The subject of Gold vs Producer vs PE vs PPro hasn't come up in a while, so I thought I'd share my opinion. It's not an easy decision as to which I think is best for me: ProShow or Adobe.
I've used all 4 of these programs, and I'm far from being an expert in any of them, and for all my time and money, I've little to show. But I have GREAT expectations!
. I am more proficient in the two Adobe products however, and I lean heavily toward PPro.
I've owned the Gold version long enough to have taken advantage of their Producer discount. I wanted Producer primarily because of its keyframing feature. I saw the demos and was impressed, but I've found the learning curve very steep.
There is a new Gold/Producer "how-to" manual which I've bought, and despite some bad press from the very useful ProShow Enthusiasts forum, have found the book to be more than adequate. I've learned quite a bit even if the book is somewhat hard to follow at times. I've run across a few errors, but very few, none which have caused me any real confusion.
BUT, despite the book, tutorials, and practice I find the Producer interface difficult, having to frequently go from one set of screens to another for differing functions. But it's keyframing that I am most disappointed in. It's extremely frustrating to use consistently, particularly between layers, and particularly as compared to the two Premiere products. In Producer, copying settings, though doable, is incomplete, especially when it comes to matching timings. Adding or removing time from a slide is very tricky, and it's easy to mess up hours of keyframing, without benefit of CANCEL. The undo has not always gotten me back to where I was, but if you save frequently, you can "revert" to a previous save, which is very useful.
As an exercise, I used Producer to create a slide with a background and two layers, with identical timings (moving, scaling, & rotating) but as mirror images to eachother. It took more than a couple of hours, in part because I am new, but in part because it's just not easy.
I managed to create the exact same show in PPro, and it took me about 30 minutes (I'm not really great at keyframing here either, but in comparison I felt like an expert). It's much easier, primarily because of the ability to copy and paste attributes. Matching timings is very easy.
My biggest concern with Producer however is the jerkiness (stuttering) of the final output. I tried various options: to DVD, to AVI, to exe, and all in normal, medium, and high quality. The results were uniformly bad, with excpetion of the DVD high quality mpg, which had minimal stuttering, but some nonetheless.
Exporting my show for PPro as an avi gave me a perfectly smooth show without even a trace of the stuttering I find so objectionable in Producer. I feel I must be doing something wrong, as not many others have made too much mention of this problem with their shows. (But it IS mentioned... I'm not the only one finding this problem).
So, my point here is really not to disparage Producer, nor to praise Premiere. It's simply to say that having tried hard with both, I find Premiere easier. Are there things I prefer in the other? Absolutely, but for me, the bottom line is ease of use, and most importantly, quality. In my case Premiere wins.
For those of you who prefer Gold/Producer, I applaud your decision, your tenacity, and your abilities. I would encourage anyone to stay with what works for them. But for people (such as myself) who are trying to decide which might be a better program, I'd say Premiere is, at least for me.
JRjr