Pinnacle Studio Editing Software

[Glen Evans]

Thanks for all those that replied to my post "XL1S problem". great to see people helping out less experienced people.

I have just bought my PCI card, firewire and software in a kit called "Pinnacle Studio Version 7".

Cost about $150 dollars US. Anybody rate it? There is an "upgrade" available for a fee, seems like a bit of a con!

Is there something better similar priced?

Thanks

[Rob Lohman]

I suggest you try it out and "rate it" yourself! Maybe someone
else likes the product and another person doesn't. But that will
not mean very much too you personally. Just give it a go and
see where you get!

Good luck.

[Alex Taylor]

I've used Studio 8, which I'm assuming is much like 7. Personally I don't like it, on XP it seems to be prone to crashes, and there isn't much room for advancement once you outgrow the simple interface.

[Keith Luken]

I used Studio 7 Deluxe then 8 Deluxe. 7 was far more stable. Studio is very poorly written and consumers much more CPU resources than anything els eI have tried. It is slow and sluggish and the special effects are unstable on Studio 8. I have rendered projects in 8 that preview fine, but after rendering some of the effects are goone and the video just still frames where the effect should be.

That being said, it is an OK product for starting out or if you want to just cut a few things together. The MPEG renders in it are poor so if you plan on making DVDs then buy TMPGENC for $48 to make the MPEGs. If you ever plan on doing much more than simple family stuff, which I would have to belvie you do as you mention XL1S and that ain't your average home cam, then think about Vegas Video 3.0 (4 is supposed to be out next month) whihc runs under $300. Or maybe Adobe Premiere. I have VV and Premier 6.5 and I can tell you that each has its strenghts and weknesses. Coming from a total novie backgound I am finding Premier quicker to learn, but that is only because I am also using severla of their other products that have similar interfaces.
I still use Studio for simple stuff becuse you can cut together somehting quick and have a few nice effects and nice titles quick, but for anything complex Studio chokes! If you don;t need the features in 8 then stick with 7 it is far more stbale under XP, just get the latest 7 patches.

As a complete beginner, I picked up Studio 8 and thought it was excellent. Easy to use, I loved the add-music choices and completed a decent video for my needs.

As a beginner, I'd recommend it in a heartbeat to a beginner.

I now have Premiere 6.5, but took 5 months to talk myself into the upgrade. Haven't used it enough to comment on it.

[Don Bloom]

I've been using Studio7 since it came out and Studio DV before that, almost 3 years total. I have an old slow computer system that is slowly dying but works well enough to allow me to make a very nice living shooting weddings and corporate work, editing all on Studio7. I am building a new editor that will use another software package but "If it ain't broke, why fix it". For the money Studio 7/8 are decent products.
Don Bloom

[Michael Wisniewski]

I've been using Studio 7 for about 3 years as well, and it works well and is very stable for me in Win 2k. I've done about 45 personal projects in it each between 30-45 minutes. Nothing fancy - just basic transitions & titling, custom and built-in soundtracks (bought some sound disks), and voice overs.

I'd highly recommend Studio 7 with all the patches. I decided to skip Studio 8 after hearing how it's a resource hog.Just recently splurged and got Video Vegas 3 so I'm exploring that to see what extras it will give me.

[Maurice FitzGerald]

After trying various others, I recently moved to Studio 8, latest version. There have been a number of patches addressing the earlier instability and other issues in earlier versions. So far, it is working perfectly for me, with no crashes at all. I have a well-configured XP system and a Sony PC-120 camera.

I imagine I will keep using it at least until Avid Free Express comes out in September or so. Can't justify buying Avid, Las Vegas or Premiere at the moment.

Found Microsoft Movie Maker 2 to be a complete waste of time solely because there is no way of telling whether a frame has been dropped during capture, other than exhaustive inspection. The general layout, transitions and titling work well though.

Maurice

[Don Parrish]

For me pinnacle studio 7 was nothing but crashes and trying to get patches to fix it. Finally they offered to sell me studio 8. How nice of them. I believe studio 7 DV should be recalled and money refunded. When I asked after 4 tries of getting it fixed they said they had no record of me complaining therefor I couldn't get a refund. To me, pinnacle is a scam.

[Maurice FitzGerald]

I have to add that I have gone through several Firewire cards before having a stable system. I bought Studio 8 DV, which includes a perfectly good card. A Hercules card is also stable on another system. Three other off-brand cards were very problematic. I really think this has a lot to do with a lot of people's problems.

Maurice

[Don Parrish]

The funny thing about the card is that it came with studio 7 DV (I think it is actually a Texas Instruments card). I threw the software in the trash and kept the firewire card, I use that firewire card in VV3 and it has never crashed.

[Will Fastie]

I've been using Studio 8 (S8) for the last 5 months. Conceptually, it is a fantastic product, with the best bang for the buck of any under $100 product. No other product in its class is as well integrated. The provided content is very good and includes motion menus. DVD authoring is better than you get in most of the entry-level DVD authoring packages.

MPEG encoding is pretty good, yielding good results. S8 offers more control over MPEG-2 encoding than any product in its class. In the S8 forums, many folks are saying that the MPEG-2 encoding rivals that of TMPGenc, often cited as a baseline. I can't confirm that rendering is sluggish; on my 2.26GHz P4 editing system, MPEG-2 renders 2-3x real time. That means it takes 2 to 3 minutes to render one minute of video. TMPGenc was faster, but not by much. The MainConcept encoder that I bought for Video Factory 2.0 seemed to run at about the same speed.

Stability has been a huge issue with S8. Just about a week ago, an update was released that finally makes the product generally stable. I think for capture and editing based on MiniDV, S8 is at least acceptable and probably very good. However, there are still some severe problems with authoring and the forums remain full of folks with problems.

I'm not going to be using Studio for production work; I decided to go with Premiere even though I really like Vegas. But I am going to be using Studio in my work. I chose Studio over 6 other products in the price class because it was the only one with the great feature set and the only one with fully integrated DVD authoring. I also judge it easier to use than any other package, in or out of its class. It thus meets the requirements for my project.

But I will say this -- if Video Factory had integrated DVD authoring, I'd be using it. It's not quite as easy to use as Studio, but I like the editor better and it's very stable. Sonic licensed Video Factory to Sony, so these comments also apply to "Screenblast Movie Studio." Check it out at screenblast.com.

[Don Parrish]

I have never understood how CNET and PC magazine can print such rave reviews of something that is rated so poorly by end users. On PC rags site even it's customer reviews are bad mouthing the pinnacle studio stability. How is it possible that these facilities can rate and review and never have problems that many others have. I know that I am one sided by being burned on studio 7, but what does it take for these reviewers to stop rating products "editors choice" and "first pick". Isn't stability 90% of software, what good is a luxery car that doesn't run? The computer industry has for a long time been allowed to make claims and not live up to them, Maybe it's time to start calling these products what they are and giving them "not recommended" ratings. Pinnacle, Miss Cleo is that you.

[Will Fastie]

I was the editor-in-chief of PC Tech Journal, which was a Ziff-Davis publication. I still have lots of friends there, including the EIC of PC Mag and the writer who reviewed Studio 8. The minute I saw PC Mag's Editor's Choice award, I burned up the Internet complaining to them.

The truth is that the reviewer had no problems. There are lots of folks over in the Pinnacle forums who say they have had absolutely no problem from day one.

Based on my recitation of problems, PC Mag actually went back and took a second look. This was done privately, more as a favor to me than anything else. After that look, they decided not to change their position.

But here's the thing -- if the most current update had been the version reviewed, I would not have bugged my friends. I think the current version is the best in class, even with the remaining problems. Even though Studio would not have been my choice a few months ago, it would be now.

If I read the review today, in the context of the current version, it's okay.

[Maurice FitzGerald]

Reviews are relative. I have tried a lot of SW, and Studio has the best price/quality ratio on a PC of anything I tried. Yes, it has its bugs. So do most of the others. Go to the forums dedicated to other low-end video editing software, and you will see many of the same complaints as we see in the Studio forums.

Maurice