It’s hard to categorise Easy Media Creator, Roxio’s suite of programs.

It can manipulate photos and download them to a mobile phone or media player, transfer music to and from a music player, edit videos and copy them from video to DVD and even handle backups. It’s a media jack-of-all-trades, but how many can it master?

Down the left-hand side of the main menu screen are all the key feature areas, including video, photos and music, where different applications within the suite are gathered together. Down the right-hand side are the most popular applications, such as Photosuite 10 and Videowave 10. These are substantial applications – perhaps not up to the likes of Photoshop Elements or Ulead Video Studio, but well capable of everyday editing and organisation.

In the centre of the screen is an area where hints and tips drawn from the Roxio website are displayed, along with advertising for other Roxio products. The main applications have had useful updates since version 9: Videowave 10 now includes Smartsound, which tailors background music or sound effects to the length of a video. The software supports writing to HD DVD and Blu-ray discs and a one-click upload to Youtube, and can capture and edit high definition video.

Audio is another strong part of the suite and automation facilities such as the AutoMix feature, which creates a collection of songs with a similar sound from a single ‘seed’ song, are well implemented. The backup program, Back OnTrack, can write to a wide range of media, including external hard disks, Blu-ray and HD DVD. It can even remind you to back up files each time an external hard disk is connected to the PC.

As well as the main applications, there are plenty of utilities to fill the gaps, including like the audio converter for moving audio files between formats, including WAV and WMV, and Disk Image Loader, which assigns space on the hard disk to load a copy of any CD, so it can run without needing the disc.

Version 10 of Easy Media Creator is fully compatible with Windows Vista and includes new Vista gadgets – which sit in the Sidebar – for quick conversion of audio and video files. Mobile Photofit is a handy little tool for anybody with a mobile device, resizing photos for each device.

This is the kind of suite it's useful to keep on the computer for all the niggling little tasks that might otherwise catch users out. For any task related to pictures, music or video, there's bound to be one of the many applications and utilities here suited to the task. Looking at all that’s available in Easy Media Creator 10, £60 is a reasonable price.

Vista compatible: Yes