Cheap software??
 

I'm looking at buying After Effects 7.standard or after effects cs3. First of all what's the dif. Do they render the same? Second, does it matter that I still am running XP pro instead of vista. Third, I found a web site selling them for $70. so what's wrong with it?

From what I read a mac pro with 8 cores and 16gb of memory AE cs3 f.i. can utilize all the memory and all cores making renders really fast, for windows you need a 64bit system and the right hardware/drivers to use the full potential, otherwise your stuck with the 4gig memory limit of 32bit systems.

Otherwise if using windows 32bit versions AE7 or AE CS3 won't make that much difference. I don't know if CS3 comes in a standard version as well but the standard version has many limitations compared to the pro versions. You can google for that.

For 70bucks you probably get the box and the manual :) in other words, don't buy, it's a scam.

Another difference between 7.0 and CS3 is that Adobe is not supporting
7.0 and so you will not be able up update the software package as they
change things for the newer cameras coming out...

Split these posts into their own thread because they were off topic for the original thread.

AE CS3 Pro is the current version and Adobe have discontinued Standard. AE lists for $999 so as Noa said, regardless of version, $70 virtually certainly means something illegal is going on such as a sales scam or software piracy. Along those lines, here is our Sponsors list and an explanation as to why we don't discuss other non-sponsor vendors on DVinfo. So sorry, we can only advise you to NOT get involved in something illegal and to seek out one of our top notch sponsors.

If you are a student or teacher, Adobe does have educational licensing options. That might save you some cash.

The standard version of AE will be missing a lot of the really cool bells & whistles that the pro version has.
When I found out the standard version of AE7 can't do motion tracking, that killed it for me

thanks
 

sorry about getting off topic, but thanks for all the input. I think I'll down load the 30 day trail from Adobe. I'm teaching a group of 33 kids some basics of film making and editing with a VERY small budget. that's what I want AE for and 6.5 version would do but I don't want some bootleg copy. I'll have to find out if we quallify for the Adobe educational program. Any ideas?
Also, Is there a good thread or web site that give a step by step on using AE motion tracking?

here is a very good starting point:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html

AFAIK Adobe place no restrictions on the sale of educational licenses. The only restriction is you cannot use the software for commercial purposes. Of course if you want to give all your students access to the software at the same time you need multiple seats and that gets expensive even at educational rates. Adobe does have a Volume licensing program.

Thanks John,
I spoke with the people at Adobe about their sales programs. They redirected me to one of their online resellers, academicsuperstore.com.
They not only has student pricing but also non-profit and that is the way I went. For now, one copy is just fine, as I am just getting statred with AF. Noa gave me some great sites to get me going and my copy of AF CS3 pro has just arrived. Thanks everyone for the help.