NTI Introduces NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum

[Ian]

NTI Introduces NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum

NTI adds powerful audio, video and DVD features to flagship NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum.

IRVINE, CA - Oct. 29, 2002 - NewTech Infosystems, Inc. (NTI), developer of the industry's easiest CD/DVD burning software, announced today a brand new version: NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum. This release adds a wide array of new features including support for DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. In addition, NTI CD-Maker 6 now burns Data DVDs as well as copies of non-protected DVD discs.

NTI CD-Maker 6 also adds many new Audio and Video features such as MP3 CD and WMA CD, on-the-fly multi-track volume balancing, improved MP3 encoder/decoder support, VCD/SVCD SlideShow with background audio, VCD/SVCD Menus, on-the-fly AVI to MPEG-1/2 conversion, an audio wave editor and an enhanced version of NTI's JewelCase Maker.

"NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum delivers all the powerful features demanded by power users with the ease-of-use required by novices," said Bill Yao, President and CEO of NTI. "We've worked hard to ensure that these exciting new features fit seamlessly into our trademarked EasySteps® interface. Features by themselves are just not enough anymore. Users demand the perfect blend of power and simplicity. That is exactly what we have delivered with NTI CD-Maker 6."

New Features for NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum

·DVD-Copy for DVD-R/-RW and +R/+RW.
·Data DVDs for DVD-R/-RW and +R/+RW.
·DVD-RW and DVD+RW support for FileCD packet writing.
·MP3 CD and WMA CD with autorun and playlist support.
·Enhanced MP3 encoding/decoding performance and flexibility.
·On-the-fly Multi-track volume balancing.
·Video CD (VCD)/Super Video CD (SVCD) SlideShow (with background audio).
·VCD/SVCD Menus
·MPEG-1/2 Encoder from AVI source files. Includes the ability to encode DivX AVIs for VCD/SVCD creation.
·Audio Wave Editor.
·Enhanced JewelCase Maker 2.0.
·Live Update for drive support database.
·Gives users with non-admin rights on NT/2000/XP systems the ability to burn CDs.
·Adds support for the newest drives on the market.

Pricing and Availability
NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum is scheduled to be available in early November for an estimated retail price of US$69.99. Retail customers will be able to purchase CD-Maker 6 Platinum from leading retail stores, NTI's online store at www.NTIus.com, as well as other online retailers. Volume Site License to businesses is available directly from NTI at a discount price based on volume. The OEM bundle version of NTI CD-Maker 6 is also shipping at the same time to CD and DVD component manufacturers and PC / notebook system manufacturers.


About NewTech Infosystems (NTI)
New Tech Infosystems ("NTI") is an industry leading developer of powerful, feature-rich, and easy-to-use software for CD and DVD recording. NTI has developed and delivered innovative recording and backup solutions since being founded in 1993. As a pioneer in the world of CD recording technologies and software, NTI released the world's first CD Copy software in December of 1995. With the debut of NTI Backup NOW! in 1998, NTI was the first software developer credited with bringing state-of-the-art optical recording technology to the realm of computer data backup and recovery, a field traditionally dominated by magnetic tape technologies.

The NTI family of products includes: NTI CD-Maker™, NTI Backup Now! ®, NTI DriveBackup!, FileCD and Dragon Burn. NTI differentiates itself with superb user-friendliness that effectively enables powerful exploration of multi-media functionalities built on the principle of "Power with Simplicity". NTI products are currently available in multi-lingual versions, and are distributed and available through retail outlets, on-line purchasing, volume licensing and OEM's.

NTI is headquartered at: 5 Mason Drive, Suite 150, Irvine, CA 92618.
Phone: +1-949-421-0720
Fax: +1-949-421-0750
www.NTIus.com


Editors Note: For more information, photos/illustrations or a review copy of CD-Maker 6 Platinum contact andy@markencom.com

NTI CD-Maker, NTI Backup Now!, NTI DriveBackup!, FileCD, DragonBurn, NTI DVD-Maker and EasySteps are trademarks of NTI. All other marks and names are the property of their respective owners.

[CranksterCat]

There are some issues with this version freezing up under Windows XP. Have read on several other CDR Forums about others having this problem.

[wmtanner]

Dear CranksterCat,

While I cannot say that you have not actually seen such posts on other forums, I can say that it is rather unlikely that there is any truth to these posts since this version was just announced and is not yet on sale or even shipping. That is scheduled to happen early next month.

I would also like to caution you not to believe everything you read on a forum about a product. Also keep in mind that any such posts that were somehow legitimate would have to be based on BETA versions of code and not the shipping product. Please understand that any problems that we have encountered during BETA testing would be fixed before releasing a product as a Gold Master.

I can also tell you that we maintain tight control of any product before it is released. The chances of those reports being real or factual are very small indeed. Additionally, our BETA testers are under a non-disclosure agreement, further reducing the possibility that these reports are real or are factual in nature.

Finally, I would like to let you know that posting something without having first-hand knowledge is dangerous. I couldn't help but notice that your post does not make the claim the you have used CD-Maker V6 yourself and had lock-up problems under Windows XP. As we all know that would have been impossible under the circumstances. This kind of posting is careless and helps nobody. Unfortunately, it amounts to nothing more than gossip. I am reasonably sure that the operators of these forums do not appreciate this kind of posting at all. They have always offered a very valuable and legitimate forum for everyone that cares to visit. They do very thorough product reviews and we will be asking them very soon to test V6 as they have tested previous versions of our CD-Maker product.

If you have any further questions please contact me and I would be glad to discuss them with you personally.

Regards,

William Tanner
Product Marketing Manager
NewTech Infosystems, Inc.

[dimitri]

...this version was just announced and is not yet on sale or even shipping. That is scheduled to happen early next month...

Regards,

William Tanner
Product Marketing Manager
NewTech Infosystems, Inc.

Dear William Tanner,

Can you clarify in that case, what exactly is the "NTI CDMaker 6 Platinum Edition" that was brought out a couple of month ago by "Brotherbund" ?

Thanks

[wmtanner]

Dimitri,

Broderbund is our distributor for CD-Maker in all retail channels. They are currently bringing several CD burning packages to the market under the Total Burn brand name. Total Burn Platinum and Total Burn Platinum Suite are two of these titles that are either available in the stores now or will be very soon. They can also be purchased from Broderbund's web site @ www.broderbund.com. These Total Burn packages are currently based on version 5.5 of our CD-Maker software.

In addition, they will also bring our NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum out soon which is our version 6.0 product. It is scheduled to hit the store shelves in November or it can be purchased from either Broderbund's web site as listed above or directly from NTI @ www.ntius.com.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Bill

[Inertia]

Hi, William Tanner. How are you.

Please allow me to fix the link for Broderbund and include the link for Total Burn™ Platinum.

I agree with your statement about internet gossip. One has to be very wary of information on forums however well meant, for a high percentage of it is either distorted or just plain wrong.

It has to be a new low when a product is badmouthed before it is even released.

[dimitri]

Bill,

"NTI CDMaker 6 Platinum Edition" has been already brought out a couple of month ago by Broderbund. I'm not a zombie, I saw the CD.

A friend came with the CD, more than a month ago, to show to me and to ask for my opinion. The latest files on that publication were from August 2002.

I had the CD on my machine, when it starts you get a menu, one of the options is "Visit our website" . When I pressed that button it brought me to the Broderbund site. Never heard of them before. I thought it was strange that NTI don't say a word about platinum 6 on their site.

I wanted to install and have a look, but when the installer told me to get rid of Nero first (rename the Nero95.vxd) I aborted the installation. Any software that's not ready to live in peace with Nero is NOT welcome on my machine. It's as simple as that.

Sorry
dimitri

[emem]

Maybe it was just a dream dimitri?

[cw@NTI]

Dimitri,

I hate to be a pill, but the last build that required the VXD file to be renamed was 5.0.16 which was shipping in November / December of last year.

In August of 2002 we were still in the midst of QA testing with Broderbund. It is simply not possible that you had a authorized & finalized version of the software at that point. In fact we received our first shipment of pressed V6 CDs yesterday. The final code has only been complete for the last few weeks.

emem: your screen shot is very clever. We probably would have been more impressed if you had posted it in August, or September, or even October for that matter.

CW

[dimitri]

CW,

Thanks for replying.
First I want you to understand that I don't have anything against NTI or CDMaker. On the contrary, I welcome any good software and I will be very happy to see some healthy competition going, it's good for us

Secondly, if you're saying your new app will coexist happily with Nero, I'll be more than happy to give it a try. I will look forward for a trial version.

Lastly, I think you have here something much more serious than a bogus screen shot. I've seen this screen shot on the net as well, in September! I'm also telling you I saw the CD and I have no reason to invent a story like that. That was definitly (presented as) platinum 6.0. Though I didn't go through with installation, the installer had Platinum 6.0 on it.

I suspect you've had a leak from Broder... - perhaps a beta - latest file date was August 28 2002.

I'm on your side here CW&Bill, but I suggest, in a very friendly manner, you check your own (NTI) act first.

dimitri

[wmtanner]

Hi Dimitri,

I can only tell you that the final release is not available from any stores or even Broderbund's own web site. Please go there and check it out for yourself @ www.broderbund.com (I got it right this time Inertia ) While copies of the code were available in August, they were only sent to Broderbund as BETA code. I highly recommend that you understand that it is early BETA code and should be treated as such. If it works for you then fine. You might think about purchasing the real shipping version once it is available.

As for compatibility between NERO and CD-Maker, there are no known issues there. We have had problems with both NERO and Roxio in the past but it looks like they have been resolved. We did check for the existence of certain NERO and ROXIO files and display a warning but there is no longer any need to rename these files as the prompt suggests. I do think that this test has been removed as Chris indicated in an earlier post but I will double-check. If it hasn't been removed then it probably should be so as to avoid this type of confusion in the future.

I've noticed that interestingly enough, both CranksterCat and emem have only posted a single message on this forum. It seems rather odd to me that their one and only post to this forum is to ring in on this issue. One of them has a screen shot but yet it is their first and only post to the CDRLabs forum. Dimitri, I have seen your name here often and will therefore reply to your posts. As for the other two, all I can say is identify yourself and I will be more than glad to talk to you. Tell us all who you are and I will help to get to the bottom of this for everybody.

Please understand that if anybody here has a copy of CD-Maker 6 on their machines right now it is very likely to be BETA code and should be treated as such. The shipping version will be available very soon. I will come back and make sure to post it here when it ships.

Thanks,
Bill

[Ian]

It looks like I joined this conversation a little late. Bill, thanks for setting everything straight. Hopefully NTI can get us a copy soon so we can show some real screenshots.

Ian

[wmtanner]

Hi Ian,

We are looking forward to the results of your review. Certainly, that would clear up a lot of things.

Bill

[emem]

NTI CD-Maker 6 Platinum
for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Version 6.0.0.28
With Burner Database Version 68

A. List of Supported CD-R/RW Drives
-----------------------------------
01. 1394 (Acer): CD-R/RW 12X8X32.
02. 2.4X2.4X8 (Lite-On): 121032.
03. AccessTek: CD-RW CW0801, CW1601, CW1601A, CW3201, CW4001, CW4002, CW4801, CW4802.
04. ACTIMA: ARW4420, ARW4420S, ARW4424P, ARW4432P, G44A24, G44P24, G44A32, G44P32.
05. AOPEN: CRS446U, CRS9420, CRS9624, CRW620, CRW622, CRW8432, CRW8832, CRW9420, CRW9420S, CRW9624, CRW9624S, CRW9632, CRW9832, CRW1232, CD-RW CRW1232 A, CRW1232PRO, CRW1632, CRW1632 A, CRW2040, CRW2440, CRW2448, CRW3248, CRW4048, CRW4050, CRW4850, CRW4852, DRW4624, DRW8120, 4X IDE CD-RW, 4X4X20 IDE CD-RW, 4X4X20 SCSI CDRW, 4X4X20 SLIM CDRW,
.................
.................



CDRW-2410E, CDRW-4012E, CDRW-4812E, CDRW-4816E, CDRW12-12-32plus.
94. ULTIMA: WRA-GA32, WRA-KA40, WRA-OA40, WRA-WA40.
95. USB (ACER): CD-R/RW 4X4X6, 6X4X6, 8X8X8.
96. VERBATIM: 241040AL, 241040AT, 241040AA, 241040AB, 321240AL, 321240AT, 321240AA, 321240AB, 401248AL, 401248AT, 401248AA, 401248AB, 401248AX, 481248AL, 481248AT, 481248AA, 481248AB, 481648AX, 481648AB, 481648AA, 482448AL, 482448AX, 523252AL, DVRW1AR, DVRW1AP, DVRW1AB, DVRW1AA, DVRW1AX, DVDR1AP, DVDR1AB, VBT241040A, VBT321040A.
97. WAITEC: ALADAR, ALADAR/1, CD-R WT2082, WT3284, CELERUS, FRISBY, FRISBYII, RAPTOR, RAPTOR RED, SAURUS, SFINX16, SHUTTLE, STORM24, STORM32, STORM40, STORM24/1, STORM32/1, STORM40/1, STORM48/1, T-REX, TITAN, WT624, WT824, WT2422EI, WT2444EI, WT3244EI.
98. WPI: CDRW-622, CDRW-642e, CDRW-1622e, CDRW-1622, CDRW-1688, CDRW-2422, CDRW-4424, CDRW-4432, CDRW-8432, CDRW-8432i, CDRW-12832.
99. YAMAHA: CDR200, CDR400, CRW2260, CRW4260, CDR401, CRW4001, CRW2261, CRW4261, CRW2216S, CRW2216E, CRW4216S, CRW4416S, CRW4216E, CRW4416E, CRW6416S, CRW8424S, CRW8424E, CRW8824S, CRW8824E, CRW2100E, CRW2100IX, CRW2100S, CRW2200E, CRW2200IX, CRW2200S, CRW-70, CRW3200E, CRW3200S, CRW-F1E.

[cw@NTI]

Thanks for establishing that you have managed to get a beta (v6.0.0.28)! The first release from Broderbund should be 6.0.0.39.

[emem]

If that release is even better, you might have a winner there!
I have basically no problems with this one. I wish you'd improved the childish gui though, but I could live with it.

FYI the Cdmkr32.exe is build 6.0.0.29

LOL the invisible beta

Ciao from Hong Kong,
emem

[cw@NTI]

Yes, it should be less buggy! Thanks for the endorcement. The GUI is an improvement over V4/5, we'll obviously be looking at that for the next major release. :D

[dimitri]

Glad that one is sorted out - sort of

[dimitri]

November 9 2002

Still not a SINGLE word whatsoever on the NTI official site, not even in the news section, about Platinum 6

[wmtanner]

Soon Dimitri, soon...

[dimitri]

Yes it's there now, hurray!

Downloaded the trial version and guess what: It tells me to rename the Nero VXD!!

Wasn't it CW@NTI who just said: "I hate to be a pill, but the last build that required the VXD file to be renamed was 5.0.16 which was shipping in November / December of last year." ???

That aside, I ignored the warning and it installed smoothtly and burns happily, without renaming that vxd.

[dodecahedron]

Downloaded the trial version and guess what: It tells me to rename the Nero VXD!!

Wasn't it CW@NTI who just said: "I hate to be a pill, but the last build that required the VXD file to be renamed was 5.0.16 which was shipping in November / December of last year." ???

That aside, I ignored the warning and it installed smoothtly and burns happily, without renaming that vxd.

well, he wasn't strictly wrong, then.
it does not require the file name to be changed! it just wanted it...

[cw@NTI]

Dimitri,

You are right, that message still comes up on 98/Me systems

In the old version, if you selected "no" when getting that menu option, it would halt installation. Now, it asks, but isn't required.

We are going to see if we can get rid of the message completely.

CW