AudioWebs, you truly are a case, aren't you.
"The Professionals" do not use programs that write the orchestrations for them. They use sequencers to build arrangements in MIDI and send the MIDI out to high-quality synths and samplers loaded up with great sample soundsets. There are many choices -- sequencing software could be ProTools, Digtal Performer, Logic, SONAR, Cubase... synths and samplers could be by Emu, Akai, Toland, Korg, Yamaha ... top-flight sound sets for orchestral instruments include the Garritan Strings and the Miroslav Vitous sets...
But even with all that technology the composer needs to compose. And if they want something really generic, quick and dirty, they might indeed use Band In A Box, as ther are very few of these toolson the market at any level.
Despite its old-fashioned, cluttered, goofball interface (Jammer Pro's was pretty bad too, last time I looked), Band In A Box is a powerful tool. And it's not $250, it's $88. The $250 is for BIAB and a bunch of extras. Even so, $250 is damn cheap for the utility it gives you, if instant generic backing tracks is your goal.
And since you didn't hear Blue Bear Sound, I'll repeat it -- the "sound quality" of BIAB is not inherent in the software -- it creates MIDI messages. The sound quality is entirely dependent on the sound source(s) that you direct its MIDI messages to.
Finally have to comment that this statement:
"I want a program that PROFESSIONALS use to orchestrate orchestral instrumentation that would back up a professional classical singer like josh groban, emma shapplin etc..."
is just priceless. First off, Josh Groban a classical artist? Anyway, that aside, do you think stars of his caliber would be using a program to automatically generate arrangements of their tunes for the recordings? They might well sit in their home studios while writing and use -- yes, really -- BIAB -- to sketch out an apporimate idea of what they are after -- but when recording for the album they hire real musicians, and even if the orchestral parts are rendered with a synth, they get someone who can play the shit out of the keyboards to play the parts with a real human performance instead of using generated BIAB tracks. If they did otherwise, their records would sound like they were performed by the autogeneration routine on a Casio keyboard regardless of the sound quality of the actual sounds used -- because machines can't capture the subtleties of parts played by human performers. By diligent editing and manipulation you can approximate it, but that becomes a black hole of endless tedious work, and any professional would hire musicians rather than endlessly tweak a computer-generated performance to make it sound more real.
And this statement -- "And I know they don't use 'real' orchestras either..." -- well, what you think you know is (again) wrong. At this level they damn well do use real orchestras. No matter how good of a violin sample you have, and how great of a keyboardist you have, the best you can do is approximate the sound of a real violun, unless you could sample every possible alteration in sound a real violin makes when played by a real violinist -- all the infinite gradations of how the bow is held and how hard it is squezzed and how fast it slides across the strings and how tight the body of the instrument is held to the chest... to try to get this out of samples is very difficult, and even the best can only, with a huge amount of effort, get something that sounds pretty darn good but would still be spotted as fake by anyone else with experience and ears. It's actually cheaper to hire an orchestra than to take the time it would take manipulating the samples to make a keyboard performance of strings or winds more realistic -- and in the end the results sound better.
As a compromise, especially for movie soundtracks where it's not that critical, sometimes a real string or woodwind section will be recorded and overlaid over tracks done with samplers, or at least the main parts will be performed by real players. When the budget is really low they might settle for completely sample-derived orchestral parts, but usually the all-electronic scores are electronic in sound and meant to be so, not an attempt to really sound like a real orchestra.
