I am using a version of ArcSoft Showbiz that came with my HP DVD writer--I think it is 2.2.2.35, or something like that. For the most part it is working fine. I have made a couple of 1-hour movies out of several video clips that have been significantly chopped up. The software wrote them to DVD fairly easily. These movies are almost perfect, save for a few chapter insertion points which don't seem to be where I put them.

But here's my main problem--I tried to add a 4-minute slideshow (50 pictures, 1 song, pan/zoom) to a movie, and the program will not write a disk for me. It checks my media, then does "transcoding" on the movie, then does "transcoding" on the slideshow. And when "transcoding slideshow" is at 99%, up pops an alert box saying "Failure writing the disk". No other explanation.

This happens no matter what I do. If I create the slideshow as its own project: "Failure writing the disk". If I try writing to my hard drive as opposed to the DVD writer: "Failure writing the disk". My next step will be trying a 2-3 picture slideshow with no soundtrack or effects to see if that works, and build from there to see if anything I'm adding is breaking the program.

But while I try that, does anyone have any ideas? The ArcSoft website says they don't offer support for hardware-bundled versions of their software, and from what I've been reading trying to research this problem, their support is pretty worthless anyway. I think my system and DVDs and writer are all okay, becuase they write the 1-hour plus movies for me. And I'd like to be able to use this software, because it's the only thing I have with the pan/zoom effects, and I want the movie and slideshow as choices on the same DVD.

Thanks for helping a newbie out!