Roxio Creator Suite 9 is less of a whole new product and more of general smartening up.

The Home utility is still the first port of call for using the software. It is task-led and doesn't expect you to know which application to use. This is by no means a bad thing, not least because of some less-than-helpful program names.

If you prefer, it is still possible to show a list of programs. The Home screen also now reads internet pages from Roxio with news of new products or updates.

Roxio is quick to point out that Blu-ray support is now built into Creator so you can take advantage of the bigger capacities as and when new drives are made available.

Blu-ray is not restricted to high definition video – the extra capacity can be used for backups and data projects.

HD-DVD support isn't available yet, but is planned to be released as a patch in the future.

As nothing has been taken away since the previous version, you can read a good overview of the basics in our review of Creator Suite 8 .

A particularly useful feature is the DVD Music project. Creating an Mp3 DVD is not new to Creator but there is now a random play option. This is ideal for background music as a DVD can hold many hours of music in Mp3 format.

A more advanced version of this, the AutoMix, is able to automatically generate playlists based on the mood of a song.

Capturing audio has been made easier with automatic record in the Sound Recorder program. It buffers a set time before the record button is pressed, which makes it less critical to have fast reactions – especially when recording from the internet.

Another convenient feature is the Mute System Sounds option. This prevents sounds from other applications such as notifications ruining recordings.

An Autopause tool helps to save hard disk space when making unattended recordings. This senses periods of quiet and pauses recordings.

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