Video Projects Power2Go has one of the better interfaces around for creating a video compilation complete with title and menu pages. It can even create a 'mixed mode' disc-one that contains both a standard audio CD alongside data files. In more audio news, Power2Go offers conversion of audio files among WMA, MP3, and WAV. Power2Go displayed elapsed and projected remaining time for the burn, which is reassuring. Burning the same 60-minute album to a blank CD took just 2:25 minutes. When I switched the format to MP3 at 192kbps, ripping the whole Buena Vista Social Club CD took just 2:03 minutes-nearly identical to the result I got with Ashampoo Burning Studio and NCH Express Burn. Music I could rip a CD, and the program helpfully and automatically filled in the album and track titles, but the default form was oddly WMA at 96kbps. Like Ashampoo Burning Studio, CyberLink also offers a desktop gadget for drag-and-drop burning. The app adds entries to the AutoPlay dialog that pops up whenever you insert media that it can perform operations on. Hovering your mouse cursor over any of these displays relevant choices in the lower section of the app's borderless gray window. Interface Power2Go's user interface is the class of the bunch: It's both clear and attractive, with seven large icons across the top to get you to each of the program's main functions: Data, Music, Video, Photo, System Recovery, Copy, and Utilities. Thanfully, it didn't try to install browser toolbars and other piggybanking software, as most other apps in this category do. After the long download, setup took 5 minutes on my test machine, a 3.4GHz quad-core with 4GB RAM and a Lite-On iHAS422 burner. For comparison, NCH Express Burn ($49.99, 3 stars, $59.95) is less than a single megabyte, while Ashampoo Burning Studio ($49.99, 4 stars) weighs in at 180MB.

Setup Getting Power2Go's installer involves a larger download than most competitors, at 442MB.

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