The NVIDIA GeForce 6600 chipset is used on all kind of cards. From budget to high performance. Equiped with DDR, DDR2 or GDDR3 memory. It is difficult to see if there is a lot of space for improvement without knowing exactley which card you use. Some IT stores allow you to borrow a card for a few days to see if it works out for you. Maybe this is ...

No, Studio 14 HD is not the nextgen. It is a new version in the Studio line of products.  

We did not test Liquid on Windows 7, but in my experience a blue screen when burning is often related to access rights. Did you try to run the application as administrator ? (not sure if the option is still there in 7, but right click on the shortcut and choose ''Run as administrator'')

Almost everything can be done with Liquid 5.5 or 7. But if you are looking for a premade effect for this then it is not there.

If you do not get a preview on yellow slices and only when rendering is complete I would have a look at the graphiccard you are using and how it is installed. Yellow slices are rendered in realtime by the graphiccard. Most modern cards should be powerfull enough to give you a preview (not in realtime, but at least a picture).

Hollywood FX 5 was included. In the group Quads and Pieces is a multi split effect which comes close. But this is a PRO effect so I'm not sure if you have this. Beside that, Liquid offers you all the options to create such effects yourself.

The burner to choose is not that important from a Liquid point of view. I would first look for a good software application which works for you (LewS suggestion looks good), and then see which burners are compatible with this application.  

From a Liquid point of view this should work. But we find a lot of customers getting problems with file access rights. A file created by user A can not always be changed by user B. Make yourself prepared for this and ask guidance from an IT specialist when needed. A small trick which solves a lot of problems (but not always possible in all ...

Note that Mediacomposer 3.5.4 is not licensed for Windows 7. if this is the way you want to go better wait a little. I have no details yet which version is going to support Windows 7, as this will involve a lot of testing.

1) What exact settings did you make on export to MP4 ? 2) This could be a codec mismatch. Basically Liquid converts the audio in the backgroun to WAV to handle the audio plot. Does the audio play ? Did you get any errors on import ?