Look out Nero and Roxio: Cyberlink's DVD Suite 7-a media and disc burning suite-is now a force to be reckoned with. Not only does it sport a consistent, easy¬to-learn, animated interface suite-wide, that puts the ones in Nero 9 and Roxio Creator 2009 to kid on the block. shame, but it also assembles a competitive feature set. DVD Suite 7 includes Cyberlink's industry-leading PowerDVD 8 software movieplayer, its highly rated PowerDirector movie editor/creator, its MediaShow slide-show creator, its PowerProducer movie disc creator, and its Power2Go disc-burning app.

Each ofthe modules is at least as easy to intuit and use as the competition's. New features in version 7 include PowerProducer's ability to import both h.264 and MC, and PowerDirector's ability to export directly to iPod, iPhone, and PSP. Other elements of DVD Suite 7 are Power Backup, a convenient file-based backup utility whose only short coming is that it can't back up open files;

Power DVD Copy, which can duplicate non-copy-protected discs of most types; and the InstaBurn packet-writing application for use with rewritable CD and DVD media. If you feel constrained by the limited quantity of included DVD menu tem¬plates or other content-as did-you can head online and look for more; the offering I found there were all free.

DVD Suite 7 performs just about every disc-related task that the competition can handle--and does so extremely well. Include it in your comparisons with Roxio and Nero when you shop; it's that good.