Others say...

"Purchased for use with my Canon Hv10"
I bought this thinking that I needed to upgrade from premier elements 2.0 because 2.0 doesn't support HD. I found out afterwards that my camera (canon HV10) can play back in SD when downloading to the computer. Duh! Oh well... I am trying out this software and it seems pretty good. I think it is geared more towards the basic user. I personally like the layout more in 2.0 where everything is not readily available (i guess i just like nested menus).

It seems to run a bit quirky at times, but all in all its a pretty good buy and has a lot of potential for you to make some pretty professional looking videos. I never had it crash. But just an fyi, if you plan on working with HD video, make sure you have the computer HP to back it up. HD video takes a lot of processing power to work with.


"Awesome Product"
Have used other production software, but this is far superior to them. Not the newest version, but a great product to use with many of the same effects available on the newer versions. There is virtually no documentation with the product so it is in your best interests to buy a book such as Hollywood Special Effects w/ Adobe Premiere Elements 3. By using the sample files on the disk in the book, I was able to learn how to create great special effects. If you're looking for the Wow factor from family and friends, you'll get it with this program.

"Not good, not bad, BUT"
Well, at first I installed it on my PC, but I guess you'd have to have a good amount of space on your com otherwise it'd be lagging for every clip you drag on to the scene line. I use to work with it on my pc, and I would want to save and export it after COMPLETING IT, the program shuts down on me... They constantly have these AUTO saving, but when you try to open it... Nothing you were working on appears to be seen anywhere. So I don't know why they constantly auto save. Other than that, directions just pains you. You go through the booklet expecting a good direction, but it's just not that simple to follow and figure ( BY NOT TELLING YOU MUCH ). You just need to mess around with it to figure yourself. If you install it on a new laptop with plenty free space ( what I did ) then the lagging is all gone, and you finally can do stuff with it that don't concern you every move you make, and every clip you take. So I got to learn more of the program when the lagging is gone, that nearly exploded my head every time I want to work with it. Just takes from like approximately afternoon to night time. In other words, FOREVER. Once I get to learn the program without lags, it was more acceptable. Still not the BEST program i'd go for, b/c they have tis 2 process when saving and exporting and stuff, which takes forever on a regular computer overloaded with crap. Still a too long process of saving, quality sucks. Even with the best megapix camera, things are not clearly detailed as it should. Overall, an ok program, nice video effects to play with. Words don't do cool jump and explode stuff like movie maker, but you can give it a different look and stuff. You'll just have to figure a lot on your own, so g luck with it. Not worth the EXPENSIVE costing, for a hard to use program partially.

"Fool"
I bought Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 a couple of months ago and it works fine. I spent two months creating 8 slide shows with over 200 slides total after spending hours fixing up each photo. The slide shows are complete with text, narration, and music. Those slide shows work fine. They're just the way I want them and they look great in Photoshop.Then I found out that I can't export those slide shows to a DVD unless I buy Premiere Elements. So I did (3.0.2). Then I exported the slide shows to Premiere, only to find out that all the frame times and transition times and transition styles are all changed.This means another 6 months changing those in Premiere. I can't even see what I'm clicking on the time line to do that.And guess what. After I do all this, the resolution is so terrible that I would never show the DVD to my worst enemy. And I've spend hours checking the "Help" to no avail.One more thing: I find out that I can't get any help from Adobe unless I pay more money to join a "Support Program." I can't even get into a users forum unless I pay more money.It has got to be the worst program ever developed and sold. I can't even upgrade to the newer versions unless I pay full price. I've suffered a $90 loss.

"Simple enough for a beginner with impressive performance"
I have NEVER done any video editing before. I got this product primarily to be able to do take clips from DVDs we create at church and use in sermons while I am preaching. Then I discovered my MPG2 videos weren't working with PowerPoint, so rather than try to jump through hoops to fix the codec problems, I just opened Premiere Elements 3.0 and dropped the clips I needed in, then exported them as .avi files and they worked great. Then my wife handed me a DVD she wanted to use a clip from at church in less than 90 minutes. I had spent less than 30 minutes with the software up to that point, but I started dumping the DVD onto my hard drive while I went to a meeting. I came back in an hour, and everything was rendered on my hard drive. I played around with the interface for less than five minutes, and within 10 minutes had exported a three minute clip from the DVD into PowerPoint. I still don't claim to know much about video editing, but I don't know how a piece of editing software could get easier than this!