| User review:
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I openly admit I haven't used enough DVD authoring tools to make fair comparisons. Nevertheless, this program is best for those who want to go beyond the restrictions of other programs and desire more control over the outcome of their project.
The program itself is fairly simple once you get used to how the tools work. A wealth of tutorials exist on the internet, so reading is definately a requirement if you want to make the most out of the program. (Even the help file is not completely as bad as others make it out. With its guidance I was able to customize where the menu highlight goes depending on with direction you press).
You have full control over customizing buttons, providing you have a copy of Adobe Photoshop. The Adobe website gives a great tutorial on how to make layer sets that Encore interprets (it even shows you how to make a box as a placeholder for a video preview).
The program, however, has some serious bugs - inconvienient at best and destructive at worst. I've had to make a whole series of different save files because it doesn't take much for the project to get completely corrupted. The patch released last month may address some of these problems but I haven't fully tested the improvements yet.
Nevertheless, I've gotten a few DVDs burnt successfully with this program. Any shortcomings, I'm humbled to admit, is completely due to my error (or lack of understanding of a certain feature) and not due to any glitches.
$600 is bit steep for those who just want to throw a few clips on a DVD with no need for a slick presentation (the software that came with the burner, if any, would be fine in that case). But for those who want something to show off this may be the program of choice, but it may be wise to wait for the next release since this one needs a bit of tweaking. |
