Cyberlink DVD Suite 7 Ultra

Look out, Nero and Roxio: Cyberlink DVD Suite 7 Ultra — a media and disc-burning suite — is easier to use and almost as powerful as the competing offerings from Nero and Roxio. Not only does it sport a consistent, easy-to-learn, animated interface suite-wide, that puts the ones in Nero 9 and Roxio Creator 2009 to shame, but it also assembles a competitive feature set. Like the Nero and Roxio suites, it sometimes provides the same functionality in more than one module, but not to the same confusing degree.

Cyberlink DVD Suite 7 Ultra includes Cyberlink's industry-leading PowerDVD 8 software movieplayer (Blu-ray and HD DVD included), its highly rated PowerDirector movie editor/creator, its MediaShow slide-show creator, its PowerProducer movie disc creator, and its Power2Go disc-burning app. Each of the modules is at least as easy to intuit and use as the competition's.

New features in Cyberlink DVD Suite 7 Ultra include PowerProducer's ability to import both h.264 and AAC (the Ultra Suite edition exports h.264 only), and PowerDirector's ability to export directly to iPod, iPhone, and PSP.

The updated PowerDVD now decodes AAC audio tracks, too, and it has new library functions that allow you to keep track of the videos on your system more easily.

Other elements of Cyberlink DVD Suite 7 Ultra are PowerBackup, a convenient file-based backup utility whose only shortcoming is that it can't back up open files; Power DVD Copy, which can duplicate non-copy-protected discs of most types; Label Printer, an uncomplicated label creator; the InstaBurn packet-writing application for use with rewritable CD and DVD media; and access to Cyberlink's new online content and community.

If you feel constrained by the limited quantity of included DVD menu templates or other content, you can head online and look for more; the offering we found there were all free and seemed to be of a high quality.