We have been using Proshow Gold and are relatively happy with it, but I have run into serious production-time draining problems dealing with it's lame lack of color management and it's buggy nature in which it often freezes up on me.
For color management, I am considering upgrading to Proshow Producer, but am wary of paying for a nearly $200 upgrade if it's going to be as buggy as the Gold version.
I would love to use Showit DVD, but I object to paying for software that requires me pay yet again for a DVD that I would prefer to burn myself. Seriously, doesn't anybody else feel this is silly?

Anybody who has used Proshow Producer - is this as buggy as Proshow Gold?
Will Showit ever allow us to burn our own DVD's?
Does anyone have any suggestions for other software? (for PC users)

TIA.

ProShow Gold 2 rarely crashed or froze on me. 3 never has - and that's on an old 1G Windows XP SP1 computer, so there's some other problem going on there.

And why do you need color management? No one has a TV that's color managed - or a web browser.

I use PSG-3 on two new-ish systems and it often gets choked on system memory. I founs that leaving it's folder list focused on an empty folder helps significantly as every time I switch back & forth, the program needs to re-draw the thumbnails inside that folder.
..anyway, as for the color management, my files jave more yellows & reds when viewed in PSG. I do not want to "dumb these down" to look good in PSG. I know the devices these are on will not be profiled, but I prefer to have more control over the output and know how they should look.

I never keep anything in the default directory, so I haven't noticed that problem.

And I've never noticed a problem with color. I usually only use the program for dvds and I always have the "Desaturate Final Images" setting to 80% or so. I find that's pretty important.

Thanks for replying, John.

The problem I have is that any file I have that has more saturated colors and looks good to me in Photohop will display red-ish skin tone in PSG, particularly with hispanic people. So I have to dumb them down in Photoshop to correct for this.
If there is a better way, or someting else I am missing, please tell me.

Hi Dave,
I have Pro Show Producer and Show-it.
I now don't use Pro Show at all. I make a web slideshow with Show-It and without having to do any extra work I have a DVD version ready.
Before Show-It had the DVD option I would make a DVD with Pro-Show. This took a whole lot of time.
You can get the price of the DVD back by factoring it into your packages or by selling it a-la-carte.

Good luck with finding your solution

Nigel


mywebsite

Can't really compare Showit with Producer. Producer is an awesome product. Much more so than Gold. But it is work.

Showit does what Showit does best and it is quick and easy. I charge a premium if a client want a fully produced Producer style DVD. I have not had any problems. It is an awesome product. But time consuming if you want to do all the neat stuff that you see samples of on their website. It is very inspiring when done well. It is useless, boring and cheap, when done poorly. If you are not going to learn to do the neat stuff with Producer, you have wasted your money.

Showit is perfect for what it was intended. Plus the client can order the DVD if they want it without any help from you. It is quiet awesome for what it does. Less time, less work. But it does have production limitations. But that is precisely what I like and "gee wiz beaver" that is exactly what it was intended for.

A few people will pay to have a custom DVD produced in Producer. WHat they see as an example makes them want one (again, when it is done well). It is a premium produced product and I charge for it.

Showit is what Showit does...people love it because they can order it themselves if they want one and I don't have to do ANYTHING. Plus when you set up the "event" you can have custom artwork printed on the DVD and a photo insert in the inside cover. No work from me. Just upload the files for that specific DVD and they do everything.

I'm a pretty new user to ProShow Gold, but haven't noticed the colour issues you're referring to. The default 80% desaturate on render does a dandy job in my experience. Only other comment I'd make is that TV's vary wildly colour-wise so perhaps our expectations need to be lowered a little here ;-)

Re: ProShow and Showit Web, I agree that they are very different products targetting very different markets, and both are great at what they do. Which is why I've just finished work on a converter (www.onefinedayphotography.com.au/software) which might tempt you to join the Showit Web world, Dave T ;-)

(BTW, I think Showit-DVD is great if you're in a position to outsource profitably. ShowTransformer is just a tool to help those who for one reason or another need to "insource".)

We've had the same experience with it crashing and time it takes to produce a show is just so long and with the unstableness of the software it makes it even more of a drain.

We are currently considering options for user created DVD's but I still believe strongly that outsourcing ALL order fulfillment is the way to go. I know many others feel the same way. The Do-It-Yourself model just isn't a good one to operate a wedding business by. Your time is worth a lot and shouldn't be spent fulfilling orders.

I agree with David, however, the wedding side of my business isn't paying the bills at the moment (since I've been in business for a month) and I'm shooting families, kids, sports, etc - getting my name out, doing stuff in the community for the community. And I've used ShowIt Web to make some cool slideshows of t-ball games, etc. Check it out: zacthomas.net I'm basically providing cool pictures that parents would never get otherwise and I'm doing it for free. They can buy prints on Pictage if they want. I'd like to offer a dvd but it's cost prohibitive when I've shot a whole game and a parent may only get one or two shots of their kid in the whole thing. DavidJay's my hero and all that but, until I'm shooting weddings exclusively, I'd like to use ShowIt web for these other endeavors as well.