| User review:
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I have been using Studio 8 Quickstart that came with my Dazzle 150 with the latest software updates.
Nice user interface and manual. Works fine for me for capture and editing with two exceptions:
I have to periodically remind it that I am using a Dazzle 150 capture device - it seems to forget.
I have to be careful in Edit mode. If I start clicking the mouse or scrolling too fast, it locks up.
Captured mpegs look great, but I have never been able to use them without rendering. I inevitably get lipsync problems if I try. It seems that this problem might be rather easy to correct, but I don't know - not a huge deal.
It also has trouble shutting down on my system. It always displays "program needs to close" and "send error report" messages even when I close it down intentionally using File>Exit commands from the file menu - again, no big problem.
My major gripe is that I have NEVER been able to burn a DVD with this application. Here is the problem:
After editing, I enter the "make movie" section of the program with the "make disc" option preselected. The status box tells me that the mpeg needs rendering. I choose to render. With a DVD quality movie of 100 minutes, this takes about an hour on my machine. After finishing, the status box indicates that the program is now ready to burn a disc. I click for it to proceed. When I insert a DVD+RW or DVD+R disc, I immediately get a message box warning me that the disc needs to be "formatted" and asking if I want that to happen. Answering no at this point leaves the user no out. Selecting no aborts the program and the rendered mpeg (worth an hour or more time) is lost in the ether - gone. So I answer "yes". The drive burn light on my Lite-On comes on for a while then goes off. The status box changes and tells me that the disc is now being burned (it never tells me that "formatting" is complete). Now I wait about 2 hours and the drive burn light goes out. But when this happens, the message box displays a message indicating that it is "completing background formatting". What? For all intents and purposes, the formatting was completed before the disc burning started, right? That would seem to be a logical assumption. Why would it now need to complete formatting anything? In addition, there is no drive "burn" light indication while it is supposedly "completing background formatting". So I once again enter into WAIT mode. I have stayed in this mode for as long as 12 hours just to see if it ever completed - guess what? It doesn't. Clicking on anything is useless, the user is very obviously locked out at this point. Pressing the drive "open" button causes the "burn" light on the drive to come on for just a few seconds and then it goes out and disc ejects. And I have a good, playable DVD disc, right? WRONG! Its trash. I have made one coaster with a DVD+R just to see if it was media-type related. DVD+RW discs have to be erased to be reused - so it is writing something, but still no explanation for why it never completes the process. To their credit, Pinnacle support answered my inquiries about the problem promptly, but have yet to offer a credible explanation as to why this is happening or to lend any beneficial advice. Preselecting "make mpeg" before getting to the rendering process has yielded excellent DVD-quality mpeg2 files that TMPGauthor burns readily into perfect DVD discs. My question remains, why do I have to pay an extra $70 for a third-party application in order to burn a DVD (using Pinnacle created files) that Pinnacle should be able to?
I really hope they get this software fixed. I would like to use it and would be very well pleased with it were it not for this last major bug. I consider the editing freeze-up bug and the capture device memory-loss bug to be only irritating. The shutdown glitch and necessity to render are minor inconveniences.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone else (short emails please) that has had a similar problem with this application. |
