PC Media File Management With 'Nero 15'

Anyone who lived through the Rip/Mix/Burn era and used a PC probably used Nero software to extract tunes from a disc and burn their mix CDs. Now that music has moved to the cloud and everyone's streaming music, Ner0 has reinvented itself as a comprehensive media management suite, available in two versions Nero 2015 Classic and Nero 2015 Platinum, both featuring a new all-in-one launcher to remind you of the vast array of tools available.

The centerpiece of the software suite is Nero Media Home, an application that works as a centralized hub for music, photos and movies on PC, sort of an iTunes/iPhoto hybrid. The software inventories all the media files on your computer and allows you to stream them to an external mobile device (both Android and iOS supported), an Xbox, Playstation or even a television that supports the UPnP or DLNA streaming protocol.

It's a free download, but you want to use it in concert with the paid version to get the most of out the experience: there are powerful editing tools for your photos: you can tag, crop, enhance and create slideshows from within the app. The new version also supports geotagging. You can also still burn discs to CD or Blu-ray if you're still into physical media and convert videos to a format that works with whatever playback devices you might own.

There's also Nero BackItUp, an online backup tool that offers paid storage in sizes ranging from 5GB to Unlimited. You can install the free software on any number of devices but the unlimited subscription service unlocks all of the potential of the entire suite.

Nero has a definite learning curve, but it provides integrated media management that offers a more focused and coherent approach than what you get when you use the tools built into Windows and combine them with a series of third-party applications. It's worth a look if you've got large collections of photos, music and videos.