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Photostory on CD & DVD 9 Deluxe
Autor Air
- Perfect slideshows in 3 minutes! New automation for stylish results in record time: now, with new thematic style templates including background music, individual settings options, provisions for special features, splitting into several slideshows, etc.
- 30-time award winner: the original product for creating multimedia slideshows
- Travel route animation on online maps for vacation slideshows and DVD menus
- New, integrated title editor with direct preview and improved quality (sharper font and softer shadows, even for small texts)
- Automatic red eye correction, video clips can be rotated, integrated title editor, Optional: AVCHD support (import and burn hi-res videos incl. AC3 sound)
Product DescriptionSimply import photos and video recordings, easily transform them into exciting slideshows with texts, music, and effects, burn them to disc with a DVD menu, and then enjoy them on TV with your DVD player or export for experiencing on the web, digital photo frames or mobile players. . . . More >>
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July 15, 2010 -
Photo, Media & Design -
3 comments
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Del.ico.us
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This product is sold in two versions. I ordered a delux version but received non-delux version. I promptly returned it and received refund plus shipping charge. However, it cost me $5 to return the product which I feel the vendor should have paid me. He never did. I feel Amazon should make sure that Vendors are responsible for all expenses when wrong products are sent to buyers.
Rating: 1 / 5
I found out about this product by Googling for “Slideshow Programs”. One of the first hits is a Top-10 Review showing that this product is superior to others. I normally rely heavily on Amazon customer feedback and there was only one entry. I went ahead and bought the product from Amazon, due to the fact that they are so good about letting your return products that don’t measure up. After one day of playing with the product I came to some conclusions:
Pro: It’s pretty easy to throw together an impressive-looking slideshow that promises to be outputted in various formats.
Cons: I was not able to produce a DVD that did not clip vertically on a 16:9 screen (even though I told the software not to expand horizontally). The quality of the display not sharp at all. I tried to produce a video file to be uploaded to my TiVo HD, but it informed me that I needed to buy an add-on encoder. After doing that, it failed with an error message. When I tried to get support I found that their method of support is a lame bulletin board site. Most of the problems are not in English. You can filter for English and then filter for the product. I found that others were reporting problems that hadn’t been solved. Some major problems were outstanding after months or more than a year. The product claimed to have training videos, but they are no more than promotional videos. There does not seem to be enough documentation. There certainly isn’t reasonable support available.
Hint: If Amazon. com sells 3rd-party books on a product, then you probably have a chance at success.
I ended up going back to the Top-10 list and then did research on ProShow Gold. Amazon. com doesn’t sell this product, but they sell three 3rd-party books on it. Reading comments on the books shows that people are satisfied with the product. So I bought a license for ProShow Gold from the manufacturer’s web site and turned around and bought a quick start book from Amazon. I paid as much for shipping as the book because I want to read it tomorrow!
In an hour of playing around with ProShow Gold, I’ve been able to do all the things I want to do. I expect to put together slide shows for DVD and MPEG-2 and, as I learn more about ProShow Gold, come back and make incremental improvements to the presentation.
Buyer beware — unless you buy from Amazon and do your evaluation in 30 days!
Rating: 1 / 5
I purchased this software when I was asked to put together a slideshow for my cousin’s wedding. This venture was not my first, and I was looking for something slightly more challenging which would produce a nicer slideshow. Success on both counts. It took me a couple of weeks to fully immerse myself to where I felt really comfortable with the program. The help menu could have been more helpful, especially when it came to the more specific and detailed questions I had as my knowledge of the basic structure progressed.
On the positive side, the program has a slideshow wizard, which if you choose, does all of the work for you. Once your media is loaded, you can simply choose the wizard, use a preset slideshow mode or set your own desired effects, choose your background music, and voila! I had hoped to use this feature for my first slideshow, while I was getting used to the features, but a few random pictures kept popping in to my slideshow and I was unable to use the help to figure out how to get rid of them. I chose to create my slideshow manually, which did take more time, but was incredibly rewarding, as I put every single touch on each photo and song. Along with tons of photo and video effects, the title editor allows you create your titles in 3D if you choose – pretty cool looking. The provided options for menus are also very nice. Finished slideshows can be burned to a variety of different discs or saved as a PC slideshow (I have not attempted to upload to the internet at this time).
With this being said, the potential for creating amazing slideshows is at your fingertips with this software. It does take some time and patience to learn the software, but once done, you could do just about anything. I would say this software is not for the beginner, as it could be found to be frustrating to take in all of the features. For someone with a little experience, this software could be a great investment, especially if making professional-looking photo/video slideshows is something you enjoy. This software would not only be good for a “casual” slideshow designer such as myself, but for anyone needing to create slideshows for their business.
Rating: 4 / 5