Customer Reviews

Photo & Video Expressions Premium Suite

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

 

 

This product is just what I have been looking for to present photos and video in an easy-to-use presentation format. I have spent hours and even days putting together slide presentations for Boy Scouts, athletic team awards ceremonies, and other important events. On Christmas day I was able to take all of the photos of my family making cookies, unwrapping presents and having dinner together and, in a half an hour, put together a great looking DVD presentation to give them before everyone left for the evening. It also includes a really easy to use CD label maker which I use to make labels and DVD covers for. Overall, I would say that this is a great value and a real timesaver.

I LOVE this program for slideshows and still images. And if you are doing slideshows, you will adore this program and make your friends jealous that you have all these computer editing skills.

This program is ...almost perfect...but I CANNOT recommend it for video and I only have two complaints:

1. As a previous reviewer mentioned, the audio features could have some added features to help you fade your music in and out when you clip a song short of the natural beginning or ending, instead of abrupt starts and stops, but I suppose you could create a file in a different program to clip your music fades and import, but who would bother with all that when everything else is offered here.

2. The resulting formatting of my digital videos in this program makes them jerky in some places and have what I would call little "artifact" blips in others. This doesn't occur when you preview, it is happening when you are in the "creating a disc" and "transcoding" How I know this is that everytime you go through the transcoding process, it will put the little blips in different spots, but if you just make copies of one transcoded, it will put the blips in the same place on each disc. This means, it is not my blank DVD discs, it is not my DVD writer either. It is some problem with the transcoding of the video during the formatting process within the program, right before it actually burns to the DVD. This has got to be a bug within the program and I have contacted the software maker and will update if a solution or patch becomes available.

If you are making slideshows from still images, by all means snatch this up, you will love it!

If you are using digital videos, prepare to have them somewhat butchered by periodic blips on your TV screen and some videos will just seem jerky and hard to watch.

I was looking for software that was simple to use, integrate video and slideshows, insert captions for pictures and make DVDs. This is what this software does. I have only made slideshows and have not used the video portion of the software as I am still learning. There seems to be no editing function for music selection for slideshows and there is a standard pause between different selections that cannot be changed. This is a good program for someone just starting out and easier to use than ROXIO which came with the computer.

After spending considerable time (days, literally) putting together various versions of a photo show, with a view to sending to a number of people who were interested, I got to the burn DVD stage. Two days in, numerous hours later, I have still not managed to achieve this. At "Burn DVD" instruction, after a few minutes, the system stops. Have tried different disks, different computers, and enrolled the help of my professional IT specialist husband, all to no avail. I note from various forums that this is a frequent problem and manufacturers do not respond to correspondence. As burning DVDs is the main objective of the software, I look upon it as a complete failure, and would not recommend it to anyone.

After working with Microsoft Movie Maker to organize my photos into a creative slideshow and put onto a DVD, I knew there had to be an easier way. This software is it. Without consulting the help menu, I was able to upload my photos and edit them in the slideshow. From there, creating a DVD was a few clicks away. I haven't used it much for photo editing, as I perform that function in another program, so my comments below refer to creating a slideshow only.
Pros:
-Allows you to zoom or pan your photos, creating an interesting sense of motion in still photos. I really liked this option.
-Typing captions onto the photos is clear and easy to do.
-Transferring your finished slideshow to a DVD is a snap.
-It's easy to insert audio clips. The program will also adjust the running time of your photo files to correspond with your audio running time. Very nice.
Cons:
-When you go to preview your finished product you need to click through the photos to fast advance. Very time consuming versus having a slide bar to quickly access any point you desire.
-Certain audio clips wouldn't run. I couldn't find a pattern here, but at least you can preview clips before inserting them, so you can hear if the file will work.
Overall:
-This software does just what I was hoping for, and does it fairly easily.

Great software. Very easy to use, but has features if you really want to get super creative. It's a great product!!

Photo & Video Expressions Premium Suite
The program allows the person operating to capture vivid details about whatever you are currently using. It automaticly includes the music with the photos in sync.