Rating: 
Summary: Easy to use, but very limited.
Review: I'll concur with some of the bad reviews; Ulead's customer support is snotty at their very best, and that's after sitting on hold for a half hour. However, I'm rejecting some of the bad reviews largely because the posters don't seem to know what to do with the software. DVD MovieFactory is ideal *if* you capture the video somewhere else. If you have a digital capture card, use the application that came with it to do the capturing (I use Creative's DigitalVCR). MovieFactory will only import files that adhere to DVD standards, so you'll probably need to convert the file to a 720x480 Mpeg-2. Adobe Premiere 6.5's MainConcept plugin can do that. However, once all that is said and done, MovieFactory works very smoothly. You can set chapter points effortlessly, create detailed sub menus for chapters, and even have accompanying music to each and every menu. Definately try it out before purchasing it, but if you give it what it wants, I think you'll be happy.
Rating: 
Summary: A little fussy, but otherwise quite nice
Review: I'll concur with some of the bad reviews; Ulead's customer support is snotty at their very best, and that's after sitting on hold for a half hour. However, I'm rejecting some of the bad reviews largely because the posters don't seem to know what to do with the software. DVD MovieFactory is ideal *if* you capture the video somewhere else. If you have a digital capture card, use the application that came with it to do the capturing (I use Creative's DigitalVCR). MovieFactory will only import files that adhere to DVD standards, so you'll probably need to convert the file to a 720x480 Mpeg-2. Adobe Premiere 6.5's MainConcept plugin can do that. However, once all that is said and done, MovieFactory works very smoothly. You can set chapter points effortlessly, create detailed sub menus for chapters, and even have accompanying music to each and every menu. Definately try it out before purchasing it, but if you give it what it wants, I think you'll be happy.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite pleased w/ trial version
Review: I'm a new comer to making vcd from video tape. I made a MPEG file using Pinnacle systems studio 7 software but could not copy the file into vcd. Using Ulead's DVD MovieFactory, I could easily burn a copy of my MPEG file into a vcd using my cd-writable disc drive. I just viewed the movie on my dvd player and I'm really excited about how easy it was to make vcd to view it on my dvd player.
Rating:
Summary: Straight forward creation of DVD and SVCD disks
Review: I'm two days into the thirty day free trial. The download and install went smooth as silk. I got an immediate connection to my Canon Optura PI thru a previous Firewire board and imported my video. I created an SVCD on my first try, burned it to CD-R and played it in my Apex 1500 ...DVD player. The quality was great! Far superior to VCD which has low resolution and all kinds of blocky compression artifacts. The SVCD was DVD quality. I created an XSVCD using MPEG2-High Quality files I created using DVD Factory, but I couldn't tell any difference from the SVCD output. ...P>Why not four stars? The program is really an amalgam of two programs, the Video Toolbox for capturing and trimming the video, and the DVD Factory for authoring menus and creating the disks. Once you go forward from editing to export, you can't go back without exiting and restarting the program. And while the Video Toolbox does remember what files you have on the timeline, you can't save the project by name and open a new one. I needed help to understand how to set cut-in and cut-out points and to trim the video. Also there is a right-click menu to allow you to "join" separate "scenes" but it is not in the online manual and I couldn't figure it out. I have just created a 35 minute, 690 megabyte SVCD which will not play the final MPEG file. Is this a bug in DVD Factory? A problem with my player? Or a limitation of the SVCD format to a standard 650MB CD? Inquiring minds want to know. There is no editing available beyond trimming and reordering your imported video clips, and no titleing. It would be useful to be able to create very simple titles to identify clips in an assemble edit, but for that, you will have to step up to a real editing program. Download it and give it a try. ...SVCD is video for the masses, at least until DVD-R media and drives are the same price as CD-R. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: If full version is as good as Trial version.....
Review: I've been trying the Trial Version Download for several days and so far it has been a pleasant experience. I've made several VCD's and they play great. If the full version has additional templates for menu creation, wow. I use a USB Dazzel DV80 to copy my VCR movies to VCD's. Not the first problem. The Adobe Users Manual is quite useful. Overall...quite pleased.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to use, but very limited.
Review: If you are just getting into the often frustrating world of hobby video, this program will help you get started. However, you won't learn much in the process. Basically, you run a wizard, and a few hours later you've got a (S)VCD/DVD. The menu is somewhat customizable--you can add your own backgrounds and music--but leaves a lot to be desired. The biggest problem I have with Movie Factory is it's built in encoder. It just takes way too long and the quality isn't always that great. There is also a problem with audio becoming async when converting DivX/XVid to MPEG2 with Movie Factory; just test burn to a DVD-RW first, so you won't end up with a bunch of expensive coasters. To be fair, this can be a problem with many other authoring programs, and is a pain to fix. Personally, I prefer DVD-Lab, though it costs more and is a tad harder to use. For $80 you get an authoring program that is fairly easy to use, yet is capable of producing professional quality DVDs, complete with fully customizable menus. Similar programs can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars and won't be nearly as easy to use. It also lacks an encoder, so you would probably want to look into TMPEGnc Plus (another $30.00) or Flask MPEG (Free). Actually, it's not a bad idea to use TMPEGnc instead of Movie Factory's encoder. Both DVD-Lab and TMPEG have 30 day demos available. Regardless of which authoring program and encoder you go with, you'll definitely want to download a copy of Virtual Dub. This is probably the most useful piece of software you will ever use for video editing. It's also free. You'll also want to bookmark dvdrhelp.com; if you can't find a solution to your problem there, it probably can't be solved.
Rating:
Summary: Decent features, poor video quality
Review: MovieFactory is strong on features. Menus created with it look great, and its thumbnail selection feature is ideal. The only downside feature-wise is that you have to manually add chapter points while actually watching the video (can't just fast forward on the timline to where you want to add them). This said, the MAJOR downside to MovieFactory is the video quality of the resulting DVD. I have a good system and a popular DVD drive, and other software produces great results on DVD's. But Moviefactory produced very blocky video--full of obvious artifacting. And the worst part was, the video would completely pixellate every 15 seconds or so. It's a real shame too. The features are pretty decent. But without features AND decent video quality, the software is pretty much worthless to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Does not work!
Review: Save your money....this product is full of bugs and glitches. I encountered one problem after another attempting to get it installed and running on my fairly new loaded Dell PC (Pent IV, 356 memory, Windows ME, GeForce2 Ultra, CD-RW drive, & 40G HD with room to spare). Repeated email correspondence got the program running on my PC, but it is a confusing and glitchy program. After struggling with it for a week, I was still unable to produce a single functioning SDVD of home movies from my new digital camcorder. In the end, I returned to Amazon.com for refund.
Rating: 
Summary: Version 1.0 - Still Needs Work!
Review: The functionality and price of this product were very appealing. However, I was extremely disappointed to find that this Version 1.0 product was very incompatible with 2 different capture cards and computers I own. Worse yet, the Tech Support leaves a lot to be desired - - hard to reach and even harder to get solutions. I had to eventually return the product. After several e-mails to their support people (unanswered) and long distance phone calls to their California sales office, it was eventually learned that it did not support either of my hardware devices. I will buy it again after the bugs are resolved, but it really needs work.
Rating:
Summary: If you don"t have a clue then this is for you!!!!
Review: This is a good program if you don"t have a clue what you are doing.It provides an easy interface for vcd/dvd production that supports chapters and menu"s but is somewhat restrictive..The encodeing function isn"t the best quality (very Blocky) and if you encode with a different encoder you will have problems getting it to accept your mpeg as vcd or dvd compliant and will re-encode your mpeg file,So if you are new to video production you will find it very easy to use but you will find that you will out grow it quite quickly because the quality of the encoded file is sub-standard.I give this product 3 stars out of 5, and would advise anyone interested in getting into makeing vcd/dvd"s to spend the few extra dollars and opt for the better "Ulead DVD Workshop".......
| 
