Customer Reviews

Yoostar Entertainment System

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

The system, such as it is, is fantastic. The idea behind it is novel and the machine itself works well. The problem is that there are basically no scenes available in the Yoostar store. It's been up for at least a couple of months, and it seems that the majority of new content being added is tourist-related junk that lets you stand in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Lincoln Memorial. You can make suggestions about which scenes you'd like to see in the store, but there is no evidence that Yoostar is actually listening. Furthermore, it would be nice if whole movies, rather than just a few select snippets, were available. Too much to ask? Perhaps, but it would make the whole thing a lot more fun.

One night before Christmas, I fell asleep in front of the TV. I woke up during a commercial for YOOSTAR, thought it was very interesting, did my best to remember the website address. In the morning, I tried my best to remember the website address, but had to google what I had remembered (so what, I had some "Christmas Cheer" the night before). I'm glad I did, and I am so happy I ordered it for me, I mean my son, who wants to be a director.

I am surprised on how well it works. Yes, it takes some manuevering of the camera and the green screen, but once it is set up it's amazing how it places "yoo" right into the movie.

Now some reviewers have complained about the price. It is a bit pricey and what Yoostar should have done was to include more clips on the DVD to justify the price. You are able to buy more clips on the yoostar website and they are reasonably priced, from $1.99 to $2.99.

The only slight criticism I have is that you can't play your recorded media clips in Windows Media Player or attach the recorded media file, let's say, to your own website. You can watch your clip with the yoostar program, and you can load your clip to the Yoostar website where anyone can see it. Also, you add your clip to Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. But you can not upload your clip to Youtube. But I understand why. You are using copyrighted material and yoostar has to be in control on where the clip is dispersed.

I believe using short clips from movies for humor does not violate copyright law, but I imagine yoostar wants to play it safe.

Nonetheless, it is great fun for the entire family, works well, and [...] is adding more clips to its website. Enjoy!

If you've ever had a great pie or cake that looked fabulous, but wasn't fully cooked, you'll have a good idea of what YooStar is all about. The hardware alone is impressive, and the technology is wonderful; but YooStar isn't ready for prime time. It's incredibly buggy, doesn't work with Windows Vista or many laptops and notebook computers and it crashes frequently. It's difficult to setup and it begins without so much as a "Quiet on the set! Ready...action!" It just starts whether you're ready or not. Another huge downside to this is that your output files cannot be loaded on YouTube, but must be put on a YooStar website, which also is a bit slow and buggy. If this company goes out of business, you may find this very limited. Scenes are themselves limited in scope and time and most must be purchased online, which is where they really getcha. The great thing is that this can be made to work with a little more effort. Right now it's like those early expensive projectors you used to buy that worked great, but needed a new bulb with every few hours of use. It's a project that takes time to set up and might not work once you do. If you want to try it with your kids, it might be worth it. For now, pass until YouStar gets its act together.

Many people are slamming this product. I have had it since it first came out at Best Buy in November, 2009, and paid the $175.00 retail price to get it. Could not get it to work at first. Turned out that it was a camera problem with my brand-new HP laptop. Yoostar answered my complaints and sent me a NEW camera, no charge. This is "Video Karaoke" for lack of a better word. It is a ton of fun, and I have personally posted about a dozen performances on Yoostar.com (search for my user name rervin1). The amount of scenes being loaded by Yoostar are increasing day-by-day. If you ever wanted to act in a professional movie, here is your chance. I have not had a company respond to my concerns recently BETTER than Yoostar. They are extremely interested in customer satisfaction - where else is this happening today. They are also now "bundling" clips, so you can get like 8 scenes from Psycho for $11.99 instead of $2.99 for each clip. People that want the entire movie? Pfffft! Try just doing a 30-second clip and you'll see how difficult performing can be. An entire movie would be impossible for most people. I have education at UCLA Film School, and I ran my own Photography Studio in the 1970's, so I believe I talk with some experience on this issue.

I give it 5 stars, and I have introduced this at parties and EVERYBODY has had fun with it. I also have the AVS Video Editor programs, allowing me to SAVE these as MP3 or any other format that I want. Under contract with the studios, Yoostar cannot do this, but it is available if you are resourceful.

So lighten up and have some fun with your life.

Well, this isn't a game, it's a camera. You install the software, assemble the camera, get the green screen up, plug it in then record yourself within the movie clips it comes with unless you decide to purchase more. They make it sound like you can record your own videos and edit them, you can't edit anything and the software is terrible.

I'll admit it's a great concept, it can be fun to edit videos with a green screen, but this product is way too limited. First of all, Yoostar doesn't inform you that everything recorded with the software is only uploaded to their personal website, so if you record anything you can't get it uploaded on YouTube or shared another way outside of Yoostar's website unless you know how to capture the video and convert it, which I consider a waste of time. Yoostar also doesn't have clips that I'm interested in, some are fun for a cheap laugh, but I'm more interested in recording things for fun to share directly with friends, not have them forced to view it on Yoostar's website, it's a different file type that can't be shared.

When I plugged everything in I had to rearrange my entire desk just to test it out, if you could get it running with a laptop then it's fine, but otherwise it takes up a ton of space. This isn't a camera that can record on it's own or even have it's own battery, everything has to be plugged into a USB port of a computer to do anything and it has to have all the software registered and downloaded on any computer you want to bother testing it out on.

The camera is junk, the stands work but they're nothing impressive, the remote is useless since you need the camera plugged into a computer to work, I've made good use of the tripod since I can use it for the green screen. It's not a bad green screen cause it isn't bulky, but I could have easily made my own green screen and stand around $15 or $20.

The software doesn't work with most computers, it hasn't worked on any laptop I've tried it on, and after you get it working the software is too basic. They make you register and download useless movie clips, it downloads on it's own while the software is running, and if you want more movie clips you have to purchase them. I have a huge movie collection of my own that it won't let me use, I'd use the camera with other software but even my $29.99 webcam has better quality and I can zoom in and out with it.

This product is misleading, they make it sound like you can plug it in your computer and do all sorts of fancy stuff, but you can't use your own clips or actually edit anything. If you feel like joining Yoostar's website and have horrible quality short movie clips that everybody already uploaded a million times and create video clips that won't work with any media player or that a typical PC user can share outside of Yoostar's website, then this is the product for you.

A totally new concept (green screen) for the home user. It's fun, novel, and entertaining. On the down side, since it is a new product, the number of film clips that are available, are limited. Bottom line, for what you get, I find it pricey.

We purchased Yoostar after trying it at out at Bloomingdales in LA back in September. My family has had a lot of fun making videos and putting themselves into movie scenes. We've used Yoostar when we've had friends over too and everyone has a good time and a laugh. It's even easy to share the videos online and on Facebook with other family members. I'm now buying Yoostar for my brother and his wife and kids for Christmas. (They tried it out at our place and loved it!) Yoostar makes a great holiday gift for anyone who likes movies or getting creative with video.

Just spent an hour with my son and 3 year old grand daughter putting her in Sesame Street scenes. We could not stop laughing. With a group of friends we did scenes from Casablanca, God Father, and Some Like It Hot. We all did several takes getting better each time. Bogart, Brando, and Curtis are safe but we had a blast.

We were given one of these for Christmas 09 and were very excited at first! Started to install it on the laptop - installation went ok, but our video card wasn't up to snuff. So, installed it on the desktop - not enough RAM. Bought and installed the RAM, reinstalled the software which worked. Then the camera that comes with the kit wasn't recognized by my computer - (although the laptop with crummy video card could read it!). I'm waiting for YooStar to email me a driver.

I realize that most of this is the slightly older computer system that I have, but really it should not that THAT hard to install this and use it.

I love the idea of this, and with younger kids, I know we would have fun with it. Right now, installation seems more trouble than it is worth.

I bought the Yoostar system off a Gold Box deal around Christmas time. My 12-yr-old daughter was having a group of her friends over for a New Year's party, and I thought they might have some fun with it.
I'd intended to set everything up and run through it ahead of time so I could give the kids some help getting started, but as is wont to happen that time of year, I just got too busy to get to it. No problem-- they got everything set up on their own and were putting themselves in movies in no time. While they're all smart girls, there's not a bona fide computer geek in the bunch. If you're not tech-savvy, don't worry; you can still handle this one.
I left the girls to it most of the time, only occasionally checking their progress. They had a blast, and stayed entertained with it a lot longer than I'd expected they would. Some had a little trouble staying still enough to center themselves perfectly, but a little green "aura" here and there didn't appear to dull their enjoyment a bit.
I (with the rest of my immediate family) have since had the opportunity to play with the Yoostar system. We're having friends over soon, and I fully intend to bring it out then. I know we'll have a lot of fun with it. I expect it will come out again for family get-togethers over the summer, daughters' birthday parties, and so on.
This system isn't the sort of thing that will keep your kids occupied day after day, but as a "special occasion" activity, it's great, for kids or adults!