Village Gamer

Corel has announced the release of its first Roxio® product, Roxio® Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus. For anyone who has precious memories on video tape, the new Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus bridges the gap between old and new by making it simple to preserve and share VHS, Hi8 and V8 in today’s digital video formats – whether you’re burning a DVD, sharing on YouTube™ and Facebook®, or saving to mobile devices like iPhone®.

“Over the years, when we picked up our video cameras and recorded the exciting events in our lives, we wanted to have them forever. Now, so many of these irreplaceable memories like weddings, graduations, children’s birthdays and other special family celebrations are locked away on old tapes that are degrading over time while the devices to play them are disappearing. With this simple-to-use product, anyone can convert their aging video tape to digital and save and share the movies that tell their family’s unique story,” said Sean Penn, Vice President of Product Management for Roxio Products at Corel.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus makes it easy to transfer your old analog video tapes to digital by simply plugging in your video camera or VHS player to your computer and letting the software guide you through the process. Bringing together a high-quality video capture device with easy-to-use software, the new Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus includes many enhancements in three key areas:

Great looking video and projects: New image enhancement tools remove noise, stabilize and color correct your videos. Give your final productions a more professional look with Hollywood-inspired titles and credits, new menus, transitions such as wipes and dissolves, and fade-to-black.

Easier than ever to use: Find thoughtful, time-saving features throughout the product, including ‘smart’ contextual help; a new USB device that simplifies setup by automatically detecting the video source format; and new capabilities that make it easy to burn large videos across multiple DVDs if extra disc space is required.

Easy Sharing for Today’s Lifestyle: Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus makes it easy to preserve and share your videos in today’s formats, whether you’re burning a DVD, posting to YouTube or Facebook, or saving to mobile devices like iPhone. Supported formats include MPEG-2, WMV, H.264 AVC and DivX®.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus is now available for purchase from Roxio and will be offered in retail stores later in February. Suggested retail pricing in the US and Canada is $69.99. Registered owners of previous versions of the product are eligible for a special software-only upgrade for $19.99.

The above release news comes on the same day that Corel has announced completion of the acquisition of the Roxio® business from Rovi Corporation. With this deal, Corel has expanded its product portfolio to include Roxio’s broad range of digital media and security solutions, including Roxio Creator®, the industry’s most popular digital media suite and Roxio® Toast®, the leading media conversion software on the Mac® platform. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Corel now adds the Roxio product line, including the following well-known products, to its portfolio:

• Roxio Creator® – Software to enhance, preserve, capture and share your digital media
• Roxio® Toast® – The ultimate multi-media toolkit for your Mac
• Roxio® Game Capture – Software and hardware solution to record your console gameplay
• Roxio® Easy VHS to DVD – Convert analog video tapes to digital video for sharing on DVD, online and mobile devices
• Roxio® CinePlayer® DVD Decoder – Watch your favorite DVDs on Windows Media Player
• Roxio® BackOnTrack™ Suite – Complete media protection solution that automatically keeps your memories safe and protects your PC from both hardware and software disasters
• Roxio® Secure Products – Powerful encryption for optical media and USB flash drives

“We want Roxio’s customers and partners to know that these products are an important addition to our portfolio and they will have a great home with Corel,” said Shawn Cadeau, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing at Corel. “We look forward to bringing together the best of what Corel and Roxio have to offer as we work to deliver even richer, more rewarding experiences to our customers.”

With this acquisition, Corel will take advantage of its well-established global infrastructure to dramatically broaden distribution of Roxio products into new international markets. In addition, the company will draw upon the complementary video, photo, audio, and disc burning technologies found in both Roxio and Corel software to give users even more capabilities and further enhance Corel’s overall product portfolio. Corel also sees significant opportunities in combining the strengths of Corel’s and Roxio’s established retail and direct sales channels and large customer bases.