Nero 2016 platinum review (full review)

We bring you the analysis of the Nero 2016 Platinum, which is the latest version of the suite par excellence for recording optical media of all types and generations, from audio CDs to Blu-ray's. Just a year ago we analyzed the Nero 2015 Platinum and as we will see the 2016 version comes loaded with new features. Don't miss our review! Here we go!

It is a complete suite that allows you to record all the usual disc formats, that is, CD-R CD-RW, DVD ± R, DVD ± RW, BD-R, BD-RE, BD-R DL, BD-RE DL, BD-R TL (BDXL), BD-RE TL (BDXL), BD-R QL (BDXL), BD-RE QL (BDXL) DVD-RAM and DVD ± R DL, and it is accompanied by a suite with all the extras that we may need for it, from video conversion to design and printing of the cover of our album.

System Requirements

Minimum system requirements for Nero 2016 Platinum

Windows® 7 SP1 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate (32/64 bit), Windows® 8 (32/64 bit), Windows® 8.1 (32/64 bit), Windows® 10 (32/64 bit) Intel® processor or 2 GHz AMD. 1 GB of RAM5 GB of hard disk space for typical installation of all components (including templates, content, and temporary disk space) Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 compatible graphics card. DVD for installation and playback Recordable or rewritable CD, DVD or Blu-ray drive for recording Internet connection is required for certain services Nero Mobile Apps: Android 4.0 and higher, iOS 6.0 and higher Nero Mobile Apps, except Nero Streaming Player: Android 4.0 and later, iOS 6.0 and laterNero Streaming Player: Android 4.0 and later, iOS 8.0 and later; For 'Play from PC', Nero MediaHome 1.32.2700 and later Transmission to Nero Streaming Player and Nero MediaHome Receiver requires Windows® 7 SP1 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate (32/64 bit), Windows® 8 (32/64 bit), Windows® 8.1 (32/64 bit), Windows® 10 (32/64 bit). Transmission with the highest quality resolution requires Intel Haswell (i7-4770 and higher). It is recommended to leave the transmission settings in auto mode. If you experience performance problems with the highest quality transmission, use a lower quality setting.

No surprise in the minimum requirements, the application is quite light and its task is simple and direct, nobody needs a machine to record discs.

Nero 2016 Platinum

We are not going to make an exhaustive visit to each and every one of the applications that make up this suite, but we will highlight the basic functions and the additions that are useful or curious to us compared to the existing alternatives in this saturated market.

The installation does not pose any problem, and both the software and its dependencies are installed in a few clicks and without any complications for the user. Yes we should mention that isolated installers of free applications, such as Nero Cover Designer, include a toolbar and changes in the default search engine, although it certainly will not be a problem if we pay a minimum of attention when installing these applications, And we very much appreciate the company's move to offer some of its software to users who cannot afford the full suite.

Main interface

The interface of the Nero 2016 Platinum maintains the same interface released several versions ago, a very clean and flat design that shows us all the available applications grouped into categories. Each of the applications is represented on a kind of tile and contains two small drop-down menus to its right that takes us to a description of the application and gives us a summary of the tasks that we can perform.

Nero Burning ROM

We start with the most important program of the Nero 2016 Platinum suite, in charge of generating our projects and burning them to disk. As usual, just open the program we see an old acquaintance, the wizard that helps us create a project suitable for the format we want to record

The design of the main window has not undergone any major changes either, it is still simple but intuitive, we drag the files that we want to record to the left, we select Record in the toolbar, where we can also configure the speed and other advanced parameters, and the program takes care of the rest

An exclusive functionality of this application is especially appealing to us, it is the SecurDisc format, which adds redundancy to our data (in exchange, of course, for the loss of space) to dramatically improve the integrity of our data, due to scratches or failures produced by poor storage of the support. In addition, it allows us to add a digital signature to our data specifying our private key (or generating a key through the program itself if we do not have knowledge of the subject).

As we can see, a very convenient format to keep backup copies of our important data, especially if we do not have an exaggerated amount so that the capacity of a Blu-ray divided by 3 or more (depending on the security we want) is fall short.

There is a free application to read discs burned in this format called Nero SecurDisk viewer on the download page, so the recovery of these backups will not be a problem if we do not have the license at hand or if we want to pass files to friends and family.

Nero Media Home

Nero Media Home is a complete application from which to manage all our multimedia content. Nero MediaHome 2016 is your control center to manage, create, transmit and play all your files in almost any format, be it video, music, movies or images with Nero 2016 Platinum.

Nero MediaHome offers a central point of access for videos, photos and music in any format. Thanks to the extra fast import from files from external hard drives and smartphones, connectivity with Windows Media® Player and iTunes® and the integration of its online storage solution Nero BackItUp, you will be able to unite everything that must be united.

It includes different streaming options to take movies, photos, slide shows and much more thanks to the Nero Streaming Player application. Extremely useful for users who have tablets with a generous screen and are running low on storage space or processor power to play HD video.

The application from the computer has a browser that can automatically search for the files supported on our computer, and from the "play in" option we can send it to the device of our choice, which must have the MediaHome Receiver application installed (free)

The image quality is quite good, and we can see 1080p files without cuts or jerks (with an iPhone 6 on an AC network, with older devices or slower networks, the experience will probably be improved), we have an inevitable buffering time, but overall the experience is pretty good.

Nero CoverDesigner

Nero 2016 Platinum again incorporates this old acquaintance, with good usability and without great news or boasts. We have a few predefined templates that will fill the cover with the data of our project, either the artist name and the list of songs for an audo disc or the list of files with their size on a data disc.

Nero Video

A quite useful and functional program, especially for regular users of optical video formats, is this complete program for converting video and recording it on discs. The options are considerable, and we see that it allows recording in 4K format, although advanced users will miss options other than the resolution and frame rate of the video, we have no control over the bitrate or the codec used.

The good part about avoiding those options is that it makes the process so much easier for users who don't want to waste time learning about basic video editing, formats, and more. Creating a DVD or Blu-Ray with the videos from our PC is really easy, just drag the files you want to the window and follow the wizard.

The application includes a complete menu editor, with a few dynamic templates. Although in cover designer we saw a certain shortage of templates, in this case they are colorful, varied and quite numerous. If we waste a little time polishing our menus, it can be said that the results are practically professional. Great utility of the Nero 2016 Platinum !

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Smartphone applications (iOS / Android)

Nero AirBurn

A simple but powerful application that incorporates this Nero 2016 Platinum suite . That allows us to quickly record the files of our mobile phone on a computer that is running Nero Burning ROM on our local network. The functionality is twofold, since it serves us both to save copies in physical format comfortably and to quickly transfer many files to our computer in the form of a disk image, if we select as recorder “Image Recorder”.

The process is really simple, we choose the images we want, we can also modify the name (although not the copy path), we choose our PC from the list of equipment (in case we have several PCs running Nero), and in seconds our disk already is being recorded.

After transferring the files and starting the recording we can close AirBurn, or wait for it to notify us when the recording process ends:

As a first snag, we see that with the iOS version you can not select anything other than images, not even through the share function that recommends using the first screen. It is still a good application, and we did not expect to be able to transfer music, but it seems to us a point to improve, in order to transfer at least office files in addition to photos.

The usability of the Nero 2016 Platinum is limited since if we want to use this function we must have the computer ready and with a disc inserted in the recording unit, so it does not save us too much compared to transferring the images to the PC and then recording them, and also We must be within the local network, we can not do it from outside the house even with everything prepared.

Nero BackitUp

We also highlight the Nero BackitUp utility that will allow us to make backup copies of the content of our smartphone to save them on our PC. For this we must install the BackitUp application on our mobile or tablet, start the assistant on our PC and connect the smartphone. From there all the configuration will be done from the smartphone.

Final words and conclusion

As for the Nero 2016 Platinum suite as such there is not much to say, the novelties are few and are limited to updating the suite with the most modern video formats, strengthening 4K support and improving performance with recent operating systems. However we do not see this as something bad, on the contrary, it is a formula that works and that has put Nero in the position it occupies now, there is no reason to risk making something that works well worse.

The bad part is in fact only reduced to the shortage of news, mobile applications are the exception but they do not make an update essential if we already have an old version that fulfills its mission, unless we see mandatory recording of discs from our mobile.

The Nero 2016 Platinum is available on the Nero website for a price of 99 euros for the full license and 60 euros for the license to upgrade from a less complete version, for example Nero 2016 Home. It is important to note that the license is for one PC only.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ A VERY COMPLETE SUITE WITH MANY YEARS OF FILMING	- NO IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS THAT JUSTIFY THE UPDATE
+ THE TWO MOBILE APPLICATIONS, STREAMING VIDEO AND RECORDING OF FILES FROM OUR PHONE	- HIGH PRICE AND ONLY VALUE FOR ONE PC
+ DESIGN OF MENUS IN NERO VIDEO, PRETTY TEMPLATES AND IN QUANTITY
+ REDUNDANCY BACKUP COPIES FORMAT
+ SUPPORTED RECORDING FORMATS