No comments about Webshots Ultimate Collection.

No comments about Windows Web Server 2008 32BIT/X64 DVD.

1 comments about Play Piano Deluxe v2.0.

1. I especially like the steps that are taken to learn each piece. The tempo control puts the user in the drivers seat, and the looping function allows the future virtuoso the ability to master the more difficult measures. This program takes nothing for granted and gives more than is expected.

2 comments about Adobe Creative Suite 3.3 Web Premium Upgrade from CS3 [OLD VERSION].

1. I had tried to purchase the product from Adobe's web site. They initially told me I had an invalid VAT ID, which made no sense to me, so I contacted their customer service, who sent me to a different shopping cart to purchase... 6 hours later I still had not recieved download info, made several inquiries with them concerning my order, customer service were incompetent, told me it took 24 hours for their databases to be updated etc. etc. Nobody to help me get what I paid for.. Finally I got a terse email from them telling me my order had been cancelled. So I went over to Amazon.com who were only too pleased to take my money and ship me a CD copy of the product. It was worth waiting a few days to have it delivered. I will say that Adobe did a great job on this version. I find the work flow to be much improved, and there is a common look and feel accross most of the applications. Overall, a good product, but Adobe did a terrible job of trying to sell direct to me.



2. I started with Dreamweaver 3, upgraded to Studio 8 and now have Web Premium for my website design and could not be happier with improvements by Adobe. Not only do you have improved software but the software has great support through the "help" section and tutorials by Lynda. You can't go wrong with this upgrade!

1 comments about My Professional Business Cards.

1. At $30 this is a fine product for someone who does not want to design a card as the only changes that can be made to the several thousand cards are in the name, phone number and address. The location of text can not be changed and graphics can not be imported. Once I realized that this was not a program for me I deleted it and manually had to delete the extra fonts added by this program as my OS complained about too many fonts. My Print Shop program is more versatile.

No comments about Handbook of Interventional Radiologic Procedures, Third Edition for PDA (In Stock).

No comments about Pianosoft Patsy Cline - The Patsy Cline Story.

No comments about Microsoft Home Publishing 2000.

5 comments about Adobe Encore DVD 1.5.

1. This Software does not live up to its promise in any way. Might be useful for small home video projects but in no way would I use it for professional and complex projects, maybe in a few updated versions it will get better. Encore is unfriendly to the user. Had to use separate software for transcoding and burning, In Encore both failed on large projects. Complex projects seem to be hard for it to handle. I was surprised and disappointed at Adobe for releasing such an undeveloped tool, we all know they can do better.



2. Encore, as with Premiere and other high end consumer products, has a very high learning curve. There are no Windows "wizards" to help you out or guide you. I make professional grade DVD's with this ranging anywhere from 3 minutes to 2 hours. I only use Encores transcoding because nothing else that I've tried comes close to the quality and audio/video sync that Encore provides. One of the beautiful things about Encore is that it can see how much video you have and provide the best possible bit rate to get the content down to 4.7GB. The important thing is not to transcode until everything is done and you are ready to burn otherwise you may run out of space as other reviewers have noted. You also have the power to manually imput what the bitrate will be if you need that kind of control.
   
   I have also been able to author DVD's with 5 Menu's and 9 Timelines, including motion menu's, motion buttons, "play-all override", and Menu Audio tracks. I can also create multiple audio options for each video to provide multiple languages, or maybe instead of the narration, I just want to hear a musical soundtrack behind the pictures/video which can be selected at a menu.
   
   It also has the power of Adobe Photoshop behind the menu to create your layering.
   
   That being said, I can create a DVD menuing system to look exactly like most any movie I rent from blockbuster, however that type of power requires a very complex interface. I did not dock any stars for the complex interface because if you make it easier, you are just going to take away fuctionality. It's the nature of the beast. So if you want to make professional looking DVD from your edited video, this is a very good product. Just make sure you purchase the tutorial, become very familiar with google and the help function, and oh yeah...it would be best if you bought Adobe Photoshop as well.



3. Spent (and lost) so many hours on the subtitles and still the same result: CRASH CRASH CRASH!!!!
   
   (To prevent questions and for information:
   Same result on SEVEN!!!!! completely different configurations including combinations of Encore 1.0 and 1.5(.1) on those configurations.
   Clean installs, various OS-ses, disk- and peripheral solutions (internally and externally), big machines, small machines)
   
   Why is Adobe so quite after all those complaints about not being able to handle subtitles properly? I'll give you the answer later.
   
   Adobe tells you that you are able to do so and so (not always telling you HOW you should do this) and after you bought something it should work. Period.
   
   But now you are in trouble and the software behaves different and to you, unexpected. Adobe makes you believe that it is NEVER their fault (by not say a word about the TRUE problem: bad code. The so-called support-info is a laugh, never a true answer, if you're lucky you'll get a work-around.) as you find out.
   
   So there you are, stuck. I know that there should always be a degree of doubting your own environment (OS, disks, etc) but there is an end to this. After that it is the Adobe-'software' that is the problem. Software that sometimes just vanishes from your memory, leaving no trace whatsoever and leaving your files(ystem) in a complete mess.
   
   Did it ever occur to Adobe that people do not get up in the morning just to buy Adobe coding-errors or badly designed and badly written software products? Probably not. People get up and they want to make a DVD and need software for it so they buy that.
   
   O yeah, that's a good idea, a bug report. Don't make me laugh, nobody reads them anyway.
   
   
   And now the financial side of this. Do you get a refund for the hours you spent when problems are THEIR fault? Do you get your money back? Did you ask your money back? Do they actually try to solve THEIR problems at YOUR desk or do you have to be the President for this?
   Encore doesn't cost a lot when it works, if it doesn't work (as it doesn't) Encore is very, very expensive and should be considered straight theft.
   
   Don't get me wrong on this, a manufacturer has the right to sell anything, working or not. But when a manufacturer claims to sell no-home-should-be-without sofware he makes a promise. And this promise should not only be in Adobe's interest, customers have the right to get value for their money and have the promises proven.
   
   So back to the question, why is Adobe so quite after all these complaints? The answer is: as long as you buy stuff and complain at the wrong place (fora, newsletters, etc. Amazon ;-) ) Adobe will NEVER stop ripping you off.
   
   Complain at the right place, in this case Adobe.
   ASK YOUR MONEY BACK. STOP BUYING FROM MANUFACTURERS WHO ARE UNABLE TO DELIVER. Also, you could consider not buying other products from the same company.
   
   There is only one solution to companies rejecting and denying customers who have severe complaints after having their movies/menu's rendered upside-down, challenge Adobe to come over to you and let them do it. They should put their money where their mouth is. Go to their offices, call them day and night, ask for the CEO, leave messages through any medium and ASK YOUR MONEY BACK, you have the right to do so!!!!
   
   The above may seem anti-Adobe. This is NOT the case, it was I (as post-production manager) who made the error getting Encore into the project and it is I who is responsible for not being able to finish the project in time, this comes with the role I have.
   
   In order to avoid Adobe-problems in the future I decided to let go of their other products (Premiere-Pro, Acrobat, AfterEffects, Audition) as well. Some fine alternatives are used at great satisfaction and are accepted more and more. Actually, now that there are alternatives, the number of (internal) complaints about Adobe keep rising.
   For Adobe Photoshop I made the exception because of archiving issues (and continuity to be honest).
   
   I do not hate Adobe, I hate companies that think that they can ripp me off and worse, behave arrogant.
   
   A company can exist because of me, not the other way around!!!
   
   Droombeeld
   
   PS. Don't complain, ask your money back!!!



4. I was pleased to receive my copy of Adobe Encore DVD. After having experience with some of the other Adobe products like Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, After Effects and Premiere Pro, I wanted to see how it stacked up. I was also very interested in the level of integration between the other products and Encore.
   
   With products from other companies, combining the power and capabilities of Photoshop CS and other Adobe products with their products provided to be a hassle some of the time, especially since their programs couldn't read PSD format or maintain the layers. I was looking forward to the smooth integration of Photoshop CS, video and audio files. I was not disappointed.
   
   I was able to easily bring in my files from Photoshop CS. What's more, I was able to maintain the layers too! In many other programs, I've had to flatten my Photoshop CS files and convert them to another format. This was OK, but once the file got into the other program, it wasn't easy to work with..
   
   Encore is able to work with almost all of the major video formats (AVI, MPEG4) and audio formats. Even the files I brought in from After Effects and Premiere converted. The markers that I set in After Effects and Premiere Pro convert to chapter marks in Encore. Once my video was loaded into Encore, I could edit the file in either of the original programs and then re-render. Probably one of the coolest things was that Encore updated the asset automatically after editing in the original program. No more moving the file back and forth with converting and re-converting.
   
   I was able to navigate the menus and timelines in Encore since I was familiar with After Effects and Premiere Pro. However, even the newest user should be able to work with this program with a minimal learning curve.
   
   The Encore interface uses a tab styled format, just like that of Adobe's other design products. This enables you to dock windows together or drag out a specific tab for more individual control. What's more is that there are great tutorials that come with the product which lead you through the creation of your DVD step by step. These tutorials are one of the main reasons the learning curve is reduced, plus the interface is easy to read and use.
   
   ncore comes with pre-built templates for menus or you can use your own from Photoshop CS. You can even export the pre-built templates to Photoshop CS if you would like to modify them. All of the DVD menus are Photoshop PSD files. The program comes with 37 menu and object templates that provide extensive text creation capabilities as well as image-sizing and positioning controls, all of which are similar to Photoshop layers. Encore does have menu alignment and some other basic controls. However, serious designers will probably want to leave that work to the program which does it best, Photoshop CS. Once the masterpiece is created, just import it into Encore and Voila! Grab the popcorn and the remote!
   
   Probably the most awesome feature of Encore is that you can preview your menu live. You are able to view it just like it will appear once committed to the DVD. This is a full preview with motion and sound. There's nothing worse than spending the time to put together and burn a DVD only to find out that there is something wrong with the menu.
   
   Encore DVD fills a neat niche in the Windows XP market. With it's pricing points set at a consumer level, almost anyone can acquire this product. It is easy to use and within one hour you'll be creating your own fantastic DVD menus and firing up your Digital Camcorder to go grab some more video to play with!
   
   In summary, Encore DVD is a great product. However, to fully maximize all of the features and capabilities of the program, be sure that your computer meets and exceeds the minimum hardware requirements and that you have Windows XP installed. It is also extremely helpful if you own any of Adobe's other products which easily compliment and integrate with Encore DVD like Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, After Effects and Premiere Pro.
   
   Loren Elks, Group Manager
   D-MAG.org



5. I have my wedding video that's 5 hours long. Encore converted it to dual layer dvd at an incredible high quality.
   User interface is difficult. Documentation is okay, not complete. Needs a way to put a slideshow with background music. The next version will be very nice.
   If your project is under two hours, use MyDVD. The best program you'll ever use (not good for over 2 hours).
   Use Ulead Pictureshow 4 to create slideshows and save to .avi to use with encore.
   5 stars for quality.
   3 usability and documentation

1 comments about Power Production StoryBoard Quick.

1. I bought this product so that I could do a few storyboard style examples of different size shots. It worked find in a basic way for that purpose. It is easy to use and extremely intuitive for anyone who has any experience with software like Adobe Photoshop. You can export boards and individual frames in any number of formats, colors and Black and White.
   
   However StoryBoard Quick is basic and limited in that I couldn't change eye lines or facial expressions. You get certain poses and you can turn or move them into various positions, but you can't make an arm go into a diffent position, for example have two characters appear to be shaking hands or someone waving. You can't turn a head without the rest of the body going with it. Maybe the next version up has that capability, and if it does I'll probably consider an upgrade. For a basic version it may be overpriced.
   
   So 4.5 stars for a basic storyboard program.