Video capture works well and has a nice scene detect function (which most programs have now).
The editing tool is very powerful and the video are effects are more than you could ever need.
Cons:
1. DVD menu's and DVD customization seems very limited. You can only have a 29 second music track for your title and menu screen.
You must own Photoshop to make custom DVD menus.
2. You can't transfer movie clips between projects.

3. It is slightly complex for the average user. The free Windows movie maker is more intuitive but it can't burn DVD's.

Overall, it's a very good program but still have room for improvement. ________________________________________________________________

   
 Solid But Lacks Batch Capture, May 30, 2006
Reviewer: J. Crist "New Cordless Guru"

Nice interface. As others have said, it is more of a professional interface as opposed to a 'hold your hand' product like other video editing suites. The most important thing is that unlike most other competing software, this one has fewer bugs and doesn't crash. It lacks one important feature though - Batch Capture. I like to scan through my movies and jot down start/stop times for the scenes I want to capture which usually amounts to 30-50% of the actual length of the entire DV tape (why capture it all and clog up the hard drive and tie up the computer). I like Ulead's Videostudio for doing this, I can just setup up capture points and leave and come back with all my scenes captured. You need to buy the super expensive Pro version of Premiere to do this. Not worth the extra money. Also Premiere Elements will only caputure to AVI files where competing products will capture direct to MPEG-2 greatly reducing the amount of hard disk space needed and the need to transcode the video when you burn a DVD (unless you added effects/titles to the video). I'd look at Roxio's latest product, Cyberlink PowerDirector (great for the novice), or ULEAD VideStudio (if you can put up with a few bugs) as alternatives to Premiere Elements if you need Batch Capture and/or the ability to capture and encode into MPEG-2 in one step.

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Excellent & Stable!, May 28, 2006
Reviewer: Robert Riehl "RealDeal"

As a former Stuidio user, I moved to Premiere Elements for stability and that's exactly what I got! It could use some additional transition effects but other than that - RUN don't WALK to buy this program!

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 Problems that can be fixed, May 23, 2006
A Kid's Review

Many may have problems with this product, but many of these problems can be fixed. Not being able to import clips from a DVD camera is impossible in Premiere 2.0. Although you can in I-movie and Windows movie-maker. Then simply open those files in Premiere, presto. Getting an out-dated software program is plain out dumb and all these bad reviews are worthless unless...

1. Certain features are no longer available in later versions.

2. The program is simpler, and easier too use.

Make sure to check the available features before you buy this product. All in all, Adobe Premiere is good for what it's worth, if you want more.... UPGRADE

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Amazing capabilities--don't let the low price fool you., May 8, 2006
Reviewer: Lane Hauck (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This is an amazing program and an unbelievable bargain. As other reviewers have noted, be sure you have enough computer horsepower for the task--this is a general video editing requirement not unique to Premier. Digitizing video can be a nightmare or a breeze, depending on your system and hardware. For example Turtle Beach makes a great $100 video/audio digitizer (VideoAdvantage-USB) that puts out frame-acccurate DV format which is as good as video from a DV camera. Although Premier doesn't directly support this digitizer, the TB unit includes a program that captures video and saves the files in AVI format for easy Premier import. I have a box full of analog Video-8 tapes as source material. I found a refurbished Sony DCRTRV60 "Digital-8" camcorder which functions as an ideal digitizer--it plays the old analog tapes, digitizes them in-camera, and connects to Premier via a Firewire connection. Premier supports this camera, so you can use its excellent video capture module, and even control the camera from Premier--as easy as it gets.

Premier doesn't recognize my DVD burner but it's easy to burn to a file and use a program that does recognize your burner to make the DVD's.

The program is a joy to use. Once I figured out the difference between "cut" (delete key) and "clear" (edit menu), I was flying. (Cut removes the highlighted clip and closes the resulting gap, Clear removes the clip and keeps the gap there so you can insert something else.) Seeing and hearing the content in real time as you move the current time indicator back and forth through the timeline is priceless. The effects, audio, video and transistions, are plentiful, easily tunable, and very easy to use. I had a graduation scene that was spoiled by a gas generator rumbling away in the background. I used the audio highpass and notch filters to completely remove the generator noise while preserving the sound track. Many of my video clips needed significant color and saturation correction--just drag the clip into the timeline, trim it to suit, and tune hue-saturation by dragging sliders while watching the effect of the change in real time. (You also hear the audio filtering effect changes in real time, without which it would be impossible to fine tune something like my generator-sound-eliminator.) When I finished my production I couldn't resist showing off a bit by timing slide transitions to beats in the music--easy with the real-time jogging back and forth, and tinkering with slide durations just by dragging their edges back and forth in the timeline. This is one of those rare products that seems to come up with the perfect answer whenever you ask, "I wonder if it can...."

My final production, a DVD, looks absolutely beautiful.

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