Avanquest is one of the worst software companies I have ever encountered. They sell buggy software, refuse to acknowledge any problems, they will ignore your letters and then want you to pay for upgrades. I got conned by their hype and bought a couple of their products. By the time I realized how buggy the software was, it was too late to return them. Then I get an email which essentially said I could buy a new version that might fix the bugs.

If you have any problems you will not be able to get any tech support. In fact it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to reach anyone at Acronis. I tried repeatedly using every method possible and nothing worked. Look for another product. Definitely not recommended. The product will not work with external drives.

If you have any problems you will not be able to get any tech support. In fact it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to reach anyone at Acronis. I tried repeatedly using every method possible and nothing worked. Look for another product. Definitely not recommended.nThe product will not work with external drives.nAfter 2 months I finally got a response but it was not an answer to my original problem but a just a question as to whether the issue was resolved!

This program should be banned. It often creates more problems than it is supposed to fix. It will make changes to your computer that will make it unuseable and you will need to be an expert to fix them. I have given up on Acronis, they have no tech support, at least none that answers questions. I suspect they know their software is buggy and not very good so they ignore those users with problems.

If you have any problems you will not be able to get any tech support. In fact it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to reach anyone at Acronis. I tried repeatedly using every method possible and nothing worked. Look for another product. Definitely not recommended. The product will not work with external drives.

This program should be banned. It often creates more problems than it is supposed to fix. It will make changes to your computer that will make it unuseable and you will need to be an expert to fix them. I have given up on Acronis, they have no tech support, at least none that answers questions. I suspect they know their software is buggy and not very good so they ignore those users with problems.

I’ve used Pinnacle Studio and Cyberlink PowerDirector quite a bit, and this Corel VideoStudio Pro X4 compares favorably to those, with a couple of exceptions: transitions and downloadable content. In those areas it falls far behind the others, particularly Pinnacle Studio (especially the transitions). Otherwise, it is a very good video editing and DVD production suite. I can’t comment on Blu Rays, as I don’t have a blu ray burner and so haven’t used that feature, and I also haven’t messed with the 3D functions.

There are a wide range of reactions to this software, and I think they probably break down along differences in expectation and user experience/sophistication. For an animation package, this is farily straightforward to learn and use, especially if you already have a an understanding of the basic principles of animation. It won’t instantly transform you into an artist or an animator. If you want to do very straightforward things, like make simple cutout animations or animate portions of photos, it shouldn’t be too difficult to learn, even for a beginner.

I haven’t had some of the installation or bugginess/crashing problems that others have reported. Overall, the software seems to work pretty well. I was surprised by the omission of sound editing software, although freeware for sound editing is readily available and highly functional.

CorelDraw Suite X5: Home and Student is designed to provide low cost access to the CorelDraw product for folks that will be using it for nonprofit (educational, personal, volunteer) applications. Since it contains many of the features of the full professional version, there is a bit of a learning curve, so if you want to do very simple drawings you’ll probably want to stick with something that is a little simpler to learn (and there are free programs, such as OpenOffice Draw, that can fit this bill).