This review started off very badly. Ran the install program off the CD that came in the box without incident (Open DBX.dmg, then drag this icon to your Applications folder.) The problem arose when it asked for the serial number. [I HATE serial numbers, especially if I have to fat finger them!] In this case it's provided by a label, pasted onto the tyvek envelope; a 21 digit monster with 3 hyphens, consisting of upper-case alphas and numbers, some of which were zeros-without-slashes, or were they "oh"s? After many frustrating tries (Ohs, zeros, no hyphens, lowercase, uppercase, etc) NOTHING worked so I wrote to support at NTI:

Partial text: "I tried to launch DragonBurn 4 for the first time, and it says my key is invalid... Please send me a key without 0s, is, Os, or 1s. I also tried with and without the dashes. I even tried rebooting. I'm now totally frustrated!"

Part of their response, with [my comments] embedded:

If you installed the trial version software, [I had not] it will gives [sic] you option [sic] to 'Try More' or 'Activate'. If you like the software and purchased [sic] the full version software, you will receive the serial number from us which will activate the software as a full version. Note that if you purchased the download version software from us [I had not], or you actually bought the full version software from the store, [Erm, I had an NFR copy, presumably a "full" version] you will need to uninstall the free trial version [N/A] from your computer, then install the software again using the download or box version, that should work.

When asking for the serial number, try to copy & paste [No can do] it directly from the email to see if that work [sic]. There should be only 'zero' [sic] in the key.

Next problem: will it work on MY DVD burner? As specified in the System requirements above, it works on **any NTI-supported CD or DVD recorder**. NTI provides a list of some 3477 models by brand, that work, at www.ntius.com/default.asp?p=support/supdrives.

My DVD burner is YAMAHA CRW8824IX, which I picked up at a MarketPro computer show for 40 bucks. I had long since given up on it under Toast and bought a "Mac Compatible Plextor (PLEXTOR DVDR PX-712A), which worked after I upgraded to Toast Titanium 6. So I had swapped out YosemiteMoe's CDROM drive for the Plextor and resigned to using the Yamaha as a paperweight.

The mere fact this thing even BURNs DVDs on that cheapo drive convinces me it's well worth its reasonable price. However, I have not exhaustively tried the many enhanced capabilities of the package, like:

• Video Mastering
• Creating VCD/SVCD from standard-compliant MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files.
• Creating Movie DVD from Video_TS (.VOB files, etc.)
• Picture CD
• Volume Balancing songs
• Mixed-Mode and CD Extra formats
• Multi-Burning
• Double-layer media support
• and the awesome-sounding "Disc Spanning"

The box contains a thoroughly adequate 76-page manual, with an excellent glossary and index. Seemingly, it was written by techies, not marketers. In fact everything about NTI smacks of techies, not marketers—a real plus in my book. That email, even with its typos leaves me confident in its technical information.

In summary, although I did not exhaustively test all of Dragon Burn's features, everything I threw at it was successful, and I did like its GUI better than Toast's. But I spoke to some other UG members who had tried to evaluate it, but could not get it to work, gave up, and purchased Toast 7 instead.

* Be that as it may, there is a half price sale on it right now, at www.ntius.com/default.asp?p=registration/promo_50offcoupon_form. Sign up there and "Get a 50% Off Coupon!" That's right; half price on any NTI product, good till November 15th.