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I could use the PiP window in a pinch for sound effects. But when I have already loaded up ALL the PiP tracks with material it becomes hard to use those tracks. One track I use for our logo. If I use a quad-split effect, that's four more tracks used up. And then I need a picture to slide in on top of the quad. Oops! Out of tracks. And to top it off, I can't use video effects or transitions in the PiPs. The best I can hope for is the fade in/out checkboxes. And speaking of PiP: in the preview window I can get the effect I want, which was for a logo to look like it was attached to a box shown in the main track. When the box was moved, so did the logo. Looked ok in preview, but as soon as I close the preview window, the effect is off by a second and ruined.
What's with the PiP tracks not staying muted. Seems like everytime they move, they regain their sound. Instead of having a "mute" checkbox in the box to the left of the track, you have to open a menu, find the "Mute Track", select the "Mute" and keep doing this every time you import a new clip to that PiP.
And the whole application seems to be frought with procedure that requires two or three mouseclicks too many. Not a big deal if you only drop in a clip, but when you spend several days with it and realize that it could have taken half as long, then it gets frustrating.
And some of the handles are no more than a pixel across which makes it feel like you are trying to thread a needle when you go to adjust your effects controls.
The way I describe this program is that it is too advanced for beginners and too amateurish for prosumers. In the end (or beginning) is is my fault for not researching this better.
I'm sure that some of the problems are related to how I work and there a better procedures, but when the preview window can't play back smoothly, or when the soundtracks starts looping on itself, or when effects can only be set with a slider instead of a value field, that is not my fault.
Or how about the slider under the tracks. All the way zoomed in, it is not proportional. It moves the tracks just as much as if it were zoomed out and there is little chance of moving the tracks smoothly. Why do I need to be zoomed in so closely? Because I want to end four PiPs at the exact moment that the main track starts up. And when I grab the end of the PiP clips, the cursor jumps to the beginning of the clip, so then I have to scroll to the back again to click and drag. If you get tired reading this, imaging working with this (*&$#$&^
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I too have had enough of this POS.  It is so bad that I wish physical harm and disease on the persons responsible for allowing this to market.
I think the final straw was the windows slider bars where the left/right arrows both moved the slider to the right, and the up/down arrows moved the slider down.
The program would barely run on my Dell at home so for a company project I managed to get a new workstation that features eight CPUs. Matter of fact, I went to our IT department and said "This is the software; what computer do I need." They procured $5,000 worth of new Dell workstation the software still doesn't run satisfactorily.
The program has crashed at least once per session and sometimes three times in three hours.
I read somewhere on this forum that if I try to use to many of the bells-and-whistles, then the program will crap out. WTH? If the features are provided I should be able to load up every track with everything I want. Otherwise, what is the point?
Did I mention that the workstation is not networked so the risk of virus is near nill.
I have bunch of other complaints that can be generalized as "stuff that makes the app cumbersome to use": for example, when I'm zoomed in on the timeline and want to drag the end of a long, the app assumes that I want to jump to the beginning of the clip and I have to scroll back to the end. Yeah, it gets really irritating when you try to match three second clips to a beat, because you have to be zoomed in to click-and-drag with any precision.
Why is there no separate soundtrack for sound effects. There is a track for music, one for voice which leaves no room for sound effects. And the handles for the sound level controls are microscopic.
How about the title editor where you can't see the text while you are moving the box so you have to guess at the result before you drop. Not much per se, but all these extra clicks add up to a frustrating experience.
In all, I am discouraging anyone from buying this junk. I have written a scathing review on epinion.com and I'm trying to think of more ways of preventing people from wasting time and money on this piece of ----.
There might be a patch available, but it's too late. At current, I can't even burn a DVD because a timeline won't load. I've rebooted three times and it still doesn't work. I have burned DVDs before but now it won't do anything.
Never ever any Cyberlink Product again. After this project I am deleting this junk.
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