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Very Disappointed


jmeredith88

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Downloaded the free trial 2 days ago... bought the professional last night... trying to wrap up a project for a funeral today.. plays clean when you preview but SOOOOO many errors when it copies... tried a combination of almost every setting... tried to make several disc images first and once you put the DVD it skips, freezes, and random choppy transitions... Never had an issue with any other video/picture editing software on this PC... Should've expected that since the cost was so low....

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  • 3 months later...

I am new to this software and this forum but i noticed a huge difference in the playback quality depending on what i used to view the slideshow. If i saved as an mp4 it played nicely in realplayer and quicktime but in other software it was choppy/messy as you describe. I hope you figured it out. I won't buy the premium version till i figure out how to make it work more consistently.

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  • 2 months later...

Same here. VERY disappointe4d with this product. I have used Video Pad and had great success so I purchased Slideshow. Have 500 pics of a golf outing and put on 9 sound tracks. Burned the project to a DVD. Previews fine in the software but has white screens, black screens, and then hangs on a photo about 1/5 of the way through. Think I will ask for a refund if they can't fix.

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  • 1 year later...

I had experienced similar issues when working with photostage on a project last year - but it was o.k. after some tests when i made some experiments with different kinds of export. It might help reducing the quality. Don't remember more as it is many months ago.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've got the same problem. I'm new to this software but was impressed with the project as seen on my computer. But when I saved to disk to play on my DVD recorder, the slide show although set to 3 seconds per slide was all over the place and eventually stuck - even though the music carried on with no problem.

 

My photos are jpegs but quite large and there are a lot of them in the show. Is this likely to be the problem - would be better to reduce all the file sizes and start again?

 

I'd like to sort it out as it seems a good program. It does everything I want on screen but it's not going to be any use to me if I can't transfer to DVD reliably

 

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  • 1 month later...

All the same as me. Music plays but photos get stuck and it skips other photos. I spent more than 10 hours on this slide show for my mom's memorial and it won't burn correctly. Won't even save to the computer correctly. Plays fine on preview. Ready to tell the world this software is a rip off. Looks like it's been a problem for more than 2 years and no fix yet. Don't think the company cares. Reading the forums, this software is just junk with no way to share the final project. 10 hours on my MOM'S memorial slide show and it's worthless, words can not express how upset I am!

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I have similar problems (i.e. on DVD, show will stall, miss slides, but "the band plays on!"). This has only happened since I upgraded my camera (7D) which produces bigger (in Mb) pictures than my old 40D (all ran smoothly then). The only way I have been able to get round this was to resize each slide (in photo-editing software) which is a complete pain (the more pictures, the bigger the pain), even then I couldn't guarantee that it would work when burned to a DVD/Flash Drive. Such is my frustration with Photostage that I'm now looking for alternative software.

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Here comes another frustrated would-be user adding his voice to the chorus of frustrated users.

My story is this:I went on a very exciting trip and took lots of interesting pictures. Now I'm looking for a way of organizing those photographs into some form of slideshow with some added text slides and suitable background music. The idea was to post the finished show on the internet, or burn it on DVDs and mail it to friends and family members in other parts of the world. Based on the description of the various products on offer it seemed that PhotoStage was exactly what I needed. I have spent many hours getting everything together, specifying the time for each picture, selecting transitions, adding soundtrack, etc. Everything looks as expected in the preview window but when I produce a playable file on my hard disc or burn a DVD everything falls apart. Transitions are choppy or incomplete. The time each picture is shown seems to be decided at random, not by what I had specified, and sooner or later the show gets stuck at an image while the music plays on. Apart from my time, I have wasted several DVDs that were completely unusable.

 

What amazed me when reading the entries in this thread was that there are only problem reports. No suggestions on how to get around the problem, no promise of a fix in the next version. In fact the people who sell this piece of junk are completely absent. But then I noticed the following sentence at the top of the forum " If you do not wish to purchase technical support, please feel free to ask the PhotoStage community for help."

In other words, they produce software that doesn't work and if you want help you need to purchase technical support. This forum is just a playground for users to let off steam. Don't expect any help here, at least not from the "professionals" who produced this junk. Well, NCH, you won't see any more money from me.

 

Guess I'll have to resume my search for a slide show producer that works. I'd appreciate any suggestions from people in the same predicament. But I will also make sure that all those reviewers who recommended this product will hear about my experience. I wonder if any of these writers ever went past the "preview" stage.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm having the same problem and am also very disappointed in this product. Everything looks great during preview, but some photos hang for a heckuva long time. The slideshow hangs up on one photo for more than two minutes instead of moving to the next photo after 3 seconds.

 

I first saved the slideshow on a DVD. After experiencing this big problem, I saved it to YouTube and had the same exact problem when playing the slideshow. This problem is especially bad because we spend a lot of time putting together a nice slidewhow...and only afterwards learn that the darned thing won't play properly.

 

Instead of immediately asking for a refund, I took the time to (i) fill out a "bug" report and (ii) send my project file to technical support. I'll try to remember to come back here and post the response I receive.

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These issues have been addressed in the latest release V2.21 out on May 25, 2013. Download the trial here: PhotoStage V2.21.

 

This is absolutely false...unless you mean "These issues have been addressed...AND NOT FIXED" in V2.21.

 

I bought the program in June and have been using that very version: V2.21. It has the problems that I summarized above...and that are the same that other users have reported here since June 2011.

 

Further: After I submitted the bug report and took the time to send them my PhotoStage project file through FTP, the company did not even bother to reply to my bug report and file. Instead, they had someone post the note above saying that the V2.21 version of the program addressed these problems. As I noted above, that is totally FALSE.

 

Based on my experience with PhotoStage, the product is horrible and causes users to waste many hours creating slideshows...which do not work. Also, the customer/technical support sucks big-time (just look at the posts to this thread since June 5, 2013).

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fashamil. Sorry for your frustrations. Your "feedback" has been forwarded to development. To set your expectations properly for future interaction bug reports are not interactive and this is not a technical support forum - this is users helping users. For technical support you would need to click "support" at the top of our main web page and go here and navigate to PhotoStage technical support.

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fashamil. Sorry for your frustrations. Your "feedback" has been forwarded to development. To set your expectations properly for future interaction bug reports are not interactive and this is not a technical support forum - this is users helping users. For technical support you would need to click "support" at the top of our main web page and go here and navigate to PhotoStage technical support.

 

Nchdj, You're totally wrong again. My "feedback" was through a bug report on the PhotoStage technical support page. I then received an automated request to use FTP to send tech support my project file and I sent that file...just as my previous post stated.

 

The main point is this: your info about the problem being fixed in version v2.21 is absolutely wrong. On a lesser note, your first post was totally wrong and your last one was condescending and indicated you hadn't even read my posts.

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Nchdj, You're totally wrong again. My "feedback" was through a bug report on the PhotoStage technical support page. I then received an automated request to use FTP to send tech support my project file and I sent that file...just as my previous post stated.

 

The main point is this: your info about the problem being fixed in version v2.21 is absolutely wrong. On a lesser note, your first post was totally wrong and your last one was condescending and indicated you hadn't even read my posts.

 

The development team is aware of this thread. Fashamil. What I was trying to communicate is that you will not receive any communication back regarding your bug report and file submission. It goes straight to development and is used to sleuth problems but there is no direct email response regarding the outcome. If entered as a bug you should receive an email stating when a release goes out that has addressed the bug. For a refund request or any technical support please use the link I included above. While these forums are frequented by staff, there is no formal technical support here unless a staff member sees an issue, knows the answer, and decides to post. There was no condescension - your comment "Also, the customer/technical support sucks big-time..." was neither constructive or accurate since these forums are not NCH Technical support. I am certain that these issues are being looked at aggressively, especially if they were believed to have been fixed in a previous release.

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  • 1 month later...

Add one more disappointed pre-sale customer.

 

Using the free version V2.21 of PhotoStage on August 15, 2013, I burned a wedding slideshow to DVD.

 

I used photos shot in high definition with a Sony DSC-HX200V camera.

 

The original photo sizes were all 5 megabytes or larger.

 

There were lots of pixels available for a good, high-resolution slide show presentation.

 

I expected I would get crystal-clear, highly detailed results from PhotoStage.

 

I tested the built-in recorder function by narrating a couple of the photos. I didn't see an input volume-level control nor a visual live volume indicator available in the software.

 

I played the DVD on a fairly new Sony DVD/Blu-Ray player, attached to a flat-screen high definition (1080p) TV.

 

In addition to the narration volume being loud enough to wake the dead, the visual quality and performance of the Photostage slideshow was simply awful.

 

The presentation was choppy; and on occasion, it hung up then resumed later. The specified duration lengths for certain photos were ignored.

 

And worse than anything else, the images on the TV screen were so grainy that one would think they were originally shot with a two-dollar camera.

 

I went back and did the same slideshow (same photos) with my Camtasia Studio software.

 

Camtasia is harder to use, and it takes longer to produce a slideshow. Camtasia isn't built for that primary purpose.

 

But, when the finished Camtasia DVD was played back on the same equipment, it was spectacular, with full 1080p high definition detail and properly controlled sound volume. Camtasia's built-in recorder is professional, with all sorts of control available to the user.

 

The Camtasia version was exactly what I wanted for mailing out DVDs to family and friends.

 

It appears to me that the old saying, 'You get what you pay for' applies here.

 

And a revealing point about all this, is that I'm not the only person experiencing this disappointment here.

 

Yet, there are no encouraging answers being posted by NCH Software staff to help us out, or even acknowledge this is a problem is more than a 'bug'.

 

I did see where and admin on this forum says these issues were resolved in version: V2.21. That's odd. I did this test on V2.21.

 

I won't be spending money on the PhotoStage PRO version, if this forum is an indication of the response one can expect from NCH staff on this serious flaw in the software. It makes the software unusable for serious photo projects.

 

If it's only a 'bug' as it is being represented, this is two months later, and no fix has been issued. As a former developer of medical practice management software, my crew would have been replaced if we hadn't fixed a 'bug' in two months' time. Serious design flaws never made it out the door due to extensive testing done by a dedicated QA team independent of the developers (our workplace misery-makers).

 

To me, it looks like a design flaw -- not simply a 'bug'.

 

I'll monitor this forum from time to time, to see if a new, really fixed, version is out before the holiday picture-taking season is upon us.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Another disapointed custommer, bought, installed and tried to make a slideshow, it's fairly easy but there's one "small" problem, the output is in black & white and it's not because I've selected the B&W effect. I tried to email support an WOW!!!! I need to pay another 30$ if I want support. WHAT!?!?!?! They say they answer their paying custommers first as for the others we may get an answer, once they've answered the paying custommers.

 

If anyone can hep let me know, other wise I think I just threw 30$ in the garbage

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Guest N_C_H_Rob

HI blackandwhite2,

 

It's never necessary to pay for support with NCH. We simply offer paid support packages as an option for those customers who want telephone support or priority email responses. Please use this wizard to submit your support ticket: http://www.nch.com.au/support/

 

It will offer to sell you the paid support packages a few times, but you can decline those offers and the technicians there will still respond to your ticket as quickly as possible.

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I tried iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Another disapointed custommer, bought, installed and tried to make a slideshow, it's fairly easy but there's one "small" problem, the output is in black & white and it's not because I've selected the B&W effect. I tried to email support an WOW!!!! I need to pay another 30$ if I want support. WHAT!?!?!?! They say they answer their paying custommers first as for the others we may get an answer, once they've answered the paying custommers.

 

If anyone can hep let me know, other wise I think I just threw 30$ in the garbage

I downloaded the trial version after using other NCH products (wave /audio converters) in the past. Whilst easy to use I made a flash slideshow of some panoramic shots for my website and they seemed ok. I then made another slideshow of some smaller images of a group of musicians rehearsing in a studio........the resolution was terrible (I tried both higher resolution pictures and web sized pictures but both looked the same......poor quality) The tutorials are not comprehensive enough when it comes to saving and exporting.......ie what quality and resolution....is setting too high a resolution affecting the quality of the slideshow? Can anyone tell me how you save a slideshow that you can edit at a later date...ie adding more slide to the one that is saved. Thanks.....I'm undecided whether to go for the full version....I'll see what answers I get here.

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  • 1 month later...

I have yet to try the program, but as a user of other slideshow DVD programs, I can say this - Large file sizes for photos are NOT necessary for a video file. In fact they only cause problems. The DPI for photos that are only going to be seen on a cmputer screen does not need to be higher than 100 dpi for a good quality. If you are PRINTING the photos that is different - the more the better. But NOT on video. That may be the major issue here.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have you agree with the many complaints about this product. They don't seem to be listening to all of us though. Their responses have been NON RESPONSES. I am an editor, producer, director for 35 years. I thought I might purchase this product since the PREVIEWS seemed to play well BUT the swfs were unable to play the effects and the transitions were a mess. I too am VERY disappointed.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have been using Version 2.24 for several months with perfect results. BUT now I recently downloaded Version 2.27 and it has bugs. Now I get a green screen for a split second between my videos in the slideshow but not between the pictures. Unfortunately they made me pay for the update to Verson 2.27 but I installed back 2.24 and am using it with good resuls. So beware.

 

January 31st 2014.

OK. Now I have Vesion 2.34 and what a relief. I am HAPPY again. I must say that this is a wonderul product. Just finished a 37 min. movie with hundeds of pictures and short videos. Keep up the good work.

 

May 17th 2014.

Now I have Version 2.41. I just made a 1hour 6min. video. Imagine how many items in that. Perfect outcome. Highly recommend.

Edited by jonivars
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