3 comments about Hyperscore Music Composition Software for PC.

1. A friend bought this for me and I didn't think much of it at the time. Had some time to kill one day and popped it in. I haven't stopped playing with it since. The wife and kids love it too. I strongly recommend this for anyone who ever wanted to play music but doesn't know how. Or for someone who does play music, this is an incredible tool to enhance their song creation ability. Makes for a unique gift and creative learning tool for anyone with a computer. A++++++



2. I heard about Hyperscore from TV show, Scientific American Frontiers hosted by Alan Alda and I bought Hyperscore for my sister as a gift. She loves music but has no experience of playing or composing music. She loves it and started to jam with her friends. We made a couple of tunes together and had a really fun time. It doesn't require any complicated skills or conventional music background so makes us easy to start. :) I think it would be great for teachers or parents to teach young kids and have fun together.
   
   It worths every penny!



3. Fun to use for a while, but after a few hours I was wishing I could actually score the music. Very hard to compose with multiple instruments/voices since it's sooooo tough to align the measures. And since I know how to read musical notation, I feel I'm giving up an very useful tool. Positives: Easy to learn and appealing graphically.

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5 comments about Movie to CD & DVD 2004.

1. Trying to burn imported files to SVCD. Every single one had a spot where the video went bad momentarily then audio and video were out of sync. You cannot burn a file without running thru their encoder first and I could never get a good output file. Their tech support told me to update my VIDEO CARD drivers and windows media PLAYER codecs. Then they told me they wouldn't help me because I didn't meet the minimum sys requirements because I had integrated sound device instead of a separate sound card which has nothing to do with the problem. I asked for a refund and was told that I agreed to their license when I installed the software so I guess I got taken. My advice, by something else.



2. This exceeded my expectations. The two things I like most are easy editing functions and the ability to create high quality menus for DVDs. My only complaint is that there is a limit on the size of the files you can capture, ie. capturing a 4hr extended play home video. The program does capture the footage, gives several error/warning messages and the sound on the footage is lost. I will continue to use to transfer purchased VHS to DVD. Good program/value to get started with.



3. This review is for Movies on CD and DVD 2005, but since it is mostly about their tech support, I think it is relevant.
   
   My experience with Magix products as well as their technical support has been bad and I recommend avoiding them at all costs if you want to save yourself the trouble I went through.
   
   Last year I purchased Magix's Movies on CD and DVD in hope of using it to transfer my Hi8 tapes to DVDs. I was able to capture movies and edit scenes, but the product didn't work with my DVD burner. My emails to customer support have remained unanswered to this day. In the meantime they announced a new version of the product, Movies on CD and DVD 2005, so I decided to wait for it to come out, as their user interface and features seemed ok for what I needed.
   
   The new version finally came out in the fall of 2004 and I bought it. I tried to capture my movies then burn them on DVD. The capture went fine, and then I proceeded to automatic scene recognition. When I started the editing process I realized the preview and the cursor position on the timeline or storyboard view were out of sync. This makes editing a movie difficult if not impossible. I tried to recapture the movie, change settings etc, but nothing helped. I then decided to contact tech support.
   
   I first sent them an email explaining the problem, but after 3 days I received a reply saying that I should use the tech support submission form on the website. I went there and ran their utility which captured all my system settings and I explained the problem again and submitted my request after which I received an email with a case number.
   
   I didn't receive any reply for the next several days, so I decided to call them. A bored and annoyed guy answered and after I explained that I had sent several emails, he said that case numbers are actually not used and don't mean anything to them. After a short discussion, his answer to my problem was that (and I paraphrase) "this is the first time I heard about this issue, so it must be something wrong with your computer". Whenever I tried to bring up arguments showing that a bug in their software was a plausible possibility as well, he kept repeating the same mantra. Finally he asked me for my email address saying that he would send me an utility for gathering more info about my configuration, but I never received anything from him.
   
   I then decided to ask for a refund so I called again. I was transferred to another person in tech support who sounded more like a manager, in the sense that he was not as belligerent as the other tech support person, and after he apologized for the problem I was experiencing, he said that he would ask the developers to look into the issue, but that he could not give me a refund. He also confirmed that case numbers are useless. I decided to give them one more chance, so at his request, I resent him the email with my configuration and description of the problem. I even offered to send them my video to see if they can reproduce the problem and issue a fix After several days without a sign from them, I sent a new email asking him to confirm that he received it, and also to let me know when I would get an answer. No reply.
   
   I then decided to escalate the request and I sent an email to their public relations person in Germany where I explained again everything that happened. As you may have guessed, no reply this time either.
   
   I am still waiting for them to reply or fix my problem.
   
   Based on my experience, Magix customer service and tech support are totally useless (unless you are calling to buy something), and customers are important to them only until they have purchased the product, afterwards they don't matter any more.



4. I read the reviews on this product before I bought it and thought that the other reviewers were just novices or computer idiots. Well, I was wrong. I have not been able to capture a video from a VCR which should be the easiest thing to do. I thougth I made some sort of mistake so I went through the tutorial a second time (it is so fast (20 seconds) that you barely able see it).
   I would strongly advise not buying this software. It is not user friendly. I appears that they just wanted to get some editing software on the market with little or no instructions on how their particular program works. I also read the reviews on CNET and people said basically the same thing.
   Next time I will accept the reviews.



5. I now actually have the newest iteration of this program ("Movie to CD & DVD 2005") but it is essentially an updated version of this software. I am extremely torn on rating this product. On the positive side, the software makes unbelievably professional looking DVDs that can be played on a computer or conventional DVD player (at least in the US.) The end product is fantastic, and the quality of the image, sound, and menus are first rate.
   
   There are two negatives, though, that many others have noticed: the customer support (particularly the website) is absolutely worthless. You need to be a real self-sufficient person to use this software. Secondly, the interfaces are fairly complex and are frequently counterintuitive. A lot of learning occurs by trial and error.
   
   Overall, I do recommend the software because it is very capable and reasonably priced. Having said that, you may be content with Windows Movie Maker, which comes bundled with many PCs now, especially if you don't have the patience to learn this rather trying software.
   
   Still, though, in the end the DVDs look great!

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1 comments about Steinberg WaveLab Essential 6.

1. I use it for business editing of my talks and my podcast! Well worth the money!
   
   It comes with a starter manual. I also recommend printing out the main manual on PDF in a notebook for reference
   
   A lot of features for the money. It also has a upload podcast feature that is standard and saves files as MP3 standard as well.
   
   I started from scratch with no editing skills and the more I work with it the more I like it. Anything new takes time to learn but this becomes easier as you go along as all well designed products do.
   
   To me the best value for a well designed, stable program .. especially for podcasting. You can hear it's application on my podcast, InquireOnLine.info