Customer Reviews

ARCSOFT ShowBiz DVD ( Windows )

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This software came with my HP 300i DVD burner which I purchased during July 2003. It may have worked with a given set of hardware and video formats in the lab but it did not work for me. Most of the time it either reported that the file format was incompatable or crashed. It even took XP down with it ! Note that ULEAD's products (and others) had no problems with these files.

I see this product as a black mark for Arcsoft and HP. It seems the neither of these firms took the time to do realistic testing prior to shipping it. HP has promised an updated version but we are still waiting 3 months latter.

In general ArcSoft's "Create a DVD" or "Create a VCD" are easily to use. The interface(s) are intuitive and a small show can be quickly produced. The trouble begins with trying to write the project to a DVD. Here the "ShowBiz DVD" software has a mind of it own. "ShowBiz DVD" often does not recognize the perfectly good, blank media. Should you make the grave mistake of trying to author a DVD, you will be punished severaly with crash after crash.

My advise: hands of this smud of software.

I have made some nice DVDs using Showbiz 2.0, but man was it frustrating. Examples: It does not tell you until burn time that your 1 hour 25 minute video won't fit on a 2-hour disk. There is no "undo" when typing titles. Try to get from the authoring screen to the EDIT screen and the button is greyed out; it takes 1 or 2 pointless clicks to get it to appear. It won't capture until video is present, so you have to rewind your source to get the beginning, then edit out the rewind. With the HP device it was bundled with, it arbitrarily quits in the middle of capture. Hope you folks can point me to something better for my next purchase.

The product doesnt work - can't burn a proper DVD - a 40 minute vhs tape took 4 hours to render and burn - plopped it into the DVD player and no sound. Contacted Tech Support - No phone only email and "ONLINE" Support - I emailed my problem and got a message back need version number - after sending version number the response was check our online system. If you cant find the answer there - submit a question DUHHHHHHH - I think I submitted a question. The straight VHS to DVD burns fine, if you plan on editing stay away from this package.

I too spent a great deal of time working on a project and then found that the system crashed every time I tried to burn a DVD. The editing portion itself is good for anyone starting out doing their own video editing, but if you ever hope to transfer it to DVD then don't bother with this product. Mine came bundled with my HP 200i but won't work at all with this DVD burner. Repeated attempts to get technical help from Arcsoft has just been met with silence on their end - perhaps they too are in the dark as to the problems with this product...

Nice interface, but crashes every time with the HP DVD writer. very disappointing.

ShowBiz is a study in frustration! I only regret that I can't rate it less than 1 star. The program specializes in computer crashes. It simply will not efficiently allow you to create a project, load and edit it, then burn it out to DVD. Along this fairly straight forward route you will encounter repeated error messages including Windows telling you that it needs to shut down ShowBiz because it has created errors. I re-installed the software and even borrowed a second program -- all to no avail. ShowBiz simply will not perform. I gave up and switched to ULead Video Studio 7 and have had NO trouble since. Don't waste your time, effort and frustration on this dog.

Software doesn't work as advertised, I have yet to create a clean DVD output. Captures video okay but Write to DVD and Export do not work. Both quit partially into the process and report that the operation was successful when the finished file or DVD only contains part of the data. You can watch the progress jump from xx% to 100% in one step with no errors reported. In export it appears to be a problem with handling larger than 2 GByte files, in write to DVD the stop point appears to be random.

Multiple questions to Arcsoft have only resulted in automated replies. Replies to the replies as Arcsoft requests only result in the return message that there server did not accept the reply.

I would avoid all Arcsoft products.

Odd...it's very human-friendly, but very computer unfriendly...Software is usually the other way around, isn't it? OK, the UI is fine and I'm able to put together a running video no problem. But, like the other users have complained, it often tweaked my OS (OK, I'm still on Windows 98', but it should work anyway) and absolutely REFUSED to burn DVDs. Like one of the other users here, I was mortified to discover this after spending hours putting together a presentation...and simply had nothing to show for it at the end of the day.

Best to look elsewhere.

I'm not sure what everyone else's problem is, but I have found Showbiz to be flawless. The software came bundled with my HP dvd300e. I've created a number of DVDs - edited the scenes, added transitions, added audio files, etc. I make the movie file, send it off to my HP and in less than 20 minutes I have my DVD. I have never experienced any of the problems listed in the other reviews.