X-oom's iPod Media Suite combines four individual applications to offer an all-in-one solution for the iPod aficionado.

X-oom Photoshow on iPod helps you collate images into an animated slideshow. You can drag and drop your photos onto a storyboard layout, and adjust settings such as transitions and events between each one, adding music, text and effects to your masterpiece.

However, these aren’t presented in a way that facilitates speed or ease of use, and you’re left playing back the slideshow as a whole to see how each portion looks, making larger collections difficult to manage.

If you’re prepared to take the time to trawl through the software and build your show, you’ll find everything you need, but it will take some time.

Movies on iPod converts video files from either the hard drive or DVD to mp4 format so you can play them back on your iPod. The software consists of just two screens, and aside from some basic options to adjust the quality or file size of the finished product there’s not a lot else to it.

On major problem is that we couldn’t get video files to convert direct from the hard drive, despite trying over a dozen different files in four different formats. According to the manual, the software is capable of converting any video that plays back on your computer, so there shouldn’t be any codec issues here.

Conversion works fine direct from a DVD, although it won’t handle copy-protected discs.

The X-oom iPod Backup Manager is a simple backup tool offering some rudimentary options to change the format of the filenames and tracks saved with ID3 tag information. Backup and restore buttons allow you to create copies of selected files or your entire collection.

You wouldn’t expect much more from a utility of this type, and it performs its function fairly well.

X-oom Mp3 Radio Recorder is where you really see the suite come alive, offering the ability to browse hundreds of online radio stations and record streaming audio to your hard drive. You can then edit and add these to your collection or transfer them direct to your iPod.

The range and quality of stations is impressive, offering bit rates of up to 320kb/s, and the quick search feature allows you to include title or genre information to narrow down to a suitable list of stations.

From here you can either listen to the station as it streams or record the audio to your hard drive to listen to later.

What’s really impressive is that it splits the audio stream into tracks labelled by ID3 tag information that is retrieved with the music. This allows you to leave an internet radio station recording for a couple of hours and come back to a find a few dozen mp3 tracks recorded on your hard drive.

Once you’ve got the music you can edit it with the built-in audio editor, tweak the ID3 tags or transfer it directly to your iPod or audio CD.

Another impressive feature is the record filter, which allows you to identify artists or songs you’re specifically looking for, and to tell the software to save these tracks if they play on the station you’re monitoring.

However, recording and saving of individual songs isn’t perfect, often missing the start or the end, and you do notice occasional skipping.

Considering what you’re getting for the price of the package (potentially unlimited free music), it’s difficult to complain. And if you want the Mp3 Radio Record utility by itself, you can pick it up for a bargain £15.

Overall, X-oom iPod Media Suite needed the four applications bundled together just to make it reasonable value for money. Despite this, the collection isn’t consistent enough to warrant a full recommendation.