Adaptec's Easy CD Creator Deluxe

Emedia Professional, Jan, 1998 by Robert A. Starrett

Shortly after Adaptec acquired the Corel CD Creator product line, the company promised a new product that would combine the best features of Creator and its Easy CD Pro software into a single application. Presumably, this meant the incorporation of Corel's Creation Wizards and some of its graphical elements with the powerful and stable XCD engine at the heart of Adaptec's Easy CD Pro software.

Initial expectations envisioned a fourth quarter 1996 release, but the schedule apparently dragged on and it was only this summer that the product was finally released. The Easy CD Creator package that ultimately emerged was clearly worth the wait. Beyond the familiar CD Creator Wizard and Easy CD Pro engine, which hum along as ably as ever, the Easy CD Creator package packs much more. Headlining a host of included programs are Picture CD Creator, Video CD Creator, and CD Copier. Also shipped with Easy CD Creator is MGI PhotoSuite SE, a picture editor, and Adaptec Sound, a WAV file editor. The final accoutrement in the Creator bundle is CD Catalog, an electronic catalog from CD LabelCorp for ordering CD supplies such as labels, jewel case inserts, CD mailers, storage cases, caddies, and jewel cases.

Beyond the software, Adaptec ships a complete manual, a CD label pack, and a patch cord to connect your turntable or cassette deck to your sound card. The turntable connection may seem an odd inclusion in a CD-Recordable bundle; here it's included to support Easy CD Creator's most attention-grabbing new feature, Spin Doctor, which allows you to create custom audio CDs from existing Red Book audio discs, or from tape or LP through the line input jack on your sound card.

Those of us who thought we'd see CD-Recordable's Next Big Thing in Easy CD Creator's long-anticipated release were right to believe the hype. From the ever-solid Easy CD Pro engine to the easy-as-ever CD Creator interface, from the analog-to-digital magic of CD Spin Doctor to the many benefits of the well-stocked software suite, Adaptec has assembled an intelligently integrated package that reflects well on its noble lineage and meets expectations as the best all-around value in Windows recording software today.

INSTALLATION AND CD CREATION: TRUE TO ITS NAME

CD creation is not all that's easy about Easy CD Creator; installation is a piece of cake. All the programs in the bundle ship on an autorun CD and if autoinsert notification on your PC is switched on, the setup screen appears automatically. Otherwise, users simply click on setup to run the installation, which by default places all the programs except CD Catalog and MGI PhotoSuite on the user's hard drive. The disc also includes a well-constructed, but overly optimistic multi-media presentation that steps quickly through the creation and recording process for each program. We all know, of course, that no CD recording program is that easy.

Clicking on the program icon brings up Easy CD Creator, but its load time seems quite long compared to either CD Creator or Easy CD Pro. The main window, besides the menu and toolbar, shows three tabs for Data CD Layout, Audio CD Layout, and Jewel Case Layout. Data CD Layout splits the window into quadrants; the upper left window shows potential source devices attached to the system, the upper right window shows the contents of the selected drive or directory on the left, and the lower right shows the disc title and directory structure of files that users drag and drop from the file-listing window or from the Windows Explorer. The lower left window shows details of the contents of the disc.

After dragging and dropping all the files you plan to record into the layout, you can proceed to test and record by clicking on the record button on the toolbar. Clicking record presents the CD Creation Setup Window, which allows you to choose a recorder, select the write speed and number of copies, and select one of three writing modes: Test, Test and Create CD, or Create CD. The next tab on the CD Creation Setup Window, Advanced, gives users the choice of leaving the session open, closing the session, closing the disc, or writing in disc-at-once mode. Easy CD Creator explains concisely and clearly the consequences of each choice. The third tab offers a disc summary showing disc type, number of tracks, data to be recorded, temporary space required, layout optimization, file system type, data mode, and logical block size.

Using the Wizard makes creating an audio CD from WAV files easy and straight-forward, although you accomplish the same task by merely dragging WAV files to the audio CD layout window. Once added to the layout window, each track is represented by a different color bar and the program displays track length, filename, and sampling rate. Clicking the record button on the toolbar at this point brings up the same CD Creation Setup window. Clicking OK begins the recording process.

The System Test function lets users test their source drives' data transfer rates and enable hard drive caching if warranted. This function also tests CD drives for audio extraction capability and tests a recorder's ability to record reliably at all enabled writing speeds.