Customer Reviews

Corel DVD MovieFactory 6.0 Plus [OLD VERSION]

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

 

 

I used this product for a month on the recommendations of a video forum group. It was for the specific purpose of burning HD-DVD compliant videos onto standard 4.7GB DVD's using a standard DVD burner.

The biggest problem with this product is that importing files take a long, long, long time. Whether you choose your desired file from a dialog box, or drag and drop it onto the open Ulead DVD Movie Factory window, the program basically locks your computer up for the next hour. Note that this is BEFORE you do anything with the file.

It's not just with high definition videos either. Standard definition files also take a long time to load.

Technical support from the Corel website is basically non-existent save for some FAQ's and a users forum. Even if you click on the so-called "Technical Support" link it takes you directly to the FAQ's. You can't even get email support. I at least got that with Microsoft.

Looking through those forums I realize that others who use this product with Windows Vista have the same issues. The label on the box says "Works with Windows Vista", just not how well.

Hopefully I'll have better luck with Nero.

Corel/Ulead DvD Factory is fairly easy to use if you just wish to do simple editing. Trimming, adding chapters, combining clips are all more intuitive with this program than the stripped down version of Nero. For half the price of Ulead's VideoStudio, you get fewer bells and whistles and a bit less creative control. But VideoStudio involves much of the same software as I learned. Attempts to get fancy that proved too much for DVDFactory and lead to the program freezing up had the same ill effect in VideoStudio. DVDFactory probably is no different from any other video program in that it will use up a large amount of hard drive space with its working versions of your projects. The first time it took me a few minutes to figure out where 30 GB of hard drive space could have gone to before realizing that DVDFactory pretty much puts the entire dvd project into one of its folders. That way it just pulls up the project instead of reapplying the edits to your original video when you open. The menu creation step restricts the user to only a few possibilities. This I found to be really frustrating. I searched for updates/enhancements on the Corel/Ulead website but this program seems to be the forgotten stepchild. I found out on the user forum that one can make their own menus but it is a lot of work requiring the use of Ulead's photo program. So after spending considerable time to get the movie just right, one then has to settle for some pretty awful menu graphic options. So if you are just starting out at editing your videos this program will empower you through your first 10 projects but after that you will be forced to rehash the same menus and themes that were rather tacky in the first place.

I purchased this software along with Video Studio 11 Plus. It did get the job done but advanced DVD menu options would lock up the program even after a fresh install of Windows XP Pro (So all of my Menus are text based). Another issue that didn't exactly win me over was after editing my videos in Video studio 11+ I attempted to import them directly into Movie factory 6.0+. This seemed to be the most logical step, and even though they both work from the same extention DVD Movie factory will not open the files. I ended up converting the videos to Mpegs then back to Corel files. That added an hour to each DVD.

I used this to create a compilation of 20 or so short movie clips. This program allowed me to create the menu, although I wish that I had a little more creativity with it but I can't complain about that. The DVD came out beautifully and reccommend this program for basic movie making. I may feel that more advanced editing can occur as I get more experience with it.

First the pros: I like this program. It's pretty simple and easy to use, yet gives you a decent amount of flexibility in creating attractive DVD menus, and a fairly full set of templates. With properly compliant mpeg2 files, import is fast and since there's no conversion in that case, producing a DVD is fast. So far I haven't worked with HD or tried importing avi, but previous versions were very slow to process anything but compliant mpeg2. (I use VideoReDo for editing mpeg2, btw - excellent product but the authoring is minimal.) There's support for motion menus, background music, custom still or video backgrounds, most of what you'd want to customize a menu. And you can save your own templates. There's a component for direct video capture which I've never used.

Now the bad parts - I'm using a Windows 7 64-bit computer and installation was a nightmare. Oddly enough, the Try Before You Buy version installed smoothly, but the real version didn't behave the same way. On my first attempt, it hung while installing codecs. I stopped the process, and after that it kept giving me a 'failure to load dll' error. Finally I got rid of that by using System Restore to go back to before the initial installation. Tried again, and it hung again - I waited about half an hour and it was really and truly hung. On a hunch, I went into Program Files (x86) and set the protections on the Ulead MovieFactory 6 folder to allow full control to the 'Trusted Installer' process, and it successfully zipped right through the rest of the install.

Incidentally (or not) during this whole mess I also tried installing it on my Windows XP system. It hung at the same point but then continued and completed successfully after a few minutes. BUT - when I rebooted my computer Windows wouldn't start. Lovely. Following instructions on the Ulead website, I booted in Safe Mode and used System Restore to undo the installation. That worked, but the permanent fix is supposed to be to remove Roxio from your computer. So - that's their answer to an incompatibility with a very popular piece of software - get rid of it?? How about fixing MovieFactory so this doesn't happen?

And that brings me to my final complaint - it's now been two days since I submitted email requests for support on these issues, and no one has gotten back to me. I could call or use live chat support, but only if I'm willing to take off from work since they're only available M-F 9:00 - 7:00 EST. They don't even have a toll-free number for installation support.

For the price here on Amazon, this is a great package. I don't know if I'd want to pay the list price of $50, though. I knocked off two stars for the ridiculously difficult installation and for Corel/Ulead's lack of support.

Edited to add: Corel customer support finally got back to me on the third day, but had no clue how to resolve my Windows 7 64-bit installation problem. I told them the solution, and I hope they added it to their database for other customers.

Another edit: recently I tried to make a DVD with chapters, and guess what - MovieFactory doesn't save the chapter thumbnails unless you download and install a patch which appears to have made the DVD preview mode extremely slow. I see the price has gone down and I guess it's still worth $15 or so, but sheesh.

The Ulead DVD Movie Factory6 Plus program for me did not work and I was never able to get it to work. I bought two of these programs, one for me and one for a friend. My friend was also unable to get his program to work. He said his worked once and he could never get it to work again and was unable to figure out why. The program I have kept freezing/locking up. I downloaded the program three times and it did the same thing each time until I gave up and removed the program from my computer. I have two other programs for making a DVD on the computer and they work great.

I did not ask for a refund and return the item. When I got another program that works great I forgot all about the Movie Factory6 plus program until I was contacted about writing a review. The Two Programs that work for me without any Problems is the "Express Burn" program by NCH Software, and also the"Need4video" Program.

It is possible that my problem and my friends problem with the Movie factory6 Plus are the only two programs that didn't work. I recommend reading the other reviews and if other people had a good experience with the Movie Factory6 plus program. Try it...I know I wished it had worked as it sounded good.

If you buy this product you had better hope it works for what you want it to do. There is NO SUPPORT if you have a problem. I wanted to do what I thought was a very simple thing. I wanted to take 2 DVDs and combine then into 1 and then burn that 1 DVD. It could not be done. I thought that was such a simple thing that I wanted to do that there was a problem with the software so I went to Corel's web page to ask for help.

Their reply was "You need to pay for support to find an answer to you problem".

NO MORE COREL PRODUCTS WILL EVER BE ON MY COMPUTER. I leared my lesson. I hope other profit from my experience.

I am sorry that I bought this software. I am glad I only paid $25.00 for it. Although the software has many great features, it lacks the ability to create titles or end credits. I have had to resort to creating title scenes in Microsoft Windows Maker, save them as video clips and then import them into Moviefactory 6. I have even spent several hours on the internet trying to find a fix for this shortcoming. The rest of the program is first rate and makes it easy for an amateur to make a good looking movie. Until I find an inexpensive program that does everything I want and need, my procedure will have to do.

I purchased Canon HG10 about one month ago. I took some movies and played them back via HDMI output of the HG10. The quality of the movie is supper.

The biggest problem I am facing is when I edit my movie with "DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus" and burn edited HD file into SD DVD disk and play them on my HD DVD player Toshiba HD-A2, the movie quality drops down to almost SD level.

I hope that MovieFactory 6 Plus can output edited file in ORIGINAL HG10 FILE FORMAT. So, I can transfer them back to the camcorder and play them with original movie quality.

I couldn't find any way to send this question via Corel website or email.

I have been using DVD moviefactory since version 3 and have been happy with it and it's flexibility since then. Since DVD Moviefactory 3 that I know of at least, one has the option of making DVDs in various qualities wether it be a high quality DVD or a 6 hour long DVD in VCD quality. The flexibility still hold true for DVD Moviefactory 6. DVD Moviefactory 6 allows for DVD creation with great looking menus with great rendering speed. On my intel quad core pc running at 2.80 GHZ on windows 7 home premium 64 bit with 6GB of RAM, rendering of an hour and a half movie took about 25 minutes including audo/video multiplexing and finalizing VOB. I only added chapters and did not create a menu as the project only consisted of one file. Overall I am very happy with DVD Moviefactory 6 and best of all DVD moviefactory 6 has the fastest video rendering time of all the other versions that I have used such as DVD Moviefactory version 3 and 5. This may be due to it's support for dual core processors. I am a bit disappointed that Amazon does not have DVD Moviefactory 7 for sale as I would have went with DVD Moviefactory 7 pro instead because it is optimized for intel quad core which is what I have. Currently using the trial version of DVD Moviefactory 6 until my copy arrives in the mail.