Review: CyberLink Media Suite 10 Ultra

CyberLink make some great media software - PowerDirector is probably the best consumer video editor available today - but, unsurprisingly, for the most part it isn't cheap. Equipping yourself with the company's media player, media manager and video editor alone will cost you almost $170, for instance, and that's before you've even thought about disc authoring, file format conversion and other desirable functions. Fortunately CyberLink do offer a more cost-effective alternative in the shape of Media Suite 10. This bundles eleven CyberLink packages together, which makes them vastly cheaper: Media Suite 10 Ultra is $129.95 for the complete set, and if you opt for the Pro build instead (more on that later) then it can be yours for only $99.95. Sounds good. But what, exactly, do you get for your money? We took a closer look. Core packages Buy Media Suite 10 and you'll get five major CyberLink packages. (We don't have space to discuss them in detail here, but follow the links if you'd like more information.) PowerDVD 12 BD Express caters for your media playback needs, DVD, Blu-Ray and even 3D movies and videos. There's built-in support for browsing YouTube, Facebook or Flickr, and the program can now even stream content from DLNA servers. PowerDVD caters for all your video and audio playback needs PowerDirector 10 HE3D is an excellent video editor. Improvements this time include MKV and FLV import, faster rendering, support for 3D video imports and effects, and AVCHD/ BD disc creation. And elsewhere, MediaShow 6 Deluxe delivers enhanced media management with new 3D support and improved face tagging; Power2Go 8 DE, the core disc burning tool, can now mount disc images as virtual drives; and PowerProducer 5.5 Ultra is a powerful tool for template-based Blu-ray and DVD authoring. We would rate PowerBackup 2.6 Standard as next in importance; it's a capable tool for backing up your system to DVDs or Blu-ray discs. And MediaEspresso 6.5 Deluxe is a useful application for converting media files into more mobile device-friendly formats, although the large amount of free competition means it doesn't quite have the value it once did. And the remaining applications are less important: some people might like them, others may use them rarely, if at all. So for instance WaveEditor 2 Standard allows you to edit audio files and create mobile ring tones; PowerDVD Copy 1.5 Standard makes quality DVD movie backups, including automatically compressing dual-layer content to fit 8.5GB onto a 4.7GB DVD; LabelPrint 2.6 Standard is an easy-to-use tool for designing and printing disc labels, and InstantBurn 5 Standard is a packet writing app which allows you to drag and drop files to DVDs or Blu-ray discs just as though they were another hard drive. Not all the bundled packages are particularly important, then. And media-wise, there's a notable shortage of photo editing power (MediaShow has some editing options but nothing exceptional). Still, that's not necessarily a problem: there are at least five applications here with significant commercial value, and as long as you'll use three or maybe four of these then Media Suite still looks like a good buy. Integration When you've this much functionality on offer it can be hard to know which program you should launch to carry out a particular task. But fortunately CyberLink has provided PowerStarter, a simple front-end menu system which generally points you in the right direction. This simple front-end menu makes it easy to find the best CyberLink tool for any given media task Essentially the program breaks down your media life into six tabbed areas: Movie, Video, Photo, Music, Data & Backup, and Utilities. Clicking any of these displays a set of related tasks, so choosing "Video" gives you "Play Video Files", "Advanced Video Editing", "Upload to Social Networks" and so on. And clicking any of these then launches the appropriate program: easy. This integration has its limits. You're still working with a set of 11 individual applications underneath, for instance, and these will individually ask you for registration: you can't register everything in a single action. And initially we were a little annoyed to see pop-up ads and "upgrade!" messages when we first launched some applications. This may seem like a budget deal to CyberLink, but if we've just spent $129.95 on a suite then we'd like to think the company can give the marketing a rest for a while. We only saw a few of those messages, though, and they can probably all be disabled from PowerStarter's settings (clear "Receive CyberLink product information"). So on balance this seems to work well enough, with the program quickly leading you to whatever features or functionality you need. Which version? The key point to remember when you're thinking about purchasing Media Suite 10 Ultra is that it doesn't include the full stand-alone versions of every package: in a few cases these are cut down, and in ways you might not always expect. PowerDirector HE3D has some unexpected restrictions - like no MOV export, for instance The most significant example of this is PowerDirector, where you get the HE3D build. This has some of the high-end Ultra features, including 3D display support; the ability to convert 2D videos to 3D; 3D video effects, and full Blu-ray and AVCHD disc burning. But at the same time, you don't get features like full HD preview; 3D particle effects, and TrueTheater video enhancement. There are less templates for things like slideshows, and some output options are missing (you can't save projects in QuickTime format, for example). And your Power2Go 8 DE build also has some omissions, in particular being unable to create system recovery or video discs. (You can use PowerProducer for your video authoring, of course, but the absence of system recovery options is a shame.) You shouldn't let this put you off entirely. Buy even the most basic stand-alone version of everything here and you'll pay around $430, so even if there are a few missing features then Media Suite 10 Ultra's $129.95 price tag still looks like an excellent deal (as long as you'll make significant use of 3 or 4 of the programs, anyway). And in theory you can save even more cash by opting for Media Suite 10 Pro. It has the same packages, but drops Blu-ray movie playback and most 3D support, amongst a few other issues, and can be yours for $99.95. Whatever edition you're looking at, though, it's wise to be cautious. We think Media Suite 10 is a great way to introduce yourself to the CyberLink range, but it is possible that the various restrictions and omissions could prove annoying to some, so we would strongly recommend that you take the trial build for a spin before you buy.

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Handbrake 0.9.5 introduces Blu-ray support

The Handbrake Project has released a major update of its open-source, cross-platform video conversion tool. Handbrake 0.9.5 is the first update since November 2009 and introduces a number of major improvements that help speed up the conversion process, such as support for batch video scanning and queue editing. It also now recognises Blu-ray discs, although it can’t yet decrypt them. Handbrake is designed to convert just about any video (including ripping unencrypted discs from DVD and Blu-ray) into the MP4 or MKV format. It’s possible to resize, crop and filter the video as it’s converted, making it a good choice for those who wish to convert their video to a format suitable for viewing on a portable device such as the iPod. The biggest standout feature in version 0.9.5 is the addition of support for Blu-ray. Just point the program to the Blu-ray disc or folder, and it’ll now recognise the file structure, allowing you to rip and encode from Blu-ray. There’s still no support for encrypted DVDs or Blu-rays however – you’ll need to pay for third-party software if you wish to convert protected content. Other improvements include the addition of batch scanning and queue editing, which simplifies and speeds up the task of converting multiple video files. Windows users can now also drag and drop files into the program, another feature designed to save time. There are also a number of new and updated presets to support newer devices and improve quality, along with updated libraries and SSA subtitle support. Other OS-specific changes include support for multiple instances of the program (Mac OS X and Linux) and visual status of the encoding process appearing in the GUI in Windows, thus ensuring the command line window remains hidden at all times. Handbrake 0.9.5 runs on Windows (2000 or later), Mac (OS X 10.5 or later, Intel only) and Linux platforms, and is open source.

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New beta version of CCleaner for Mac is limited but shows signs of promise

Piriform Ltd has released a Mac version of its popular CCleaner system cleanup software. Previously only available for Windows, CCleaner for Mac is currently in beta, and therefore far from complete, but at this early stage it is already starting to show signs of promise; if the Windows version of the application is anything to go by, there should be a good deal to look forward to in the future. The beta version of the app can clean up after OS X itself as well as a couple of popular web browser. On the operating system front, you can free up disk space and maintain your privacy by emptying out the trash as well as clearing out the temporary folder and logs such as recent documents, applications and servers. When it comes to cleaning up after your web browser, you are only in luck if you are using Firefox or Safari. In the case of both browsers, CCleaner can erase caches, browsing history, cookies and download history, while Firefox users can also wipe out the saved form information that has been stored. All of these options are controlled by check boxes, so if there's anything you would rather keep - such as form data - simply leave this option unchecked. Using CCleaner is a simple three step process. Start by using the check boxes to indicate which parts of your system you want to clean up, and then click the Analyze button to find out just how many files and how much space is involved. If you are happy to proceed, just click the Clean button and everything will be taken care of for you. Simple and effective, CCleaner helps to speed up a process that could be performed manually, but would be a lengthier task. Future releases of the software will add more features and support for additional applications - while there are no standout features at the moment, this is still worth installing and keeping an eye on over the coming weeks and months. You can find our more and download a free copy of the application by paying a visit to the CCleaner for Mac review page.

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Find your router settings instantly with rCon. (Usually.)

Years of PC-related experience - software development, support and more - have made me the go-to guy whenever friends or family have computer problems, and for the most part that's just fine: I enjoy the technical challenge. There are some issues which seem to crop up over and over again, though. And figuring out exactly how to access the settings page on a router is one of the most common. Of course if you're the organised type then this shouldn't really be a problem. Figure out the IP address once, bookmark it: job done. And even if you don't know your router's address, it's not that difficult to find out. You've probably worked through the necessary steps, yourself. Open a command prompt; enter "ipconfig /all" (less the quotes); examine each "default gateway" address in turn until you find one that isn't blank; enter that address in your browser, and your router page will probably appear. You need to tweak your router settings. But which IP address is that, exactly? Try explaining this to a PC novice, though, and it can sometimes take a while. But while I was spelling out the steps in agonising detail one time, something occurred to me. This is such a mechanical procedure, wouldn't it be very easy to write a little program to do this for them? And so rCon (router Configuration) was born. The program isn't particularly intelligent. At all. Really it's just reproducing the "ipconfig /all" method, but without any manual hassles: cycling through each network interface on your system, looking for one with a default gateway assigned, and when there's a hit, opening that address in your default browser. And this means rCon can run into problems occasionally. If your system has more than one gateway, for instance, rCon won't try to do anything clever to figure out which one is your router: it'll just open the first. If that's wrong, tough luck. And of course if you run the program on a PC where the gateway isn't a router, but another computer on the network, then it'll also fail as your browser finds there's no configuration page to open. For the average XP/ Vista/ Windows 7 home user setup, though, I've found it works just fine. There's no interface, nothing to configure, or even install (as long as you have the .NET Framework on your PC): just download rCon, double-click it and your default browser should open at your router's configuration page. Or the log in page, anyway. Of course there's then the question of which user name and password to use, but that's another issue entirely. And not one that can be easily folded into a little .NET program. So if you can't log in, check your router documentation or a site such as RouterPasswords for more help.

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Download video from the web to your Mac with Grappler

The web is chock-a-block with video: YouTube, streaming video, downloadable movies – the list is endless. Unfortunately, most of it is tied to the internet: you have to be online to access it and watch it through your web browser, which isn’t always the most convenient way of doing things. Grappler promises to change all that for Mac users. This shareware tool is unbelievably simple to use: once installed, you have two choices: if you know the URL, enter it to visit the web site directly, then click on the video – Grappler will detect it and start downloading. If you don’t have a web site in mind, enter your search terms to reveal a list of possible matches, then scroll through the results that Grappler finds on the web. You can view a video direct from within Grappler, visit the parent website it’s taken from and – most importantly – download it to your Mac for viewing offline. Videos selected for download appear in the clip tray at the bottom of the main Grappler window: once downloaded, they’re automatically converted and added to your iTunes library, which has the added benefit of allowing you to port them across to your portable device for viewing away from your Mac. Found a video but only want the audio track? No problem: flick the switch above the clip tray and Grappler will download the audio stream on its own and send that to your iTunes library instead. It’s all unbelievably simple to use, and anyone with a penchant for downloading web-hosted video to their computer will find it irresistible. The downside is that it’s not yet capable of working with all internet-hosted video, but it works with YouTube, Vimeo and many other popular sites, and we trust the developers will widen compatibility as the app develops further. Grappler is shareware, which means it’ll download up to 10 videos before requiring you register for the full program. The asking price - $19.95 – isn’t prohibitive, and Grappler will run on Mac OS X. It’s not made clear which flavours of Mac OS X it’ll work with, but we tested it with OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) with no problems.

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Monitor CPU usage, optimise RAM and set process priorities with PTray

At first glance PTray doesn't seem like the most interesting of tools. Does the world really need another CPU monitor? Probably not: on the rare occasions that we care about our CPU utilisation, Task Manager and Performance Monitor generally tell us everything we need to know. Take a closer look, though, and you'll find there's a little to more to the program than meets the eye. PTray doesn't just display CPU usage, for instance: it shows your free RAM as well. Unfortunately it tries to do this in a single 16x16 pixel system tray icon, which means the figures are absolutely tiny. But if you can't read them then you can always hover your mouse cursor over the icon, which will display extra information (including CPU utilisation by core) in a more legible tooltip. PTray's monitoring function displays free RAM and (in the tooltip) CPU usage by core Clicking the icon will activate PTray's second feature, where the program asks Windows to free up memory by minimising the RAM use of all running processes (it's using the SetProcessWorkingSetSize() API function, if you're interested). This isn't as useful as is sometimes claimed - some applications, like Explorer, will free up RAM then grab most of it again immediately - but can be handy in a few circumstances. And just in case that's not enough, when PTray launches it can also configure your process priorities (equivalent to right-clicking a process and selecting Set Priority in the Task Manager Processes tab). This is very basic: you have to set it up via an INI file, for instance, and the program only uses this to set priorities when it launches. But if you only need to tweak the priority of a few background processes then it may be enough. As a resource monitor, then, PTray is ugly and extremely basic. Its memory and priority tweaks make the program a little more appealing, though, and if you're interested then PTray is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours.

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Shrink your HTML documents with HTML Cleaner

When creating a website you'll almost certainly want to keep file sizes to a minimum, reducing load times and bandwidth usage. So it's a shame that some WYWIWYG editors don't understand this at all, routinely producing bloated code which will inevitably slow you down. Still, don't worry - help is at hand from the free HTML Cleaner. Initially, at least, the program works more or less as you might expect. You can open a single HTML file, or an entire folder; click a button and everything you've chosen will be optimised (we typically saved 9-10% immediately); and you can then view the results to confirm that the code works exactly as it did. What surprised us, though, was just how many optimisations were on offer here. HTML Cleaner doesn't just do the obvious, removing surplus spaces, unnecessary quotation marks, HTML comments, excess carriage return/ line feed sequences, and so on - the program also works at the tag level. Is the target page using unnecessary closing tags, for instance? HTML Cleaner will search for and delete any that you don't need (THEAD and TBODY, say). Every aspect of HTML Cleaner can be tweaked from its settings dialogs Has your WYSIWYG editor generated an empty tag for some reason? They'll go, too. Maybe your page is using long tags where there are shorter sort-of equivalents? HTML Cleaner will search out tags and replace them with , for instance - and the list goes on. We're not entirely happy with all of this. Some will want to keep closing tags for structure reasons, say, and others won't approve of all the tag substitutions HTML Cleaner makes ( for , for instance). But that doesn't matter, as the program is very configurable. If you're not happy with a global function, for instance, such as "Remove HTML comments", then you can generally turn it off with a click. And other options can be tweaked at the tag level. The "Replace tags" feature uses a default set of rules which looks like "ADDRESS=I;BLOCKQUOTE=UL;CITE=I;CODE=TT;EM=I;KBD=TT;SAMP=TT;STRIKE=S;STRONG=B;VAR=I", for example. If you're not happy with one or more of those then you can delete it, and of course you're free to add other rules of your own. Of course this may not be an entirely straightforward process, and so HTML Cleaner probably isn't the best choice for HTML beginners. If you understand what the program is doing and have the time to configure it properly, though, it does provide a fairly quick and easy way to trim your HTML documents down to a more manageable size.

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