Hey, thanks for responding. much appreciated. And to all your questions...the answers are all YES. Surprised, eh? But I used Performance Test for my memory and whole rig, and not memtest. And as to my "cheap" dvd players, these were bought brand new when I built my computer two years ago.
I just built another new computer and just pulled out the old DVD burners to my new setup..which has brand new memory that was tested 100% running an Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3.0GHz, one 250WD and one 250 Seagate cavier hard drive, 9800GT video card, 4 gigs of Corsair Ballistix Ram, 650 Watt Corsair power supply.
Do you guys really expect non-PC savvy people to jump through all these hoops to make a software product run? I doubt if a small percentage would even understand all this jargon, which btw, I do--I used to work in QA for a software publisher.
But for your common everyday citizen who just wants to burn the menu with their DVDs, the list sounds like Greek. This isn't fair to the general consumer and basically tries to bury the person on computerese to avoid the issue of the software not being compatible. Not everybody builds computers...they just buy them off the shevles.
So bombarding a noobie with such a list of "todos" is not only unreasonable, it tries to shift the responsibility on the buyer, rather than taking this situation to the core reason why the software doesn't work...compatibility issues with the software/code.
Why did I pull the old DVD burners out? Because they worked perfectly...and I also updated the firmware when I brought them over to the new rig I was building. During the time, more people were buying this DVD burner because it was rated higher in performance then even your Lite-Ons or Sonys. I know, I did the research.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I know about computers, and a problem with DVD burners is awfully rare. If anything, this means that Cyberlink didn't QA effectively in trying out PD7 with more setups. If you guys only did it on current hardware and not legacy stuff a paultry 2 years ago, the fault doens't rest with the consumer. You guys needed to make the public aware of the limitations of this prorgram being compatible, or lack thereof, with hardware.
And this is the point...PD7 is the ONLY program that I have had any problems with as far as burning anything. When software publishers put together programs, they have to take this into consideration...that not all DVDs, disk drives, what have you, are equal. DVD players have been around for quite sometime now, and if software can't be used on two-year old DVD drives, that isn't the fault of the consumer...that's why software is tested, or should be tested by software publishers. You just can't go, "Well, if you guys don't have such and such, too bad."
This is what is so crazy about all of this. When you buy a software product off the shelf, wouldn't you say it is nuts to have to go all through the steps you gave because the software doesn't work? What if you bought a new audio program and there were bugs and incompatibility problems with the software, and the vendor tells you, "Oh, you've got a two year old disk drive...and oh, you need to check your memory, and oh, you need to check all your drivers, and oh, you need to do this and that," infinitum?
I would come to only two conclusions...that the software isn't compatible with a lot of computers out there, or two, the software is really still in the development process and has lots of bugs to hammer out.
I really don't mind if a software company just comes out and admits that they're still working out the bugs. But I get frustrated, as others on here, and others out there who haven't even taken time to post their concerns in this forum, when the onus is put on the consumer by saying he's "cheap," lol.
Do you swap out your hard disk drives, memory or LCD monitor every two years? Of course not. Why? Because for the most part, although there may be a minsicule percentage of software that isn't compatible with your hardware, you keep it because 99.9% of the software does work with it. It may not be a big deal to get a couple of new DVD buners for you or me, but not everyone knows how to do this. You've got you regular users out there that use their computers for everyday things, and yes, that means they buy name brand rigs. But why should I have to get new hardware to make the software work? If I'm experiencing this, there's probably a truckload of people who have this problem as well.
Bombarding me with a gigantic list didn't phase me a bit. But if this is the sort of advice that is given to your everyday average user of Cyberlinks product, this is really the wrong way to go.
So where do I stand? I think PD7 is a great software package! The DVD menu burn is faluty. I asked for help. I received a ton of things to do that a non-PC person would not attempt to try. But I did it because I know a bit about PCs. I have a two-year old burner that is perfectly usable on everything that I have done in the past two years...except PD7. Telling customers to buy new hardware to make the software work is not going to boast a lot of confidence or sales. Fixing and addressing the bugs will.
PD7 is still hands down, the best video editor out there as far as features, ease of use, and overall fun. I also did video editing professioanally, so seeing a program like this is pretty amazing. What I don't want, is excuses about why a computer setup is the problem...it's butt backwards...the incompatibility is at the source...the code...the software.
But anyway, thanks for the help. I appreciate your time in trying to solve the problem.