August 16, 2006

The right musical background can greatly enhance your videos or slide shows for home or business and Sonicfire Pro V4 has done all the hard work for you. Because of their vast collection of SmartSound music to choose from, you can quickly and easily find the music you want. The program comes bundled with two of their new SmartSound MultiLayer music disks. And from within the program you can preview any of the entire collection of more than 1,500 songs while you’re editing your soundtrack. If you hear what you want, buy it ($19.95/track), download it, and use it immediately – and it’s royalty free.

Each SmartSound selection is a complete musical piece, with a beginning, middle and end. These specially orchestrated pieces are composed of music blocks that you can rearrange to best suit exactly what you want--or have the program do it for you. Not only that, but the entire selection or any block can be stretched or squeezed time-wise to precisely fit your video. The program can import videos in various formats, such as AVI, DV, MPEG or QuickTime so you can to see the video and match the music to the action.

This newest version of Sonicfire Pro 4 provides automatic Mood Mapping. This feature is used with the new collection of MultiLayer Music and provides, for any given piece, automatic selection of moods such as full, open, light, heavy or variations such as angelic, hopeful, exhale and so on. The choices vary with each piece. Since the music is laid down in tracks with one track being guitar another drums another synth etc you can also directly control the volume of each track. This fine tuning allows one piece of music to create many moods and backgrounds for your productions. Very clever and very useful.

If the video changes tempo, you can insert a different music selection or just change the mood. Add your own (non-Smart) music from your audio CD, and the program will fade the music volume up or down to fit it into the length of time you’ve selected. Save your completed soundtrack music with the video or export the music soundtrack separately.

The SmartSound Maestro offers to help you find exactly the right music for your production. Select the style of music you’re after: blues, rock, funk, classical or whatever, choose a keyword such as energetic, calm, ominous and the like to fit the mood of the music you’d like to try, and you’ll get a list of selections from SmartSound music you already own or from the entire SmartSound collection via the Internet. Choose one and preview it. Don’t like it? Try a different selection.

The program is outstanding in its flexible use of ready-made royalty-free SmartSound music including the new MultiLayer disks and, also, the availability of a vast variety of music makes it easy to add a professional touch to your productions.

Viruses remain a constant threat to the safety of your computer and the data it contains. Another threat comes from spyware, adware or keystroke loggers. These threats, covertly introduced into your computer, can secretly log your on-line behavior, capture personal data such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and such, and relay this information to unknown sources--without your knowledge. Spyware can also redirect your browser to undesirable Web sites and more.

Should you be concerned? Yes. But there are remedies to minimize your risk from both viruses and spyware threats. Norton AntiVirus 2006 (**** out of four) boasts the highest rate of virus detection and removal of any anti-virus program, and this version features spyware detection and removal as well. The program automatically scans and cleans all incoming and outgoing e-mail messages, including attachments and instant messages for viruses and other threats.

Norton AntiVirus 2006 has the ability to scan compressed file archives found in Windows 2000/XP systems and to provide protection against pirated or counterfeit software. All the features of the program are automatically activated "right out of the box" on initial installation, saving you from having to look for obscure or confusing settings. As in the previous versions, keeping the program, its components and the all-important virus and spyware definitions up to date is a snap. Whenever you are logged onto the Internet, the program runs in the background, checks for and installs updates.

A new feature in this version is the Norton Protection Center panel providing concise and understandable information about the status of the program. Also the program blocks changes to the user’s home page caused by spyware hijackers trying to redirect your browser to a spyware Web site. The Quarantine and Restore feature gives you the flexibility of keeping certain low-risk adware programs you may actually want.

The program includes a one-year subscription for the update services($29.95/year after that).

In today’s global, largely uncontrolled Internet computing environment, we can’t recommend strongly enough the need for protecting yourself, and we highly recommended Norton AntiVirus 2006 as a good solution to the problem of viruses and spyware.

Return to Main CD-ROM Archives Page