD/VCD (again, it supports a wide range of formats). Once the data is on your hard drive, you can arrange it as you like. It's possible to edit recordings, order them to suit you, and make professional looking slide shows, as well as create chapters etc. for your DVDs. Again, it's a fairly simple step-by-step process, although the manual isn't overly helpful if you get stuck, but with a bit of practice it's easy enough. The price is well worth it for this alone, all the rest is just an added bonus for me.

NERO BACKITUP
Does exactly what it says - allows you to back up files/folders or even your hard drive to CD/DVD, or restore them if the worst happens. A friend tells me this compares favourably to Norton Ghost, but I haven't actually tried it yet myself.

NERO COVERDESIGNER
Again, self-explanatory - it designs covers and labels for your projects. I was a bit disappointed with this, purely because the range of pre-programmed covers was a bit limited. However, it's simple to use and you can always import you own designs, so it makes the grade too.

NERO WAVE EDITOR
Another useful application, it lets you edit and save music tracks in various forms, MP3, WMA and so on. I found this most useful when used in conjunction with Nero Vision for making backing tracks for home movies and slide shows. Although Nero Vision has the option of making a selected clip/slide show fit to the backing track, this means you might have a 1m30s slide show made to fit a 3 or 4m timespan. Easier therefore to chop the track to a shorter length using WaveEditor, and then save/import to Vision.

NERO SOUNDTRAX
Allows you to mix your own tracks, or, more useful to some perhaps, transfer records/tapes to your PC for transfer to other media. This does require the necessary hardware to do so, as you can imagine, but the process is simple and the manual is very helpful as to what exactly is needed. A little fiddly to begin with, but once it's all set up, no problems.

NERO SHOWTIME
Nero describes this as being able to 'turn your computer into a home cinema'. It's basically a glorified media player, think Real or Windows Media Player. If you're happy with your current media player, then you probably won't bother with this - I know I don't.

NERO MEDIAHOME
A server for UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) enabled devices. Basically allows file-sharing across a network - I don't use this very much though as it seems to take up a lot of background memory space and slows things down too much to make it worthwhile.

NERO RECODE
Allows recoding of non-copy-protected DVD movies to DVD or hard drive. I haven't really needed to use this yet.

NERO PHOTOSNAP
A photo editing program, not as basic as the one supplied with Windows but not as many options as, for example, Adobe Photoshop. Exposure, colour, brightness and contrast can be adjusted as well as various filters applied for special effects (negative, embossed, etc.). Very simple to use, and results can be viewed with NERO PHOTOSNAP VIEWER. This is another simple application, a photo viewer with standard features, nothing spectacular. If you already have a good photo editing/viewing program, don't buy Nero 7 just for this.

NERO IMAGEDRIVE
Not quite sure about this one, Nero says it 'sets up a virtual drive, which looks like a real drive and behaves in the same way. It allows you to open and view files and programs that are located on this virtual drive (image)'. If I click on it, it tells me the virtual drive is currently disabled, would I like to enable it? Not sure is the answer, not until I've backed up first, just in case…will try this one in the future.

All in all, it's a pretty impressive package for the price (and you may be able to get it cheaper if you shop around). The main reason for buying this (in my opinion) would have to be Nero Vision, with WaveEditor and/or SoundTrax useful features and the rest just an added bonus. The other applications all have their uses but none to the extent that it would be worth buying the whole package just for them.
There are a couple of other useful features, such as the Nero InfoTool which details just about everything you could possibly ever want to know about your computer system (drivers, hardware, etc.), as well as Nero ProductSetup for removing or modifying selected items…and from a purely aesthetic point of view there are some really nice colour layouts to choose from : )

Pros would definitely include the advanced features on some applications, and the versatility and interchangeability of these to achieve professional results for your projects. Ease of use scores highly (mostly) although it may take a couple of hours playing with the program to get the best from it.
A possible con is that help files aren't included, though they are available free via a separate download. This can be a little frustrating at first as you familiarise yourself with the software, as all you get if you click on 'Help' (as you normally would with any other software) is a message telling you that the files can be downloaded separately. On the other hand, you have the freedom to download individual application help files, thus saving memory space and download time, or if you want the complete package this can also be downloaded as a whole. Certain applications don't seem to have a help file (or not that I've been able to find anyway), such as ImageDrive, but most do, and they're mostly helpful.
I feel I should also mention here other, less than favourable, reviews that Nero 7 seems to have had, as these gave me some qualms about buying this in the first place. The bad reviews seem to centre around an apparent crashing of Windows XP when Nero is installed/used - I'm not sure what the problem is caused by, but I haven't had any trouble. I bought Nero for use on my laptop, which has a DVD writer as opposed to my desktop, which hasn't. As I've said in the past, my laptop (running Windows XP Pro SP2) hasn't always been 100% reliable (see my review for Dell Inspiron 6000) but it doesn't seem to have a problem with Nero. As a test I installed Nero 7 on my desktop (running Windows XP Home SP2) for a couple of weeks and didn't hit any problems, although I have since uninstalled it as the laptop (when it's working!) is more efficient for burning CDs, DVDs etc. I have used Nero regularly, mainly for organising and burning DVDs and CDs, for several months now, and everything is running as it should be.

On the whole, I have to say I really like this program. Some bits of it I've found more useful than others, and when I eventually get round to cleaning up my computer I'll probably remove these components but the main reason I bought it was for burning DVDs, and Nero 7 has given me no cause for complaint so far. I tried a couple of other programs before this but they just don't compare, and I actually bought the full version two weeks into the demo (in case you hadn't guessed!). Suitable for the beginner or the more advanced user, Nero 7 could possibly be almost every software solution you've ever wanted.

(If you're still not convinced though, try the free downloadable demo - it's fully functional (as far as I could tell) for 30 days, and it really is worth a shot!) 

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