Nero Multimedia Suite 10 review

Nero’s suite of multimedia software has grown in recent years to include video editing, multitrack audio support and Blu-ray authoring. It’s a far cry from the CD burning software it started out as.

It’s now in its tenth iteration and, as you’d expect, there’s plenty of new stuff to play with. Most obviously the application launcher has been given a makeover, as has the all-round UI.

The look is slightly less old-fashioned than before and cleaner too, but some of the applications, such as the audio wave and multitrack editors, are still in desperate need of a bit of attention. It isn’t the sleek, modern integrated suite that CyberLink Media Suite 8 is.

More significant are the added features, of which there are quite a few. Nero is pushing its photo, video and music organiser software hardest, although we’re not quite sure why.

The application allows you to browse, edit and tag photos, and display slideshows, create playlists and movies, all from the one interface. It’s neat and tidy enough, but there’s little here that Picasa doesn’t do, and plenty of features it leaves out.

The most glaring omission is a lack of support for RAW camera formats, but it also lacks face recognition – a feature any photo organisation software worth its salt should be implementing these days. Movie playback, although competent, isn’t currently as flexible as PowerDVD 9 (the player included with CyberLink Media Suite 8) either.

The latter can be upgraded to play back commercial Blu-ray movie discs; Nero currently can’t, although it’s planning to introduce a paid plugin later this year.

Also new in this edition is the full version of Nero’s backup product, BackItUp & Burn. This is a far more useful addition than the media organiser and includes some surprisingly advanced features, incremental and differential backups for one, and deleted file recovery for another.