Roxio Crunch Win/Mac | Product does what it should just fine

Roxio Crunch Win/Mac | Terrible Product

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Roxio Crunch Win/Mac

	Roxio Crunch Win/Mac Windows, Macintosh \| Roxio, 2007 average customer review:based on 51 reviews view larger image
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Product does what it should just fine

Roxio's 'Crunch' video conversion software does exactly what the product box claims it can do - "helps you easily convert your DVD's, movies, and TV shows for use with Apple TV, iPod, and iPhone." What is somewhat misleading though is that if you carefully examine the fine print on the box you will learn that Crunch does not convert copy protected or encrypted DVDs. This is totally to be expected and personally I have no problem with such a restriction, but based on several user reviews posted here it seems that many were mislead on this point and it should be noted more clearly that this product is not an 'out of the box' solution to converting commercial DVDs for view on your iPod devices.

That being said, if you are in need of a software solution to convert a myriad of video formats (e.g. - AVI, DV, QuickTime, Mpeg 1-4, DivX, Xvid, etc.) for use and view on your iPod/iPhone/AppleTV devices, Roxio's Crunch is an elegant and streamlined solution to do just that. Installation is a cinch and the program's interface is simple and intuitive for anyone with a better-then-average grasp of Windows or Mac UI's.

My main gripe though is that the outputting process is a bit slower then I would've liked. Granted, my computer isn't exactly a speed-demon but she's no slouch either. If the output rate could be improved in future updates I'd definitely bump my rating up to 4 stars.

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Terrible Product

I was disappointed with Roxio Crunch compressor/recompressor for iPod, iPhone, and AppleTV. It wasn't what I expected. It does several things that annoy me.

(1) It doesn't compress dvds for personal use. This is a legal problem, not Roxio's. I use Handbrake.
(2) It doesn't compress homemade movies with music bought from iTunes. The error message says use an Apple product. This is really frustrating.
(3) While it has some simple options for recompressing such as "automatic", "high", and "fastest" quality, I don't like the outcome. I found the "high" and "automatic" quality to be quite poor. The "fastest" quality is better, surprisingly. Not just a little better but a lot. Why is "fastest" better than "high" quality? I dunno. It does not seem intuitive.
(4) I use "custom" quality. For custom quality, the options become quite complicated. Fortunately, I have a background in compression, so I am able to understand most of the options. I would recommend that you have a decent background, too, if you want to buy/use this product.
(5) Roxio Crunch is a derivative product of Roxio Popcorn. I know this because when I get errors, the error messages are written for Popcorn and mention Popcorn by name, not Crunch. So it's confused.
(6) I was going to recommend Popcorn, but I noticed that it is getting panned, too.

The product does have some merit. I have recompressed video avi files from my Canon camera into iPod videos. I liked that.

I have a iMac running Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5. If you are not using the same system, your experience could be different.

I wish I hadn't bought this product. I would recommend Handbrake (which is a free download that generally works better). If you are still interested in Roxio Crunch, I would buy it on Amazon as it does seem to be selling for a good price (currently, $33 and change). I bought the product at an Apple store for $50 the other week.

Good luck.

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