DVD Architect Studio 4.5 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This program does not come with a fancy video editor nor is it a suite of tools. That's why you get more bang for the buck. If you already have other tools, such as Sonic EMC or Premiere Elements you get video editors and other tools, but neither of those create the DVD as well as DVD Architect.
For example, Premiere Elements allows you to create automatically chaptered movies by allowing you to but chapter marks in the movie editor, but it does not allow you to create a DVD with more than one movie. It has a nice video editor, but a very weak DVD authoring tool. Sonic EMC allows multiple movies and slide shows, but does not create chapter marked movies.
DVD Architect allows both and a lot more. You add setups for sound tracks and easily create a tree of menus of practically any structure you want.
You can access DVD virtual commands in a limited way through the scripting tool. It could be better in that area.
If you buy Vegas Pro 8, you get DVD Architect with it and you have a great deal more power than any of the lowest price Video/DVD authoring combos.
I chose Vegas Pro 8 with DVD Architect because I was looking for a mid-priced tool (half the price of Premiere Pro), which is far more versatile than the low end packages. Although it may not be as powerful as Premiere Pro or Mac's Final Cut, it does a great job and you don't have to pay $800 for Premiere Pro.
I would have liked Premier Pro, but it was too expensive for me PLUS it does not yet support AVCHD files from my camcorder.
Sonic advertises support for AVCHD in Roxio Creator 2009, but what they really did was add a converter, which converts all the clips from your camera to mpg files, since the video editor "VideoWave" has not been changed to handle native AVCHD. Each step of conversion is a loss in quality. Sonic EMC also does a very sloppy job of batch processing the files so you can't walk away and just let it convert everything. You must select a folder every time it finishes a clip. Having 30 years of programming experience, that could have been done better by simply modifying the batch loop.
I still like the Sonic suite because it has a lot of useful tools that are not included with these other programs.
If you have an earlier Sonic Video Wave or EMC 8 or 9 and don't want to spend the money, you might find an AVCHD converter online for free or very cheap, which essentially accomplishes the same thing.
Bottom line: You get what you pay for and when you hold your budget, you have to compromise one thing for another.

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With DVD Architect Studio 4.5 software you can swiftly create professional-looking DVDs even stunning widescreen productions on your home computer.Simply drag and drop to start building your next blockbuster.Ability to select from 27 beautifully designed DVD backgrounds with coordinated menu buttons.Use the explorer window to select the movies photos and music you want to include.

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Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 Platinum Edition Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I got Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 bundled with a DVD+/-RW drive. Needless to say, I was eager to get burning. I've used Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 for 1.5 years and have been very happy. But, that's neither here nor there. I'll cut to the chase.
After installing, I found that all of my hard drives and partitions had been assigned new drive letters, seemingly at random. Furthermore, in Disk Management, most partitions didn't show a letter and those that did show a letter, appeared twice in Windows Explorer. Windows was notifying me that \System Volume Information\tracking.log was corrupt and that I needed to run chkdsk. To make matters worse, Windows no longer identified my system boot drive with the "(System)" designation, meaning I could delete the partition if I wanted!
Uninstalling did not resolve this, so I backed up all my data to an external disk. I then performed a fresh install of Windows XP. I then installed Service Pack 1 and all critical updates. I also installed DirectX 9.0b and Windows Media Player 9. After that, I installed Office XP, followed by Easy CD & DVD Creator 6.
I rebooted, and found the exact same problem. Clearly there is some serious problem with this software. I'm going back to version 5.
For kicks, since I knew I'd need to reinstall XP again, I tried to delete the system partition. It let me.
A bug this serious should've been caught before beta testing.

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PRODUCT WILL SHIP 2/10

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Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Video editing on the PC is more voodoo than artisty - almost every "consumer level" editing program on the market has compatibility problems, the software that comes with the hardware tends to be next to useless (if you can get it to work at all), and customer support is TERRIBLE. Most of what is to be found is geared towards either 1) encoding low-quality video either from TV or cell phones or 2) "dummy-editing" for those that want to get poorly-edited YouTube video on the air. Consumers that want to do high-quality video editing but aren't professionals (read: can't spend thousands on one piece of software) are, for the most part, ignored.
Having messed with numerous products including Pinnacle Studio (very buggy and contains huge compatibility issues), WinTV's Win2000 (comes with their card - lacks usefulness), VirtualDub (free and having huge potential with numerous features, but unless you're willing to spend a tremendous amount of time working with it, have the exact hardware the fan-community is using, and have superior knowledge of the technology, you won't find it useful), etc... in the end, Premiere is the best. It is professionally done, VERY compatible compared to other software packages, powerful, easy to use, and easy to understand. If you want to do video editing on the PC, this is where you should start - everything else just creates too many headaches.
So, what can you do with Premiere Elements 3.0? You can combine multiple video clips into a movie; you can narrate a video; you can create video for your blog (if you have a camera); you can burn professional-looking DVDs with full menus that will blow people away. Whether you are making home movies of your kids, compiling a highlight reel of your best sporting moments, or making a movie on an extremely tight budget, this is the best software out there in the price range.
As to what 3.0 improves from 2.0: To the casual user not a lot. There are a few more minor options, but the big advantage comes when burning DVDs - in 2.0, my sports DVDs looked terrible with a great deal of "jumping" (I'm assuming this was caused by the software not using enough compression keyframes, but don't quote me on that) - in 3.0, everything is extremely clear and smooth. There are also more exporting options and more useable codecs, though the software still lacks the ability to switch to any installed codecs (a major flaw, IMO, but one most other programs at this level share).
Note: In order to make DVD templates (DVD Menus) for 3.0, you need Photoshop Elements 5.0 - earlier versions do not seem to work (or, at least, I can't get them to work properly). While you can make very good DVD menus within Premiere, you can't save them from Premiere for use in other projects. If that is something you might want to do (and, quite honestly, it may not be for many users), pick up the "bundled" version of Premiere and Photoshop and save yourself some money.
Now, a few things that Premiere Elements can't do/doesn't do very well:
- Capture video from "legacy" devices like VCRs. Premiere can capture video from some devices, but it doesn't work particularly well with many capture cards (nor is it really designed to). Either send your VCR feed through a digital camcorder or use another recording method ("Tivo" or a capture card with useful capture software).
- "Mega" special effects. Premiere Elements has numerous effects like dissolve, fade, time-stretching (slow motion), and distortion - it does not, however, do major CGI-effects. You might be able to pull of a Star Trek "beam in" effect, but you'll need another program for most others.
- Post-capture video improvement. Premiere Elements can do some video enhancement, but it is more of a timeline editing tool - if you want to significantly improve the quality of your captured video (removing major noise, massive high-quality zooming, etc..) you'll need another program.
To address a few other negative reviews...
"Just a quick warning: trying to deal with Adobe is a nightmare. I spent 45 minutes on their customer service line today, waiting for someone to answer. Twice, I was disconnected and had to call back."
I've never had to deal with Adobe's customer support, so I don't know whether or not this is true - I do know, however, that CS in other retail companies in this market is terrible."I imported some video from a DVD that I made myself, and the program shut down. It said I had to go to a website and type in a 20-digit "encoder activation" and the site would give me another number that I could use to activate the MPEG2 part of the product. But the site won't take the number. I keep getting an invalid code message when I type it in."
This situation is true - you will need an internet connection AND you'll have to register a code to enable certain compressors. However, all you need to do is copy and paste the code from the software window and into your web browser (there's even a button that will copy the code - you just have to paste it in). No one I know has ever had the problem described above - though it could occur.
"No web support or patches on Adobe site to date. "
There are numerous plugins available on the Adobe website and a patch - just go to the updates section of their webpage.
In conclusion: Premiere Elements is the best software out there for most users. Other reviewers should feel free to post if there is a better software package available.

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Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 software makes creating and sharing impressive home videos a snap. Burn your footage to DVD in two simple steps, complete with a DVD menu and scene index, or quickly assemble your movie in the new Sceneline, where you can drag and drop to arrange clips and add effects and enhancements. You can even edit and preview your movie in one convenient window. When your movie is ready, share it on the web, on mobile phones, and virtually anywhere else.

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