VideoStudio :: X3 To Crash When Reviewing And / Or Rendering

I purchased VS X3 on Feb 5, 2010 as an upgrade to X2. I did not try before buying (my bad), I just read the feature list and it sounded good so I plunked down my dough. VS X3, although well meaning is an albatross. No matter what was tried, I was never able to successfully burn a DVD using the authoring module supplied. I have continuing program crash problems when working with mixed content, apparently caused by the transitions between them. For instance just two days ago I was making a short video with AVCHD and some still JPEGs Putting certain transitions between the media causes VS X3 to crash when reviewing and/or rendering. Remove the transition and it goes ok. This behavior is ongoing with X3 and very annoying. So I downloaded the trial of X4 and opened the exact project that was giving me fits earlier this week and guess what? Low and behold it actually works as expected.

My point to all this rambling you may be wondering? IMO X4 offers painfully little in new features and is more of a patched up version of X3 that actually works. Imagine that concept.No more editing in X3 and authoring in X2 for me that is if I plunk down another 80 bucks. I feel a bit put off by my whole X3 experience and feel X4 should be offered to us who bought the POS, non working X3 for free as a good will gesture or something. X4 mostly appears to be a debugged version of X3. Let me qualify these feelings by stating I haven't had a chance to work with X4 enough to be sure it's better, but my comments are going under that assumption. It's hard to think it could function overall worse than X3 does.