proshow gold

hey all,

can anyone vouch for proshow gold for dvd slideshows?? ease of use? features,

and quality? any feedback is great or if you use an alternate product that

would be helpful as well. thanks.

I currently have ProShow, not the gold, but I am going to upgrade pretty quick.

 

ProShow is highly respected.

Something of a learning curve, but worth the effort.

I hate it, often crashes and hard to use. I'm sure it has the features that I want but I can't seem to find them (like synching to music). Just a giant pain in the a** as far as I'm concerned. If someone recommends something better I'll buy it in a flash! I have heard some people recommend something called Irfan view?

I use ProShow Gold. After carefully reading the manual, I found it easy to use and quite powerful and flexible. The quality of the DVD slideshows is very good, although you should check to see if your DVD burner is listed in their "certified" list of tested DVD burners and you should carefully read about the various kinds of output. Many people get confused about autorun slide shows for computers and DVD slideshows meant to be shown on TVs. I found that autorun slide shows have problems because of the various zooms and pans you can incorporate into the slideshows. Your average graphics card sometimes can't keep up with it all. You can, of course, play a DVD slideshow as a DVD show on the computer as well. The only other "problem" is that the shows require a plug to run and don't work with Apple computers. But if your goal is to produce a DVD slideshow for your customer, to be shown on TVs, then ProShow Gold is a good bet. For web shows, ShowIt is the hot product, although ProShow can now output web shows too.

If you actually listen what Nicola is saying, its probably the best thing out there. Apparently he hates it, yet kind find anything better!

JC--I believe Nicola is a woman...

 

Nicola--Irfanview is freeware so you can download it and play with it all you want. I haven't used it for slide shows other than very simple, no sound ones but I'm sure it is workable, although I don't think you can get the zooms and pans and other frills. It would be fine if you just wanted to make a slideshow for proofing purposes.

I think it is about the easiest program I have - hardly a learning curve at all. PS is a learning curve...compared to that this is easy. You drag and drop photos on the time line click on text or add text, click zoom and zoom how you want it. load music - you can click on the music and edit the fades. You can even set macros easily to include the file name for slide show proofing. Output is easy select DVD or VCD, flash - very easy. The final menu layout on the DVD can be tricky but no big deal. The latest version lets you apply settings of one slide to the entire show. My only complaint is that the program softens up the images a little I generally over sharpen them. Photodex who makes it reccomends to set the shows on standard quality when burning DVD's instead of high quality for a better look and performance. The only time I needed help was for the macro feature to see the file name on each image for a SS proof otherwise if you know your way around a computer the manual is not even needed. Go to photodex.com and see all the sample shows. I (talking with a snobby voice) was a spotlighted show (non wedding) a few months back.. he he - (excuse me I will try not to strain myself patting myself on the back...)

We use PINNACLE Studio 9 -- drag and drop

We use ProShow Gold, quite often, and are quite happy with it.

 

Russ

I've built slide shows with a variety of software, including video editing tools like Vegas, and have had the best luck with Pro Show Gold. Their features keep getting better with each update, use is straightforward, and the quality of results, especially with pan and zoom, is excellent.

 

Check out the work of Barry Beckham for some imaginative approaches with a variety of themes using PSG, including weddings. His tutorial DVD, Tips & Tricks 1 with ProShow Gold, greatly improved my work -about $30 I believe.

 

http://beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw.htm

I've used it and found it as one of the best tools I've used for slideshows. It was also very easy to get started with, and supports photoshop like layers using which you can do some pretty cool animation effects. It also supports transparency between slides which I use often.

 

You can find a demo of my work here:

 

http://www.mozammelhaque.com/dvdalbum/MHP-DVD-Sample.exe

(sorry apple users)]

I have been using proshow gold for 3 years and I love it. Very easy to use with no learning curve. The only negative part for me is that for some reason, I need to turn off my virus protection when I'm ready to burn the dvd. If I leave on the virus protection, the dvd burn fails. Other than that, I love the recent enhancement that allows multiple layers along with the previous enhancement that allows you to visually splice your music. (It made vanilla "ice ice baby" go really smoothly into queen's "under pressure":)

I use it and like it a lot. I found a bit of a learning curve but not terrible. My only complaint was that I couldn't figure out a way to include photo files that were not presented in the slide show. But that's not a huge deal. All around- a good product