Nero 8 was released about a week ago. I've not used Nero for a while and the last version I used camme with a DVD writer I bought. We'll have a full product review of Nero 8 shortly, but for now, first inpressions!

First of all - this product does a lot, introducing itself as the worlds best selling 'digital multimedia suite'. The latest version builds on the success so far, adding support for both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD along with integration with several on-line video sharing services including thei own 'My Nero'.

Functions include media playback, media creation and data backup and restore. For those of you without Windows Media Center or Vista Ultimate, Nero 8 includes a Media Center equivalent called 'Nero Home'.

For anyone that's used Nero in the past and found it difficult to find their way around, it's claimed this version has put a lot of effort into ease of use. Personally I still found a number of inconsistenciee, probably the result of disparate development teams for the various elements of the suite.

Because this application does so much a front-end application is provided - called 'StartSmart' that provides a task orientated interface with the intention of driving the inexperienced or occassional user to the correct part of the application based on what they want to do.

There are a few glaring ommissions - for example I found it impossible to generate a 'Flash Video' file, which is a popular format for on-line video publication.

At £49.98 from Amazon (RRP closer to £60) you get a lot of functionality for the price!

We'll have a full review shortly!

Update : Read the full review here.