I have had my embroidery machine since 2001, I never used it much as i really couldn't afford to buy the embroidery design cards, since buying the PED Basic I have been able to buy and download designs on line and transfer the designs to the blank card which comes with PED Basic, it is the best thing i have bought for years. Now I am using my machine every day, When i can get away from this web site that is lol. my machine is brother is PE200 all i need now is a machine which can embroider a larger area.

I got my PED-Basic about a month after I got my Brother SE-350 and found out how expensive the design cards are. I now love, love, love it! I got mine on ebay new and for about $119. A woman who ran the embroidery shop that works out of Joann's told me that price was a bargain so I got it right away and have not regretted it. Had it since January. I recently backed up all my designs on a usb drive just in case my computer goes nuts on me. My advice, buy it! Good luck and happy embroidering. Like jayce commented, I spend more time on this site collecting designs than I do actually embroidering! BTW, WELCOME to cute, you will find it addicting but filled with loving and helpful people!

Cherrysue, can you use the a stick on your machine? They are very reasonable I started with the cards and found them to be too expensive for my blood. H&*

I don't have this software, but using my daughters to see if it is worth the investment. However I don't care for it as much as I do the Ambassador Pulse. I'm still researching all this because I'm wanting to learn to digitize so right now I'm unsure. I saw an ad for the Design 5, but haven't gotten that far, it looked easier to use. Of course it would be easier if I had a book for directions with the PED... What are you wanting to do with the software?

I think you machine has a USB port, so if you are just downloading designs to transfer to your machine, you don't need any software more that what Windows includes. You can just copy files to your computer, unzip if needed and copy to the USB stick(flash drive). Your manual should tell you if you have to format it in some particular way, but it is not difficult at all. You can get the USB sticks all over for about $10 or even less for the smaller sizes that will be plenty big for what you need. If you want to digitize or change designs, you will need software. I don't do anything more than convert formats right now, so I just use the free Wilcom Trusizer for that. Alot of people here and on other sites love Embird. It is supposed to be a lot less expensive and easy to use and there is a lot of free help and tutorials on the web. Since I don't use any of this software, I am only passing on what I see all the time to give you some idea of what is available. Have seen many posts from embroiderers lamenting that they were sold very expensive software with their machine and never used it, finding that the cheaper ones were better for them anyway. If you are going into professional digitizing, then of course it is a very different choice. Best of luck to you, come here often, and enjoy!

Whatever you decide, hope you have lots of fun like we are all experiencing.
I have P.E Design cos no one told me about the PED Basic back then, now I am digitizing for myself. There is no other feeling of achievement than when you sew out your own design!!(some not so perfect but still mine)LOL.
Welcome to CUTE!
From Bev

I also have the PE770 and Ped Basic, love them both! If you have a Vista or Windows 7 in your computer be sure to install from the web site. DO NOT use the enclosed CD, it will not work.

I have brother 6500 and PED basic, my machine does not have usb port, I am not sure but I think if your machine has usb port you do not need the ped basic, to change format Anbassador is a free program, if you want to learn how to digitized, Embird is an affordable program

I'm wondering if you're asking about digitising or transferring designs..? Do you realise that PED Basic is a transfer program with a card writer? (For transferring pes designs onto a card then to your machine.) It doesnt convert, and it doesnt read the cards, only writes to..it can resize some designs that you're about to transfer to the card, but you cant save that resized design in your computer. :)

However, after all that, I'm in no way disappointed with my PED Basic. I got mine on ebay for the same $119...waaay cheaper than here in Australia. (My machine is a card reader so no other way to transfer designs eg no usb.)

If you're asking about digitising then I think your question was really about PE-Design. I prefer PE Design over Embird for digitising. Yes, others prefer Embird, its a matter of personal opinion. No matter which program you choose for learning to digitise, there will be a learning curve. For me it was quite steep as the manual assumes you know what they're talking about when they say to "go into manual punch mode" for example..yes, my book got a lot of blank stares lol. However once you know where each tool is and what it does, THEN you can start to play (this goes for any digi program of course). If you're serious about learning to digitise then there are yahoo groups who teach. And maybe video instructions on youtube, tho I've never looked :)

Of course I might be totally off-track here, and you were asking about transferring designs using PED Basic lol ... xXx