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Many PC owners will be familiar with Nero’s ‘Burning ROM’ – this disc-writing software is, after all, bundled with many drives and PCs. The Nero Multimedia Suite 10 now takes matters on a step further by enabling users to create and organise content as well as commit it to disc. When the software is installed, you’ll find a collection of applications that cover a wide range of tasks including video/photo editing, soundtrack mixing, DVD authoring, video (re)compression, disc-burning and even the backup or recovery of important computer data. Some of these programs link to others, as and when they’re needed.

The timeline-based video-editing functionality (‘Vision Xtra’) contains everything you need to piece together a slick-looking movie, whether SD or HD. It is surprisingly well-designed and easy to use. Movies can be written to DVD/Blu-ray, exported as files or uploaded to YouTube. Audio editing is also allowed, invaluable if you’re transferring music from redundant formats to CD or MP3.

With the ‘Soundtrax’ app, you can edit and mix audio for discrete 5.1/7.1 surround! Although intended for movies, your efforts can be exported to a 448kbps Dolby Digital (.ac3) file. You can derive a lot of sonic ping-pong amusement here, and the results can be heard on your home cinema system.

Dual-layer discs and dual-layer BD-Rs were recorded and finalised without errors.

If you want everything, including the templates and multimedia samples, the suite can occupy almost 5GB of HDD capacity.

The lack of integration with digital TV tuners is a missed trick. It’d be great to watch programmes, edit out the ads and burn what’s left onto DVD.

Nero Media Suite 10
Price: £70 Approx

Overall 4/5