Free Nero Digital will be available as a free download beginning of April 2005 at www.nero.com.

Users will be able to download and try out all the features of Nero Digital, an MPEG-4 solution that enables users to fit the entire audio and video contents of a DVD on a regular data CD with no perceivable loss of quality, accorting to Nero.

Free Nero Digital consists of three separate applications: Nero Recode 2 CE as a 30-day trial, which allows users to create Nero Digital content; Nero ShowTime 2 CE, which allows users to play back Nero Digital content; and Nero MediaHome CE, which allows users to share Nero Digital or other content to UPnP devices or across their home networks. In addition, Nero Recode 2 CE supports chapter and subtitle encoding directly from DVD titles; up to two subtitles and two multi-channel audio tracks; and has profiles for CE device compatibility, including Mobile, Portable, Standard, Cinema, and HDTV.

Other features include support for recording to CD/DVD with file splitting and Fit-to-disc options. Another application included in Free Nero Digital is the Nero Showtime 2 CE media player, which allows the user to play back AVI, WMV, ASF, MOV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVC/H.264, MP3, WMA, and WAV. Also included are chapter, subtitle, and multi-channel audio support for Nero Digital video files; image adjustment, including brightness and contrast; interlaced and progressive sources; customizable on-screen display; changeable skins and chapter jump slider.

Users can share Nero Digital content with Nero MediaHome CE, which transforms an ordinary home network into a fully functional streaming media center. It allows most audio, video, and image files to be shared over a LAN (Local Area Network) and enables playback wired or wirelessly in Nero ShowTime 2 CE on networked systems, including laptops and on other UPnP-certified devices such as a TV, DVD players, DVRs, AV receivers, portable video devices, and speakers. Nero MediaHome CE also supports DVD playback from the PC, which means the program can send a DVD video playing on a PC's DVD player using ShowTime 2 CE to other UPnP-certified devices.

Users will additionally have the option to upgrade to Nero Digital Pro for unlimited use of Nero Recode, Nero Showtime, Nero MediaHome, and the integrated video editor Nero Vision Express, including the DVD-Video plug-in for MPEG-2 encoding/decoding; Dolby Digital 2 channel decoding; and AVC/H.264 encoding/decoding support, which will be available for purchase shortly.

From eMediaLive