Unfortunately, I am discovering a couple of things that don't make me thrilled. The first was that while my CD-ROM says VideoStudio 5 DV, it turns out to be VS 5 SE (according to the uLead web site). The second, more serious problem is that it absolutely will not run the install on WinXP Pro SP2, regardless of which machine I try.
I need to load this on my XP system, so I can capture and edit episodes of such programs as Paramedics and Trauma: Life in the ER (amongst others) for use as preclass "edutainment" for student First Responders and EMT-B's. I am tired of VHS tapes dying off, wearing out, or stretching to the point of no return, and want to get these episodes on a more stabile format (DVD or VCD).
The system this needs to install on is an Intel MB w/ 2.5 GHz P4 (Celeron) processor w/ 512 MB DDR 2300 RAM, an ATI All-In-Wonder PCI Rage 128, and several hard drives of varying capacities and speeds. The tuner portion of the card handles the signal from the VCR, which in turn deals with the signal from the cable company. Since more high end (and hence far more complex) applications for DVE work with this, I assumed uLead VS5 would as well. Also, I am the system administrator, as is my user account on the system.
When I place the VS5 CD-ROM into the drive, it immediately causes an error that gets sent to Microsoft (something to do with the Autorun program). I tried starting the Setup application manually, but I get a "not found" type error (regardless of any compatibility settings I try) regarding "GetStrangW" in Kernel.dll. In short, the software absolutely will not install on any XP system I have tried, setup won't even start without generating errors.
The software does install, btw, on Win2k Pro systems with the latest service packs. However, none of them are set up for video capture (no capture cards). And no, downgrading the OS for the one that does have the card is not an option, nor is putting the card into a Win2k machine (they're all laptops).
I will not consider purchasing the latest version until I can get the one that should work working. Version 8's trial version is far too "neutered" for any real attempt to evaluate, particularly when testing the capture functions and ability to deal with huge files.
Any advice would be appreciated.
