My review of this software confirms my son's statement (he's in the professional audio/video editing business & works on a MAC): "you get what you pay for." My expectations are very high and my needs are many. $129.00 SW should not be expected to satisfy them all. An example of an excellent product is Photoshop, which meets everyone's needs for editing photographs ... if a user can learn all the functions! But then, look at it's price.

I see the need to be able to produce a new kind of output for our photographs and an easier method for editing our video. I even want to go to the next step of integrating the photographs and video into one output which lasts, is easily shared, and is more interesting to everyone who views the output. My purpose in reviewing "muvee autoProducer 5" was to determine how far the product will go to fulfill my new needs. Note: muvee auto Producer 6 is now available online for $129.95.

My background: I mention this to place my comments in perspective. I have written production level software in many languages since my BA in Mathematics and Physics and MA in Computer Science, while working at the St. Louis Board of Education, Dart Industries, and IBM. I retired after 20 years at IBM where I wrote SW and managed the writing of SW for many years, including training and teaching SW usability. I know high quality integrated usable production level code when I see it.

System Requirements: CPU 1 GHz Pentium III or equivalent processor with MMX support, RAM 256 MB, video RAM 16 MP, Windows XP and Microsoft DirectX9.0. I used it on my IBM PC Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.2 GHz, 1.0 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, Read only DVD and Read/write DVD drives, 500 GB external drive.

Installation: CD loads and installs easily.

Documentation: the printed jacket of the CD package, a 5"x7" printed page inside the package, and online help under the Help tab of the product 'Using muveeProducer.'

My first observation is that the program is in charge. It does several things for the user, sometimes what I wanted and sometimes not.

My first project was to input my best 100 photographs from our one week Maui, Hawaii, trip. The photographs were brought into the program in the reverse order of their alphanumeric file name, with a few exceptions where the program selected some photographs to be at the beginning. I could reorder the photographs, one at a time, moving them forward or back, but to reverse the order of all 100 of the photographs would be too time-consuming. The program accepts the formats: jpg, bmp, gif, tif, png. I used only jpg.

'magicSpot' feature let me select where to pan/zoom on each photograph, which is great!

I added a music file, which I discovered is an important control feature. The program works to make the display of the photographs fit the time frame of the music file. If the music lasts 1:55 minutes, that is how long the video lasts. Later I found the 'tweak muvee' feature allows me to repeat the music. Music formats supported are: unprotected MP3, wav, and wma. Actually, after I used the program a couple times, I lost the sound. After sending three requests for help to muvee Support Team and not getting a response, I uninstalled the software and reinstalled it. I now have sound.

There are many 'Styles' to choose from, which modifies the way the screens are displayed. These include changing screen management variables, e.g., speed, angle, pan/zoom method, shading, conversion to black/white, and screen transition method. Speed is very important because it determined how many of my slides could be displayed in the length of time of my music. I finally selected 'Pro: Fast.'

'Titles/Credits' let me create a 'Title' screen at the beginning, where I selected a beautiful beach scene, with the words "Maui, Hawaii, February, 2007." My 'Credits' screen was placed at the end; I selected a photo of Alan and me with the words "Created by Alan and Norma Wills." Very easy to do and it looks professional.

Now, I press a button 'make muvee' and the program selects some of my 100 photographs to fit the length of music, using the style I selected. I find that creation is an iterative process, since I now need to change my style to a faster speed so it will select more photographs.

I tried to get the 'magicMoments' feature to work and it didn't. This would allow me to give a Thumbs-up to key photographs and Thumbs-down to unimportant ones. There is a delete trash can below the photographs, which I used to delete some. muvee Support Team later sent a fix.

My primary concern became: How can I include certain photographs, which were excluded?

Once I made a muvee, I can select the 'tweak muvee' button, which gives me 3 options. I tried the 1st option to let the program select a replacement for a photograph I didn't like. It worked but I didn't like what the program selected. I do like the 3rd option: I select a photograph to replace one I don't want. It didn't work. The program hung, and I lost 2 hours work.

I reworked the photographs and finished my muvee, which I saved to my hard drive as an mve file. Then I selected the 'save and share your muvee' button. First I selected 'Save Now' to save for PC, TV or Mobile Device, which has many options on each. I chose 'PC' for Computer Playback, which saved as an mpg; it worked fine. Then I chose 'Burn Now' DVD; the program worked for several minutes and wrote files to the DVD. I couldn't find a file to play my muvee.

Summary: muvee 5 autoProducer produced a nice video of some of my 100 photographs, coordinated with music with a title and a credit screen. The photographs weren't in the order I wanted and the program didn't include all the photographs I wanted. Since the program didn't satisfy my needs for photographs, it won't satisfy my needs for videotape, which are all the same ... plus more. A program which breaks in several places is, at best, beta code. In addition, muvee Support Team needs to improve their response time for customer questions.

www.muvee.com