I never really left. <grin> Just too doggone busy to post anything and besides .. there is a fine group of guys here that can take care of the "newbies" and are doing fine in the help area.
AND most of them can reply to a post with a LOT less verbage than I. <another grin>
Re: the Womble pricing. This was JUST (within the last day or two) announced. The KAGI site where you pay did not have the upgraded pricing in effect yet. (as of yesterday) However Womble is working on it, and HAS told those who where eroneously charged the old price that a credit will be issued ASAP.
Don't know about the upgrade path. But it will most likely be adjusted as well.
Some history if anyone is interested is:
When Womble was first introduced the nearest competing products were all in the 500 dollar and up price. And their 250 dollar price was more than a good bargain considering the features and it's excellent frame accuracy. However that was several years ago and after a bunch of us over at the AVS forum contacted them and suggested that if they gave the AVS forum users a decent enough discount then we would make a "group buy". (I was the guy who introduced Womble to the AVS forum a while back) In fact the head programmer at Womble has been working with us to add some features to the product that were needed by those of use using PVRs like TIVO and REPLAYTV as source video for various authoring schemes.
Although still a relative bargain, the 250 dollar price was just not justifyable to those guys who only had need of an mpeg editor occassionally. So the group at the AVS forum also suggested perhaps a "lite" version might be made available.
Womble then took about a couple months ... and finally came back with a complete restructuring of their pricing for everyone, and cut the price by more than 50 percent. They felt the new price was better aligned with the current pricing of similar products today.
So give a big "thanks" to the guys over at the AVS forum and in particular to the ReplayTV group there.
Of course I bought my version a couple years ago at the 250 dollar price. (actually a couple dollars less as I upgraded from the mpeg-1 version to the all mpeg version)
By the way !!! IF you are only doing Mpeg-1 like for VCD they have the same product (most of the features of the mpeg-2 version) for something in the 25 ?? dollar range. A full frame accurate editor for mpeg-1 (and it really works) that is fast and has a ton of extra features, like audio sync correction, de-multiplexer and multiplexing, and FX effects to add to your video. Quite a bargain in my estimation.
No I don't have any financial ties to them. Just a VERY happy user who feels his $250 bucks spent a couple years ago was the best investment made.
Now if you want another tip .. check out the new DVD-Lab program. It's not yet ready for release but some of us have been using a beta pre-release version. Supposedly the intro price is going to be 80 bucks and the regular price 100. I've found it to be as easy to use as SpruceUp and yet is one of the most complete DVD authoring packages out there .. AT ANY PRICE.
My Mpeg media package is now:
Womble for editing and fixing
DVD-Lab for authoring
Nero for burning.
Oh and also of note, this DVD-Lab has the ability to make those "hybrid SVCD DVDs" you may have heard me talk about. Where the video is slightly higher bit rate SVCD frames with 48 kHz audio and burned with full DVD authoring to your choice of CDR or DVD.
See ya, Rich
