Best replacement for RecordNow Max 4.5? Plus editing audio/video?

[DLFung]

I am looking for a replacement to RecordNow Max 4.5 that will run on Win 7 and is as easy to use as RNM.

Problem:
RecordNow Max 4.5 will not run on Win 7.
RecordNow Max 4.5 will probably not recognize the CD/DVD drive in my new HP Elitebook.

(On my old PC, I was not using a compatible recordable or rewritable device so the DVD copies I burned using RecordNow Max 4.5 had errors in them. This was Okay for casual use but not for archival purposes.)

Project:
Very basic. I record Buddhist teachers in MP3 (320 kbps; 44.1 kHz) and use Sony Sound Forge 8 to snip extraneous sections, to smooth or enhance sound, and to normalize the tracks. Then I render them and burn CDs to give away and burn DVDs to archive the tracks.

While not the main focus of my projects, I will also be video-taping the teachers in avchd format.
And, I also use RNM to burn data discs and value its ability to verify the data.

So, what replacement CD/DVD burning software would you recommend? Freeware and Payware.I have not tried ImgBurn 2.5.6.0 yet and do not know how well it will work for me.

What Noise Reduction software would you recommend?
Also, what avchd converter can you recommend?
And, what video editing software would you recommend? I just want to snip extraneous material, do some color correction, smooth or enhance sound and raise or lower the sound level. I do not care about special effects.

Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

Welcome to the site.

Note: Sorry for the slow reply. This post was made during a maintenance window, so it wasn't placed into the Staff queue. I just now noticed it had not been addressed. If you still have questions, feel free to follow up with me. Thanks!

Anyway...

Refer to this post: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/comp...ero-roxio.html
- Use ImgBurn for burning DVD-Video (freeware).
- Use CDBurnerXP for data burning (freeware).
- Use BurnAware for audio CDs (freeware).

RecordNow Max was nice -- I still use it on one computer. But its time has come and gone. Time to move on.

I do all audio noise reduction in a mix of Audacity (freeware) and Sony Sound Forge Pro (not freeware).
So those are what I suggest.
Note the audio filters pack available here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...io-filter.html

I only use MainConcept Reference for encoding H.264 (which includes AVCHD). Most freeware is rather rotten. MainConcept is also the encoding engine found in Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas, if you have either of those professional video editors. The pro versions, not the home/amateur versions. You could get away with passable results use Avidemux, which relies on x264.

The video editing could be done in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3/CS4/CS5. But VirtualDub (freeware) could possibly do it, too, depending on the input format of the video. Audio editing should be done in an audio program. Audio options in NLEs (video editors) are rudimentary at best, compared to a full suite like Sound Forge (which DOES work fine in Windows 7, even as far back as the v6 version of SF from almost 10 years ago).