Roxio Launches Easy Media Creator 9 Digital Media Suite

Sept. 5, 2006--Roxio, a division of Sonic Solutions today launched Roxio Easy Media Creator 9, a substantial upgrade to the company's comprehensive suite of CD and DVD authoring, burning, photo, video and music applications. Reaffirming the company's position as market innovator, the latest version is packed with over 100 new features and trend-anticipating capabilities such as mobile entertainment support, Blu-ray Disc (BD) recording, Microsoft Windows Vista compatibility, and high-definition video creation tools. For the first time, Sonic is executing a near simultaneous release of its market-leading suite across multiple channels and regions to fully support its massive global installed base of customers and distribution partners. Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 is available today at www.roxio.com and will be in retail stores throughout North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region later this month.

"Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 is the perfect solution for our customers' digital lifestyle, bringing together best-of-class media creation and playback tools with virtually universal media output support for taking digital media on-the-go," said Stan Wong, general manager, Roxio division of Sonic Solutions. "With Creator 9 we have not only delivered a great software suite with outstanding upgrade value for users of previous Creator products, but by executing a worldwide multi-channel launch, we are also maximizing the business opportunity for our many channel and distribution partners."

Sonic's Roxio Easy Media Creator has led the North American retail market for over 10 years, including the most recent 12-month period ending July 2006. Creator 9 is designed to entice a new audience to the benefits of a single software package for working with all forms of digital media and next-generation devices, as well as providing a premier upgrade path for the installed base of almost 300 million customers worldwide.

"Creator 9 comes at a time when more people are interested in working with digital content and even creating their own content. With portable media devices, music players, low-cost video cameras, and still cameras, people have more content than ever to work with and more platforms to show and distribute it," said Kathleen Maher, senior analyst at Jon Peddie Research. "The real issue now is not whether people want to create content, they do. What they need now are tools that foster creativity and enjoyment. Creator 9 is part of a new generation of tools that does just that."

Making Entertainment Mobile
To keep pace with consumers' growing interest in mobile entertainment, Creator 9 provides extensive support for portable devices including a wide assortment of video players such as the iPod, PSP, as well as Windows-based media players such as Samsung's Yepp, audio players, and mobile phones. Within Creator 9's Media Manager, the application used for quickly organizing and accessing photos, music, video files, and multi-media projects, users can now upload selected content to their multimedia mobile phones through a USB or Bluetooth connection. Users can send photos and video clips to a phone to create a mobile digital album or even upload music segments as personalized ringtones. In addition to sending personal content to phones, consumers can also send the impromptu moments they capture using their built-in phone camera back to the PC for storing or sharing. Consumers can also transfer their favorite entertainment such as DivX content or recorded programming from a TiVo system or set-top DVD recorder. Consumers can use predefined settings to auto-format files for sending to an iPod, PSP or select from a comprehensive list of supported file formats that can be customized to suit any device.

Securing Memories
Creator 9 confirms its leadership in optical disc recording with the inclusion of Blu-ray Disc support. Creator 9 allows consumers to record to both single and dual-layer BD discs and archive as much as 50 GB of personal data -- or 12,500 music tracks, 50,000 photos or four hours of raw high-definition video. Creator 9 also enables users to span large projects across multiple BD discs and secure content through disc encryption. In addition, Creator 9's Drag-to-Disc packet writing software offers consumers the convenience and efficiency of dragging and dropping files to a Blu-ray Disc in the same way they would place files on a hard disk or flash drive.

Rediscovering Music
Creator 9's already impressive music capabilities are enhanced with new applications including the Audio Capture Widget, which is a desktop application that lets users easily record any audio playing on their computer such as Internet radio programming. The Capture Widget includes a unique Pre-Roll feature that can automatically record and store audio even before the record button is selected. Acting like a Personal Video Recorder for audio entertainment, the Pre-Roll feature ensures users never miss a moment. Another innovative feature of the Audio Capture Widget is the Mute System Sounds feature that lets consumers hear system alerts, while suppressing them from the resulting recording. All programming recorded through the Capture Widget can be modified in Creator 9's Sound Editor and easily converted for output to a portable audio player or disc.

Also new to the audio capabilities in Creator 9 is AutoMix, a feature that automatically generates perfect playlists. Using sophisticated algorithms to analyze and fingerprint each song in a consumer's library, the AutoMix feature defines a complementary mix of music based on a 'seed' track chosen by the user. Consumers can use AutoMix to quickly generate an upbeat selection of songs to motivate them at the gym or a relaxing set to use as background during their next dinner party. Resulting playlists can be defined to fit the size limitations of a portable player, recorded to CD, uploaded to a mobile phone, or used as the basis for creating a DVD Music Disc. A unique feature found only in Creator, DVD Music Disc turns any standard DVD player into a virtual music jukebox with up to 50 hours of Dolby Digital quality music. DVD Music Disc now offers attractive new customizable menu styles and an option for shuffle play.

Hollywood Capabilities for the Home
Easy Media Creator 9 includes a rich selection of authoring and video editing tools that offer consumers the perfect blend of automation and hands-on control. For creating professional-quality videos, consumers can use the high-definition enabled, 32-track timeline editor with advanced video overlay tools and fine-tune editing controls. Easy Media Creator 9 also delivers a host of automated features that enable consumers to achieve stunning results with minimal effort including a one-click color correction tool, automatic background noise removal feature, a fit-to-disc encoding option, and an automated scene editor that allows consumers to easily omit unwanted content from their video programming. The enhanced CineMagic 2 takes consumers' raw video footage and favorite song and automatically generates a polished production complete with professionally-stylized video introductions, special effects, and appropriate transitions that are all synchronized to the tempo of the selected music.

Creator 9 also includes an enhanced version of MyDVD, which allows users to generate blockbuster-style DVDs with new professionally-designed menu styles that include matching scene menus -- coordinated with the CineMagic styles. Consumers can choose to enter the MyDVD Assistant, which will guide them quickly through the production of a personalized DVD or enter the advanced editor and take complete creative control. Advanced features include motion menus, menu-to-menu transitions, and animated buttons.

Additional capabilities typically found only in higher-end DVD authoring applications include advanced support for object and sub-menu linking and comprehensive end action controls, which allow users to precisely dictate the sequence of events following a DVD navigation selection such as playing a title or returning to a menu.

Pricing Availability
Easy Media Creator 9 will be available in September in stores and direct from Roxio at www.roxio.com for $99.99 SRP. Registered owners of Roxio and Sonic products, as well as owners of select competitive products, may be eligible for special upgrade offers. Details are included in the box and at www.roxio.com.

SOURCE Roxio

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