Nero 8 Ultra Edition was once a CD and DVD mastering/burning application. It was easy to use and powerful. However, over the last few updates it has been sprawling to cover a lot of different capabilities, things like video editing, audio editing, still photo and things like that. Even with the sprawl Nero 8 Ultra Edition has today it is still a very good CD/DVD mastering/burning application. However, Nero is now lost in sea of doing everything else under the sun. Unfortunately, with each new version of Nero the sea seems to be getting bigger and its original intended function gets more and more lost. But, this review is not about Nero 8 Ultra Edition but instead about a plug-in package you can purchase from Nero AG to use with Nero 8 Ultra Edition and older and lesser versions (more on that in a second) for a price of $29.99.

This plug-in package adds the following capabilities to Nero 8 Ultra Edition, Nero 8 Essentials, Nero 7 Ultra Edition or Nero 7 Essentials:

• Play your favorite Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs on your PC.
• Experience true High Definition video with brilliant images in Full HD (1080p).
• Enjoy outstanding audio quality up to 5.1 channels with Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Digital Surround.
• Edit HD video content and then burn to Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD.
• Save time by modifying your editable Blu-ray videos right on the disc – no need to copy to another drive!
• Record Blu-ray or HD DVD videos from your HDV or DV camcorder and customize it the way you like by adding menus, play lists, etc., or store content in its raw, compressed format on a Blu-ray Disc without loss of quality.
• Use highly interactive menus and other Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD advanced features throughout movie playback.

This plug-in will enhance your Nero applications with the following technologies:

• HD DVD-Video playback and authoring*
• Blu-ray Disc playback, authoring, and editing**
• MPEG-2 decoding/encoding***
• VC-1 decoding
• H.264 AVC decoding with AVC Film Grain
• Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding/encoding***
• Dolby Digital EX decoding
• Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 decoding
• Dolby TrueHD 5.1 decoding
• DTS Digital Surround 5.1 decoding
• AACS Playback

* HD DVD-Video authoring is only available in Nero 8, playback requires Nero 7.8 or higher
** Playback of BD-ROM 2.0 and authoring or playback of BD-R 2.0 and BD-RE 3.0 (BDMV formats) requires Nero 8.2 or higher. Supported BD-ROM profile is 1.0.
*** Also included in the full version of Nero 8

While this is all good I can't help but feel this plug-in set is a bit of a rip-off. These things should have been included in Nero 8 Ultra Edition or if these were added later, after Nero 8 Ultra Edition shipped then they should have been given free in a patch upgrade. Charging for them just seems greedy. Now for Nero 8 Essentials, Nero 7 Ultra Edition and Nero 7 Essentials charging would have been fine, these lesser and older versions one should expect to have to pay for more features or these kinds of updates. But for Nero 8 Ultra Edition they should have been free, other wise Nero 8 Ultra Edition apparently isn't THAT ultra!

My only other comment is on the applications that come with Nero 8 Ultra Edition that will allow you to use these features and technologies. It is my opinion after spending a couple of weeks checking out the video editing, audio editing and other such programs that come with Nero 8 Ultra Edition that they are all very weak feature wise and not something I would ever use.

None of the applications included in the Nero 8 Ultra Edition package are all that powerful, some are even obtuse in their interface and how they work. The only real strong part of Nero 8 Ultra Edition is the CD/DVD. There are dedicated video and audio and still image editors out there that are just far more powerful and far easier to use. Nero AG's jack of all trades Nero 8 Ultra Edition is really a jack of all trades, unfortunately it doesn't do most of them very well.

In the end even with this plug-in package I would never use Nero 8 for most of this stuff. If you ask me Nero AG needs to either do a much better job of the usability and power of their applications or they need to go back and concentrate on what Nero has always done best and that is burn/master CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs and leave everything else to better programs.

When it comes to disc mastering and burning Nero can't be touched, when it comes to the dozens of other things it does I wouldn't touch it.

Needs

Nero 8 Ultra Edition, Nero 8 Essentials, Nero 7 Ultra Edition or Nero 7 Essentials. This is a plug-in that only works with these versions of Nero and only works with Nero.