Customer Reviews

Visual Communicator 3.0

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The company that created this software was Serious Magic. When they were putting out v1 and v2 and v2Pro AND the mostly-finished code for V3 they had a good community and excellent support (and direct Windows Media Streaming). Adobe bought the company and the rumor was that it was just to get a product that they themselves couldn't make and get rid of it. Users said so... Serious Magic said 'No,that's not true'.

It was.

Just like when Macromedia(Now absorbed by Adobe) bought a 3rd party's Flash Media Server that they coudn't do themselves and never put anything new into it (the same as Adobe did after buying Macromedia... except for adding h.264 because Red5 and WowzaMedia were making FMS look really really really bad) Adobe just wanted VC so that they could remove the Windows Media streaming support and replace it with only a direct tie to the senile Flash Media Server's inadequacies. Aside from that change... nothing. No fixes, no responses to user questions, no updates.

They apparentlhy couldn't just kill it off, so they did the next best thing and decided to just let it die on the vine, taking any sucker's money along tghe way.

I feel for the guys at Serious Magic who didn't get the bag of gold from Adobe, I know that they believed in the product.

I pay Adobe a lot of money each year for Flash and Flex, but after so many years I know what they are... don't trust them and don't buy this once-great-idea product.

I've been using Visual Communicator since it was owned by Serious Magic and yes, it's had its share of issues, but they seem to be mostly hardware related. For instance, VC uses DirectX to run, and this is a notoriously flakey part of Windows. However, with the right video card (very important to follow their recommendations here) and a solid machine, you'll experience few issues with this software. I understand that it's the software of choice for "The Weather Channel" and I can see why with it's vastly improved keying technology. I've produced several DVD's with this software, as well as run dozens of live web video streams to thousands of viewers. All with no camera men, two cameras, and all hands-free. Show me any other piece of software that can do all of this on the market today. My only hope is that Adobe keeps developing this program. I'm looking forward to VC4 and beyond!

Adobe Visual Communicator 3 freezes and shuts down all the time on me. Adobe customer support takes roughly 2 hours to get on the phone. I wasted $400

Unless you have lots of spare time to fiddle with this I don't think it's worth it.
Maybe when you finally figure out how to connect everything, and figure out the ENDLESS little quirks that cause it to mess up........well, in my opinion, the ends do not justify the means. We wanted it for our school's morning announcements.
We tried using it, but went back to just manually switching things with a switch box....so easy and so reliable. Switch box only costs $20, and we plug in live camera, DVD player, and computer (with one plug in left over!)
VC 3 did things like, shut down, freeze, change the monitor settings, cause DVD's not to play, changed desktops. VERY FRUSTRATING and TIME CONSUMING.
"Ask Mr. Z" is a whole website set up to address problems, just reading the endless questions on the blog/forum should scare anyone away. He even suggests having to "defrag" it every day, and that it's best if you use one computer solely for VC 3.

I produce videos for clients and for the web. This is a very easy to use program with lots of media included. I am running Vista Home Premium, 3.2 Core 2 Duo processor and 4 gigs of ram. The program needs a powerful computer. I have not had any crashes and it runs flawlessly.

We purchased this software about 4 years ago in our school and use it daily in our video production studio. While the software is really innovative (and in fact, they hired a teacher to promote it to schools), I'm getting very concerned about Adobe's lack of support for the product. In four years, there have been no updates and now there is no support. The software is quite buggy, as well. We are finding ourselves looking for an alternative ...

Note also that can be as low as $70 to purchase this through academic channels if your state / district has a CLP contract with Adobe.

Seller did not state in the product description that the product was only an upgrade version or that any buyer needed a previously licensed version (Communicator 2) to use the upgrade. As a result I could not install or use the program.
After repeated attempts through Amazon to get a return authorization from the seller or Amazon (or even an email response from either) and a refund for my program costs, I have decided to turn to my American Express customer service to see if they can work their magic. I would not order again from this seller, and caution anyone purchasing software to inquire about whether it's an upgrade only or a full package. Very disappointed!

I have used this product on Windows XP with no freezing problems at all. I suspect that the freezing problems previously mentioned are due to a Vista issue. I used to have a Vista laptop and quickly got rid of it due to numerous problems. Visual Communicator allows my students to record a news show using the included teleprompter and look very professional. This program even allows for some "green-screen" effects. I am very impressed with its capabilities given that you can find the full version for about $300 (sometimes less). For that price, and for the amount of effects this program has, one would normally have to purchase quite a bit of costly equipment. This is the economic way to go if producing in a classroom! You can even up-load your projects to the web (TeacherTube)!

What a waste of money! I was really excited to get this software and use it with my students, but I WILL NEVER LET THEM NEAR IT!!! Why? Because it freezes up roughly every 30-45 minutes, some of the features don't work as expected, and it's SO DIFFICULT to learn! This product is not intuitive or user-friendly at all. I would get so extremely frustrated using it that I can't even imagine letting my students try. Adobe bought this product from it's developers (Serious Magic) and tried to pass it on to the greater public way too soon - better product development PLEASE, guys!

I concede that I own VC 2 which Adobe has decided
no longer to support.

VC2 is impressive when it works and a real pain when
it doesn't, which is much of the time. Adobe isn't
interested in delivering workable patches for VC2 and
is mostly interested in getting "upgrade fees" out
of owners.

I have used VC in the past happily but it was always
troublesome. It makes nice-looking stuff but support
and crashing issues are bad news. It's a serious
resource hog too. As pretty as the picture it makes
are you do in fact need to be a glutton for punishment
to be into using it.