create disc button not selectable in V7

fast&furious · Post by **fast&furious** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 10:06 pm

Hello,

I have a little question:
When I go to the share part, I can not select the create disc button.
What can I do ?

Thank you for you help

fast

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 10:09 pm

You may have a SE version, specifically SE Basic. This is a feature-limited version that comes bundled with some hardware, and which does not support disc burning.

If you upgrade to a full retail version of Videostudio (you can even do this online on Ulead's website), you will get credit for being an existing Ulead customer, which allows you to buy the program at a discount (US$ 49, I believe).

fast&furious · Post by **fast&furious** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:51 pm

Thank you for your answer,

You're right I have a V7SE but the name is VideoStudio 7 SE DVD. So, I thought that it has the DVD option? Moreover, On the box it's written that we can share the movie on DVD support.

What do you think ?

fast

marcus · Post by **marcus** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:53 pm

THoff wrote:You may have a SE version, specifically SE Basic. This is a feature-limited version that comes bundled with some hardware, and which does not support disc burning.

If you upgrade to a full retail version of Videostudio (you can even do this online on Ulead's website), you will get credit for being an existing Ulead customer, which allows you to buy the program at a discount (US$ 49, I believe).

I encountered the same thing with the Ulead DVD MovieFactory software bundled with my DVD burner; and I need to ask (and I'm doing so as politely as possible, although I'm upset):

What is the point of bundling the software with the drive if you can't use it to do anything with the drive?

I'm sorry, but I find that absolutely ridiculous, and feel that this sort of marketing tactic stinks of Bait&Switch, considering that it's advertised on the box that the software is included.

::edit:: I'd also like to add that this particular post, in this forum, was the ONLY place I was able to find out why the Record To Disc box was grayed out; it's not in the readme, nor the product literature anywhere that I could find, and I wasted the better part of my only day off trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Promised a friend that I'd have her baby videos on dvd for her folks tomorrow. Not gonna happen.

Seriously, if we did that sort of thing in my store, we'd soon have no customers at all. I know it's possibly the drive manufacturers (Asus) fault as well, but providing a totally crippled piece of software with the piece of hardware it is meant for is akin to selling a car with a disabled ignition switch, and asking for additional money to enable it. It's just plain immoral.

I'm going to remove the drive and install it in my linux system, where the software to create the DVDs is free.

Apologies for the tone of my post, but I hope you understand just how angry I am.

A.M.
Mood: Angry

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:16 am

I know it's possibly the drive manufacturers (Asus) fault as well...

It isn't just possibly Asus' fault as well, it it entire their fault. They decided to license a program to bundle with their drive that doesn't have a critical feature that makes the software all but useless to anyone buying the drive. Why did they do this? To save a few cents. Idiots!

marcus · Post by **marcus** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:48 am

THoff wrote:
I know it's possibly the drive manufacturers (Asus) fault as well...
It isn't just possibly Asus' fault as well, it it entire their fault. They decided to license a program to bundle with their drive that doesn't have a critical feature that makes the software all but useless to anyone buying the drive. Why did they do this? To save a few cents. Idiots!

Agreed, but Ulead is still producing the (crippled) software specifically for that purpose. I am going to call Asus tomorrow; I've bought an awful lot of their hardware over the years (and been generally satisfied with it) and I know a few people there. Odd thing is, I went with the Asus DVD-R over the MSI one because I liked the reviews of the Asus more; but from what I've gleaned, the MSI drive has full software versions.

Windows is not my OS of choice; I prefer to use Linux for important things, but to be honest, writing DVDs from DV in linux is a PITA. I'm doing this stuff as a gift for someone I know, and just want to get it done; I'm busier than h*** and don't need this kind of grief. I can't buy the full version of Ulead's software locally, I have to order it and have it shipped. Sure, I can have it overnighted, but I've already spent over $130 for the drive and the better part of 5 hours dicking with it. My time is worth about $30/hour.

So I'm sitting here with a more or less non-functional (without doing a fair amount of hardware changing, reading man pages, and script-writing, anyway) DVD-Rdrive, which I paid a pretty good chunk of change for; I have a friend whose folks are going to be in town in two days, I can't burn her videos for her because of some asinine marketing scheme, and I'm pissed off.

If anyone has any suggestions for *good* free vidCd/DVD writing software for windows that can do decent menus, etc, I'm all ears at this point. It won't come in time for this project, but if it does what I need it to, you can be sure I'll use it rather than burning more money buying the upgrade versions from Ulead.

"Idiots" is not the word I'm using at this point in time

::edit:: Sorry Thoff, I had the impression you were speaking for Ulead. Know better now

Cheers,
A.M.

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 1:03 am

Ulead is producing several SE (feature-limited) versions of their products for bundling by OEMs, and it is up to the OEM to decide which product is appropriate and how much they want to spend on software that some of the buyers will never install or use.

I'll give you an example: I have a Toshiba laptop that I intentionally bought without a DVD burner; the laptop I bought has a combo drive that reads DVDs, but it will only burn CDs. Toshiba included software (not from Ulead) with the laptop that allows burning of CDs, but not DVDs. Even if I hook up an external DVD burner, I am still unable to burn one using the software. That was an appropriate choice on Toshiba's part -- it allows full use of the drive that came with the laptop, yet minimizes the cost of the bundled software.

If Asus sells a DVD burner and only includes software that allows CD burning, or no disk burning at all, then that is clearly a waste of Asus' money and an insult to their customers.

There is even an SE DVD version that does not include all of the features of the full product (some of the extra content, filter, and transitions are missing), yet it still allows DVD burning. That is what Asus should have included. I don't see how you can fault Ulead for the fact that Asus chose to include a lesser version when one with DVD burning capability is available for probably just a few cents more.

marcus · Post by **marcus** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 1:31 am

If Asus sells a DVD burner and only includes software that allows CD burning, or no disk burning at all, then that is clearly a waste of Asus' money and an insult to their customers.

It doesn't allow any burning at all, CD nor DVD. I just installed the Nero software included with the burner hardware, and it's limited in that it won't burn vidcds and viddvds (then what the F*** is it doing included with a Digital Video Disc! burner?) but it will do data versions of both.

As I said, I'll be talking to Asus tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see what they have to say. There is no indication whatsoever that I can find on the packaging, or in the EULAs or docs, of those limitations, but they do hype the fact that the software is included. Doesn't that technically fall under truth in advertising law?

Personally I feel I *can* fault both of them. Just producing crippled software for that purpose is a ripoff. It's one thing if it's a free to download trial version, it's another if they include it with the hardware product. That's like me selling a "complete" kitchen faucet but requiring the customer to purchase the operative guts for it seperately, from a different store, and at nearly half the cost of the faucet.

I do agree that Asus is the primary culprit; however, Ulead isn't entirely innocent either. It certainly doesn't help things that this has become a common marketing gimmick in the computer industry. Back about twenty years ago when I wrote software for a living, if we'd pulled stunts like this, we'd have been out of business so quick it would have made the bank manager's eyeballs pop out.

Grrrr.

Thanks
A

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 2:16 am

Not to pick nits, but DVD is not an acronym for Digital Video Disk, but Digital Versatile Disc. Yes, it can contain video, but doesn't have to.

Anyway, I think Asus really screwed up if none of the software they bundle with the drive wants to have anything to do with video. That's very lame.

jnb · Post by **jnb** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:02 am

I've just encountered exactly the same issue with vs7 disabling the create disc button on a software package that is explicitly intended for the creation of DVDs. Now I know that they want to make money and I know that I am using the cheap version of their software and I agree that it's reasonable that it has some features disabled but what I want to know is what idiot thought it would be a brilliant idea to _not_ tell anyone until the final stage of the process. Having spent ages trying to work out how to use their software to acheive a very specific one off task I get to the end of the process only to discover that their software is not capable of writing to a DVD.

Does anyone have any recommendations for software that would actually write to a DVD (anything from ulead is not an option at this point, I have been mislead once about what their software does so I'm not going to waste more time on something that might be equally misleading and unsuccessful). I have an AVI that I have created through the version of VS7 for which I have already paid, all I want to do is get that onto a DVD.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:15 am

You should at least be able to produce a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 file with VS7 SE Basic. That means a file which is ready and able to be burned to DVD. If you have the Nero suite, or Roxio Media Creator suite, you will certainly be able to built a menu and burn your mpeg-2 to disc.

As for the crippling of the program, I can certainly sympathise with you - though as noted above, it is not primarily Ulead's fault that a hardware company was only willing to pay them for a very basic version of moreover a very old Video Studio package to bundle free with their hardware.

As for writing off all Ulead products as a result, that is just plain silly. And there are indeed many thousands of users around the world that could attest to the fact that the full versions of Ulead programs, and indeed many of the SE versions, work just fine as they are or with the kind of tweaking or procedures that this Board is here to provide...

jnb · Post by **jnb** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:26 am

Ken Berry wrote:As for the crippling of the program, I can certainly sympathise with you - though as noted above, it is not primarily Ulead's fault that a hardware company was only willing to pay them for a very basic version of moreover a very old Video Studio package to bundle free with their hardware.

It is not Ulead's fault the software is old, it is not Ulead's fault some hardware supplier selected a cheap vesrion. It is Ulead's fault that they do not tell anyone about the missing features. By all means produce a feature limited version of the software for OEM use but if its going to be missing a major feature then they should have the courtesy to tell people and tell them early.

Ken Berry wrote:As for writing off all Ulead products as a result, that is just plain silly. And there are indeed many thousands of users around the world that could attest to the fact that the full versions of Ulead programs, and indeed many of the SE versions, work just fine as they are or with the kind of tweaking or procedures that this Board is here to provide...

To be fair I am not writing off all Ulead products. I have a specific 'one off' task to achieve and as their software has failed once already I will not justify spending a single cent more on their software to achieve that task. Would I consider their software again in future? possibly. But that's possibly in the same sense that I would possibly employ someone who I knew had lied on their resume - it is possible but I would check every other option first.

Oh and thanks for the Mpeg2 / Nero suggestions. I'm already trying something similar with an AVI to DVD writer program I've found.

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:57 am

I don't think Ulead is at fault in this at all, and here's why...

Asus makes a DVD drive. Asus wants to include some software for it's DVD drive. Asus goes shopping for the software. It spots Ulead, which Asus recognizes as being good software. Ulead has several packages available. Asus wants to provide this software free with the DVD drive. So Asus picks the cheapest product. Asus is free and responsible for seeing if the software supports their drives. It apparently is not, and Asus does not want to spend the extra money for a program that is. Is it really Ulead's fault that Asus purchased that version?

If you had a product that you were selling, and John Citizen came to you and said I like your products, I want to buy one to go with my product. You produce all your products to John. However John only wants to spend "X" amount. This would be your bottom of the line, outdated product. But John insists on buying it. Are you going to tell John, "Hey I don't think it will really work well with your product"? Remember you are in business to make money, and the salesman in you is to sell the products. Hell yes you're going to sell it to him. If anything Asus may have an issue with Ulead, but that's doubtful. Ulead is not liable for Asus' ignorance...

Asus is the real idiot in this. Buy a tire that won't fit on their car, and sell the car with those tires. It's the tire manufacturer's fault????

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:15 am

I think his beef is with the fact that there is nothing on the box (if indeed there was a box) or at least envelope or the disc itself to actually say "VS7 SE Basic will not allow you to burn a DVD". And that's something I can sympathise with. You will recall how often over the past few years, all of us have speculated about which SE versions might be crippled in which way, because the simple fact of the matter is that there is nothing to say about this on the packaging and apparently not on Ulead's website either...

jnb · Post by **jnb** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:03 am

Exactly the point. In fact as I was trying to do this not only did I discover that the packaging says nothing about the fact that it will not write DVDs but it in fact states precisely the opposite. The manuals that ULead provide with VS7 SE include all the instructions on the final "create disc" step but do not state anywhere the the SE version doesn't work.

vidoman's analogy would be fair if the garage knowingly bought a tire that didn't fit but its more accurate to say that the tire manufacturer have explicitly said that these tires will fit but wait until your car is on the ramp with all four wheels off before telling you that they meant that some other tire that they hadn't told you about would fit and you now have to pay them some extra money.