ImTOO Blu-ray Creator is a Blu-ray burning software package with a limited bag of tricks; however, the few tricks it does offer are real firecrackers. First and foremost, this Blu-ray burning software allows you to take videos from your high-definition camcorder and burn them to playable Blu-ray Discs. If you want to burn data discs or backup discs, you might be able to twist the application to serve your purpose, but it was specifically tailored for making home-brew Blu-ray movies.
ImTOO's copy quality is impressive. While we noticed a bit of a judder in the preview window while the disc was burning, the application warned us that the video might suffer from lag, with the assurance that the finished product will not carry over the problem. True to form, the finished copy played perfectly and only suffered extremely minor picture degradation.
According to our calculations from a 511MB burn test, it takes approximately 345 minutes to burn a single Blu-ray Disc with ImTOO Blu-ray Creator. For those without a calculator handy, that is five hours and 45 minutes, which is significantly slower than competitors are. To burn a single gigabyte of data, you will be waiting 13.8 minutes. That breaks down further to a single megabyte per second.
The long wait is not appealing, but it might not be as inconvenient as it appears. For burning the occasional home video, all you have to do is initiate the burning process before you go to bed. When the application is finished, it can be set to shut down the computer in your behalf.
ImTOO doesn't quite measure up to the competition with its decryption capabilities. While it can remove region codes so you can play Blu-rays from other localized regions, it can't decrypt discs encoded with BD+ and MKB encryption technologies. If your movies don't use this protocol, however, you should be just fine.
Unfortunately, ImTOO does not support data disc burning. The focus on video discs puts data discs on the back burner, weakening the overall usefulness of the application. Only video files are compatible.
Another huge drawback is the lack of multisession support. Once you have burned a disc (even if you don't fill it up all the way), you will not be able to append it or add any new content; there is no option to disable write protection. Furthermore, the application cannot burn to a disc that already contains data, even if the disc is unprotected. That makes our recommendation to conduct test burns on a rewritable Blu-ray Disc very prudent; if you have a problem, you can just erase the Blu-ray Disc and try again.
The application itself is remarkably easy to work with. Although some of the buttons lack a text label, it is pretty easy to guess their function from the large graphic images. Every video clip in the task tray comes with a thumbnail and file characteristics (duration, resolution and so forth). When you are ready to burn, the burn button is very easy to locate.
It took us approximately 54 seconds to install the software package. If you don't want to install a Bing toolbar on your computer, be sure to pay attention to the installation procedure. If you don't take it slow, you'll give consent to install. Other than that, getting started was easy.
An email address for tech support is available on the company website. You will also find basic tutorials to help get you started as well as a section of FAQs if you need to trouble shoot. Between these three resources, you should be able to resolve your problem.
ImTOO Blu-ray Creator is a wonderful compliment to your Blu-ray burner and HD camcorder. It doesn't burn back-up discs, which is unfortunate. However, for burning home videos in all their HD glory, you will not find an easier application to work with than this one. For playable home videos, it's the best Blu-ray burning software around.
