User Rating: 
1/10
Pinnacle Studio 8 Video software solutionby ironcladf2 - August 18, 2008
Pros: nice user interface, good array of transitions and effects
Cons: very bad software crashes a lot and takes a lot of time to get some results
Review:
It is a painful software...I wasted a lot hours and days to get some results. It crashes a lot and there is no technical support at all. It has nice transitions and effects but will not recommend this software to anyone.
User Rating: 
2/10
A Nightmare !by lithvak - October 3, 2005
Pros: Nice interface and features (if they worked)
Cons: Out of Synch, crashes, out of synch !
Review:
I have tried EVERYTHING the company suggests to "solve" the problem of incorrect synchronization of audio and video, to no avail. I have run literally THOUSANDS of programs on this computer without incident; this is the ONLY program that has ever given me any problem(s), and I mean PROBLEMS ! All that wasted time (hours and hours; days upon days) working on projects only to come away with JUNK. I have never been so disappointed and frustrated in my life !
User Rating: 1/10
Worst product ever madeby - April 30, 2004
Pros: interface is very nice, drag and drop is great
Cons: can NEVER get anything to come out of the program, looks great in preview window, rendering slow and doesn't work, crashes, crashes, crashes, I have never gotten any finished product out of the software. Customer support was ineffective at best.
Review:
User Rating: 
5/10
Out of Sync DVDby - April 26, 2004
Pros: Verstatile tools, relatively straight forward interface
Cons: Frequent error messages and shutdowns; inability to render a dvd with audio in sync. I all profects in which I have attempted to render a DVD staring with an MPEG2 file, the resulting project's audio is out of sync. I have spent over 50 hours trying all
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
It doesn't work as promisedby - March 6, 2004
Pros: Easy to work with, capturing is easy, editing is fun, but the burning....
Cons: Flat out, the product can't produce a DVD on a consistent basis. Sometimes it will work on a small project, but as soon as I go to a large project it fails. After 20 DVDs, I have one good DVD+, 2 good 1 minute DVD-, and 17 in the trash can. Support is s
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
VERY unstableby - February 26, 2004
Pros: looks nice
Cons: slow,crashes constantly,had to reload several times finally gave up and tried ulead its much easier to use notas many bells and whistles but most people never use them anyway
Review:
User Rating: 
6/10
Fed up with Pinnacle support!by - February 17, 2004
Pros: it worked fine for 5 days, and it seemed to be able to do everything promised!
Cons: after 5 days, STUDIO8 will not start on my (brand new virgin XP)system! got a couple of "predictable" emails from somebody (or someTHING) asking me to uninstall / reinstall / clean reg etc. I am waiting for my support reply for about 2 weeks now. I br
Review:
User Rating: 6/10
Good but takes timeby - February 14, 2004
Pros: Easy to use, doesn't take much if you just want to copy your video from camera to dvd. Transitions and menu's are easy to use. Make sure that you have a lot of memory and fast computer.
Cons: When I initially started the program I had a lot of little bugs, stalling shutting down loosing work, but through the updates this seems to have gone away.
Review:
User Rating: 
4/10
Editing video is a snap. Burning DVDs is hopelessby - February 10, 2004
Pros: Importing and editing video was easy and intuitive.
Cons: I gave up trying to burn edited video to DVD. Studio 8 takes almost an hour to finally give me some incomprehensible error msgs and left me with an expensive coasters. (HP 2.4 ghz, 1 meg memory, Windows XP, Pioneer U-07 DVD burner)
Review:
User Rating: 4/10
verdict is simple: does not burn dvd the way you want itby - February 8, 2004
Pros: VERY easy to use. Terrific interface. Very intuitive.
Cons: Does not work. I looked at the video the way it played on the computer before I burned and it looked terrific. After I burned it and tried it on my dvd player, it was terrible... it skipped whole sections and chapters that i had laid out.
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
Wouldn't recommend if you can find betterby - February 3, 2004
Pros: ease of use, simple but yet great when it does work
Cons: support stinks, way too long to burn a DVD, crashes, numerous problems
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
This would be a great product if it didn't lock up or crash all the time.by - January 29, 2004
Pros: Features, ease of use, good interface.
Cons: Stability problem (crashes ALL the time), very slow rendering even with a fast computer, not good for long videos unless you have a LOT of time and patience!
Review:
User Rating: 
3/10
Incompatible and hangs on renderingby - January 27, 2004
Pros:
Cons: This software may work in a few limited situations, but it was a headache for me. I wasted a huge amount of time on it.
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
It's as bad as everyone saysby - January 26, 2004
Pros: Wonderful feature set, tools, and interface
Cons: Can't finish a project. Have P4 2.66, 512MB PC2700, 160GB System HD, Dedicated 80GB for capture, files, etc, XP, yada, yada. Downloaded patches, tried suggestions of technical support to no avail. Messed up my system even after uninstall. Even system
Review:
User Rating: 1/10
DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEYby - January 23, 2004
Pros: Good tranistions.
Cons: Nothing works right. Skips chapters during burn and crashes continually.
Review:
User Rating: 6/10
Good editing tools but has frequent hick-upsby - January 22, 2004
Pros: Excellent editing features, (drag and drop) and has mulitiple editing views for make your own DVD movies with chapter style menus. The features I enjoy the most are the video transitions/swipe effects and the ability to burn to multiple formats (AVI, Wind
Cons: Product will freeze up or lockup intermintently in the middle of editing. Also have to reboot sometimes to get audio to be in sync with video. . Takes a while to get use to the various editing windows. Also Video rendering takes a very long time. It woul
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
Great features Poor Audio Syncby - January 21, 2004
Pros: Has plenty of features, easy to use (except audio Sync) and really doesn't cost a bundle.
Cons: I was haveing a problem with the audio sync from the beganning. Ended up upgrading the the full version to be able to edit audio, but found I was still unable to Sync the audio to the video. Downloaded the patch that stated it would improve the aduio sync
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
If you like headaches, go ahead, buy it.by - January 20, 2004
Pros: Easy to learn.
Cons: Program crashes repeatedly. I'm talking, the program just all of the sudden quits, or sometimes just disappears completely to where you have to re-start the program over, and over, and over.. If you don't save your work every 5 secs, forget about it. That
Review:
User Rating: 1/10
DONT BUY THIS PEICE OF JUNK PROGRAMby - January 18, 2004
Pros: There is only a few good things about this Program. FIrst the capturing of your film is qiute easy and fast, then the editing is pretty easy... that is if it hasnt froze on you yet.
Cons: This product constantly freezes and locks up your whole PC. Just when you finish one part of your movie, you feel so happy only until you find another problem and you just want to kill yourself. I spent hours editing try to get my video done, but it kept
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
No finished product makes it useless.by - January 12, 2004
Pros: Easy to capture video, pictures, music, and add sound effects.
Cons: The pros don't matter if you can't get a finished product out of your creation. Constantly freezing up after hours of rendering. Support sucks...90 days with purchase and then $15 a call - and that's after a long hold time.
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Too many bugs - don't recommendby - January 10, 2004
Pros: Good job capturing, nice job of scene detection, transitions are fun to play with.
Cons: Too many crashes. I tried it on a system I put together myself, on a Compaq, and now on a Toshiba. All had problems. Latest problem (out of many): the program loads with the top part off the screen, so the menu can't be accessed, and the window can't b
Review:
User Rating: 6/10
Performs well with some pampering.by - January 6, 2004
Pros: Runs acceptably on my home built P4 2.6Ghz sytem with 512meg RAM and XP home. The trick is to kill other processes before you launch. Also disable Hyperthreading if you have it on your P4. This is done in BIOS. I downloaded a freeware program called "endi
Cons: This program really should either run with the resources available or tell the user what to do to free up resources. Unexplained crashes are unacceptable. Because of the bugs I only recommend this for power users. I agree with other users that this produc
Review:
User Rating: 4/10
Captures and Edits, but can't make movieby - January 5, 2004
Pros: Intuitive interface, enough features for my purposes
Cons: Crashes when I try to make move.
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Could be a good product, if it worked!by - January 5, 2004
Pros: Lots of features.
Cons: Freezes during cd burning. Very, very slow rendering. When I got through software freezing then during rendering it just kept looping and never completed! I wouldn't recommend this product. Pinnacle says it is PC issues everyone is having, but I don't
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
It's as bad as everyone here saysby - January 4, 2004
Pros: A feature set that would represent a great value if the system worked.
Cons: After spending 8 hours, and saving often, on a highly edited project I was very impressed with the results and wondering what all the complaints on this site were about. Then suddenly, everything went haywire and all my work became unrecoverable. I coul
Review:
User Rating: 
7/10
Comprehensive Softwareby - December 31, 2003
Pros: Simple capturing, timeline editing, menu creation, great transitions. Works great for my situation-DV firewire transfer to DVD output. Software free at Fry's after mail-in rebate.
Cons: Rendering is slow, but I have not read a review about any other software regarding fast rendering/burning.
Review:
User Rating: 
8/10
Does the job in spite of crashesby - December 29, 2003
Pros: Editing intuitive and easy. Capure process is flawless. Good transitions if using Hollywood FX (Plus at least). Burns DVD's, with easy title/menu creation. Many options for output types. Good end product, whether DVD, MPEG, back to tape, etc... Using late
Cons: Rendering during DVD creation very slow. I edit the movie, and then let it render and burn DVD overnight. The program becomes unstable when inserting many transitions, so I keep that part for the job for the end. Sometimes one transition will cause all th
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
crashes very very oftenby - December 28, 2003
Pros: Easy to get up to speed in creating a video. Plenty of features that are usable by a novice.
Cons: Horrific stability problems. Many many crashes in the middle of your work. So bad, I finally stopped using it and removed it from my system.
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Slow and no mp3 useby - December 22, 2003
Pros: Good features, and great format
Cons: Very slow rendering, cannot drag and drop mp3s on hard drive, moderate crash frequency, Had to reinstall DVD/CD drive after installing program, and did I mention very slow?
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Have been unable to create anything worthwileby - December 20, 2003
Pros:
Cons: I have wasted more hours than I would care to admit trying to exit together a simple video sequence. The creation and editing of the movie is straightforward enough and the addition of menus, transitions and titles is a "piece of cake"... however then try
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Would be a great product if it worked!by - December 14, 2003
Pros: The user interface is mostly good, compared to others. Works okay on a 2+ ghz system doing VCD quality. Has a ton of features.
Cons: It is slow doing DVD quality. Even on a 2.6ghz system, it was dog slow working with DVD quality mpegs; freezes constantly (or even consistently); the final render has frozen in 4 attempts. I've found only using a whole suite of different software apps (
Review:
User Rating: 6/10
NOT AS BAD AS MOST ON THIS BOARD MAKE ITby - December 4, 2003
Pros: Great interface, easy to use, excellent features for "newbies". Movies look great with menus, chapter links, and credits. I have never had a crash on my PIII 1GHz machine.
Cons: Agonizingly SLOW rendering time. A one hour video can take several hours to render BEFORE it's ready to burn to DVD. In that time don't even think of running anything inthe background or even looking at your PC. I do all my rendering overnight so it's
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
At times it uses 100 percent of the CPU process, which causes it to lockup the computer at timesby - November 29, 2003
Pros: It has a great interface and ease of use. I upgraded my computer to AMD ATHL 2.6GHz process or, a Gigabyte mother board and 512DDR 3200 RAM.
Cons: I use Dazzle software previously with my Pent III 256MB RAM with advance 2000 server. The Dazzle software never locked up my computer and did have a easy interface. Now, purchased Pinicale 8.x and tried the software with XP pro, win200 advance server,
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Not ready to be for sale.by - November 25, 2003
Pros:
Cons: Studio 8 is loaded with more bugs than any program I have ever used. It's incredible. Check Pinnacle S8 user forum. Don't expect to be able to capture, edit, or burn in an acceptable manner. The product has been out almost a year and still does not come
Review:
User Rating: 7/10
Glad I tried itby - November 24, 2003
Pros: easy to use, feature rich I have been testing various video editing software applications and was wary of the Pinnacle product due to the extent of terrible review. To date, I liked Mainconcept's Mainactor software mostly because of its excellent MPEG2
Cons: inability to choice codec when performing direct output to tape. Easy workaround, however, is available.
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
Works if you got the right H/Wby - November 13, 2003
Pros: I had Studio 8 for 6 months now. I installed it into my P4 2.53, ASUS P4PE, 512MB PC333 DDR RAM, 36GB Maxtor Atlas III 10K SCSI drive, WD 120GB JB 8MB Cache X 2, ATI AIW 8500 and SB PCI??never work properly when capture from VCR. There are always frames
Cons: Need the right H/W to make it work
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
A disappointing, unstable piece of software.by - November 11, 2003
Pros: Simple intuitive interface.
Cons: I have been installing software every since the Windows system came on the market, I work every day using my computer and have used three video editing programs (Adobe 6 and most recently Abode premier pro and your Studio 8). Studio 8 is quite simply the
Review:
User Rating: 1/10
Do Not Buy Studio 8by - November 9, 2003
Pros: If the features worked, they would be good.
Cons: Unstable, full of bugs, terrible product, terrible support. If you want proof, simply check out their user forum which is filled with page after of reported critical errors in this horrific product.
Review:
User Rating: 1/10
what good is software if it doesn't work?by - November 7, 2003
Pros: relatively intuitive interface. menu-driven navigation makes starting the process easy.
Cons: can you say more bugs than windows 1.0? (yes, i'm dating myself-but this should show you that the typical intermediate user will have lots of problems. they just haven't made this software with a simplied coding infrastructure to allow for easy compatib
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Unbelievable that this made it into production!by - November 7, 2003
Pros: Capture and Edit. These actually work pretty well.
Cons: Make Movie. Rendering, compiling(if it gets that far). It is mind-boggling to sit here and read all of the negative reviews where others are saying exactly what I am thinking about this product. Does Pinnacle even have a plan to fix these bugs? Unreal.
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Wish I didn't blow $100 on this!by - November 7, 2003
Pros: Seems to have a lot of neat features...
Cons: ...BUT IT DOESN'T WORK! I bought a brand new Dell 8300 built for video editing, and have had NOTHING but trouble. The program freezes when I try to capture video, and FORGET burning a DVD -even when you are patient and wait close to 4 hours for renderin
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Extremely Unstableby - November 7, 2003
Pros: Great features, very easy to understand and use.
Cons: Extremely unstable. About 75% of my projects will not play once rendered. They hang up during playback on the computer and in the DVD player. DVD burning does not work about 50% of the time. The rendering and burning is so unreliable I have to burn to
Review:
User Rating: 6/10
Good features, bad qualityby - October 23, 2003
Pros: Packed with features for its price, gives the user much control over the editing process. Good documentation. Easy to use, intuitive.
Cons: Very buggy. I had to wait for 2 patches until I could successfully complete a movie. Had to spend a lot of time in their tech support forum to solve problems.
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Rushed to Market!by - October 3, 2003
Pros: Great feature set if you could use it
Cons: Very unstable. Terrible support (they announce a 40+ min wait!!). Product requires you to contort your system to support it. It may not be suitable for your needs but, IT SHOULD WORK for your money! I think there should be a class action suit filed
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Save Your Money & Your Sanity!by - October 1, 2003
Pros: Looks nice. Lots of bells and whistles. Very easy interface. Really gets ones hope up!
Cons: Constantly crashes often leaving you with nothing after spending hours of capturing and editing. Even if you save multiple copies of your project, you are very likely to end up with nothing. In my many years of computing, it's the most unstable program I'
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
IT IS EVEN WORSE THAN THE 7.0 VERSIONby - September 25, 2003
Pros: NOTHING FUNCTIONS ON THE DVD SIDE. I JUST MADE A FOOL OF MYSELF FOR BUYING THIS NEW PRODUCT AFTER OWNING THE 7.0 VERSION. COMPLETELY UNSTABLE, EVEN MORE SO THAN THE OLDER ONE. EACH UPDATE MAKES IT EVEN MORE UNSTABLE, EXEPT FOR THE FIRST ONE, REFERING TO T
Cons: BESIDES THE GOOD POINTS OF STUDIO 7 EVERYTHING ELSE IS BAD.
Review:
User Rating: 4/10
Will be great if it will workby - September 18, 2003
Pros: Great inteface, some missing features but so many crashes
Cons: Crash on any thing I do
Review:
User Rating: 6/10
Finally performing with latest patchby - September 11, 2003
Pros: Very intuitive, flexible, easy interface. It makes nice menus. Great for converting all of the old family videos into more durable DVDs. Works very well now after 8.8 patch.
Cons: Initally, very unstable until 8.8 patch became available. As the manual instructs, all other apps should be closed to minimize crashes and burning troubles. On my new Sony Vaio, it will burn DVD +R and +RW, as well as -RW but not DVD -R! Go figure?
Review:
User Rating: 1/10
Full on Bugs & Horrible Supportby - September 6, 2003
Pros: Would be a great product if it didn't have so many bugs!
Cons: Everytime Pinnacle releases a patch to fix the know bugs, the patch cause a hand full of new bugs! I've given up on this product. It's time to find something more reliable.
Review:
User Rating: 
9/10
Doen't work with imports AVI, MPEG, and won't capture from my digital camera with provided link.by - September 2, 2003
Pros: My setup, WINXP, Pent.III, 512 MB RAM met all requirements so the product looked good on the box.
Cons: It sounded great but was on sale with a rebate so "you get what you pay for" I suppose. I have a free software that came with a $32 dgital camera that I bought for my grandson that works much better.
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Crashes over and over and over.....by - August 23, 2003
Pros: Works every once in a while. That is all I can say about it that is good. If it worked as advertised it would be great.
Cons: Tried it on several computers. Same thing over and over. Crashes almost every time. Support has been almost non-existent.
Review:
User Rating: 1/10
Not even worth $65by - August 20, 2003
Pros: Great Menu features
Cons: Got an hour? This is how long it would take me to list the cons for Pinnacle Studio 8. While it is priced very cheap, the statement "You get what you pay for" is right on the money. It will not import video captured from other software programs. MPEG
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
Very easy to use, but buggy.by - August 18, 2003
Pros: I love the interface and the different output options. The transitions and titles make projects look very polished. So far I've made 4 short videos (4-10 mins.) and have had good quality results.
Cons: MPEG rendering takes 2-3x the length of the film (AVI is much quicker). I wish I could view captured video at full-screen resolution without having to render it first. I'm not sure if it's just Studio DV (V.8) that's the problem, but I have had all kind
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Disappointing; Do not buy it.by - August 13, 2003
Pros: Great features.
Cons: The production time would be acceptable "IF" the final sound and video did not have mysterious gaps. My top performing computer, my Sony DRU 510a drive and quality blank DVDs are not the problem. Don't waste your time with this unit if you are picky abo
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Life is too short to use bad softwareby - August 10, 2003
Pros: The DVDs which I have been able to burn are great. Scene detection is good for deleting commercials out of TV shows (like burning Monk episodes to DVD !!)...that is, if you have hours to kill.
Cons: Came with my Gateway 500X computer (which I otherwise love), along with Pinnacle TV Deluxe (USB TV tuner). Gateway must have gotten some kinda deal, because I sure wouldn't want to sell MY computers with these two products. The Gateway live tech guy was
Review:
User Rating: 1/10
The more I use it the more I hate it.by - August 7, 2003
Pros: An idea to be developed by Ulead
Cons: Nothing works. It is a scam. Never again will I buy a Pinnacle product. I owned studio 6, 7 and now this complete disaster. A trial version of Ulead movie Factory 2 is doing everything to save my filming, but it can not do what is has not been designed t
Review:
User Rating: 7/10
Produces quality outputby - August 6, 2003
Pros: Easy to use. Very high quality results. I have created dozens of DVD's that were easy to create, and look excellent. For those who know their way around computers, it works VERY well.
Cons: Still working on bugs. Not for the faint of heart - if you are not an expert computer user (and it looks like this review board is full of them), then this may be more than you can handle - go find another product.
Review:
User Rating: 8/10
It works great for what it doesby - August 4, 2003
Pros: dispite all of the reviews that this product doesn't work, I tryed it out and it worked great. I don't know why so many people are having hardware conflicts with this software, but I have a Dell Demension 4400 with 256 RAM and It handled this program fin
Cons: a little slow at rendering the video, sometimes sound doesn't always match up
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
So buggy as to be uselessby - July 29, 2003
Pros: Great features, excellent interface
Cons: Simply does not work. Very unstable. Inordinate amount of time invested but absolutely zero results.
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
Damnedby - July 29, 2003
Pros: Good interface, a lot of possibilities
Cons: Too many crashes. Buggy buggy buggy system! It manages even to make your production corrupt! It doesn't make a last backup or doesn't have a backup option to save your work every x min. (let say for this so poor product: 10 sec?). So pinnacle, get yours
Review:
User Rating: 6/10
I wish I would have shopped around for best price and read pros and cons first.by - July 27, 2003
Pros: The transitions are fun. Somewhat user friendly. Support by email was fast and detailed.
Cons: I had a lot of problems installing and had to use their email support. One important thing with this is to be aware that the program installs differently on Windows XP. It is very import to sure that nothing is running in the background when you are insta
Review:
User Rating: 2/10
Purchase only if you're feeling lucky!!by - July 21, 2003
Pros: intuitive interface, easy to use, features would be great if they worked!
Cons: Wish I could give this zero stars. If you're working on a movie longer than 3 minutes, stay away from this software and you'll save yourself hours of frustration and anguish. Although this software is very user friendly, it has to be the most poorly devel
Review:
User Rating: 9/10
Great buy for $60!by - July 7, 2003
Pros: Ok folks, I?ve read the negative feedback on this product and lucky for me, I have not experienced the same. On my system the program installed and then performed flawlessly. I did as the manual suggested: I used a 2nd hard drive for the ?work files?
Cons: I miss the "rolling credits" capability that MS Movie Maker 2 has. Slow to render but worth the wait.
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
INCREDIBLY UNSTABLEby - July 3, 2003
Pros: easy to use, when IT WORKS
Cons: I can't tell you how many years I took off my life by using this program. My blood pressure has reached new highs. Forget it... DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. Looking into Adobe Premier. Hey... you get what you pay for, make no mistake about it.
Review:
User Rating: 3/10
unable to burn cdby - June 26, 2003
Pros: this product was very easy to use.i went through it with no problems untill it came to burning a cd it just would not do it.
Cons:
Review:
User Rating: 5/10
Would be great if it didn't crashby - June 18, 2003
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Review:
I returned this package because it was unuseable. Hard to believe they can sell this crap. The user interface, tutorial video, etc are great... to bad the actual program is junk. If you want to waste your time and die of frustration this product does the job.
User Rating: 2/10
Not much use if you cannot outputby - June 18, 2003
Pros:
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Review:
Easy to capture video, interface is OK but not always obvious but useless when it comes to "Make Movie". I have a hard disk full of video to burn and no where to put it. It takes forever to render the video then fails to burn to CD. All I want is a VCD but it refuses. Sometimes it gives a burn failure error and other times it says it is completed the burn but there is nothing on the CD. I rebuilt my PC so it ONLY has Studio 8.5.21 and it still won't work. I can burn a CD with Roxio without a problem. Why can't this junk do it? Don't bother getting it even if someone like me gives it to you.
User Rating: 4/10
Would be great... if it worked!!by - June 18, 2003
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Review:
It would be an awesome program if it didn't crash so much!! My system is pretty good, lots of RAM and RAIDed hard drives. It shouldn't be so slow, and it shouldn't freeze up over the smallest operations!!
User Rating: 3/10
Freezes/Bugs/Very poor serviceby - June 18, 2003
Pros:
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Review:
Many freezes and one finally took out part of the code. DL a patch. Caused sound probems. Uninstalled, reloaded, deleted, changed, fixed: nothing worked. 48 hour wait for useless support. 40 min wait on phone (not toll free) to have a tech say it was my system and nothing they could do. I'm VERY disappointed with Pinnacle. I will never buy from them again. They're trying to give the program away free with certain camcorder purchases. I guess we know why!
User Rating: 2/10
CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASHby - June 18, 2003
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Review:
After 6 months, 3 computers and no fixes...I will NEVER buy another product from Pinnacle. Read the other comments and beware. Its not your system (Ive tried it on three all with diferent video/audio/cpu)....the program is just a piece of *&$%*#@!?@! I have never seen a program with so many bugs and crash problems. Do not purchase this no matter what the cost. Remember...Friends dont let friends buy Pinnacle.
User Rating: 1/10
Very disappointing, go get Uleadby - June 18, 2003
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Review:
Other than a nice scene detection feature, Studio 8 does so poorly in so many areas: slow S-VCD rendering, can't import mp3 audio, and, above all, ridiculously unstable. Crashing all the time, I reinstalled it and now I couldn't use it b/c they said there's a liscense problem?!?! I got full-liscense, totally legal software, and what a robbery?!?!
User Rating: 5/10
Great Features, HORRIBLE CRASHESby - June 18, 2003
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Review:
This program is filled with lots of great features, but make sure you get your work done in under five minutes, because it will CONSTANTLY crash after that. I wish I'd seen all these reviews prior to purchasing it. Believe me, and what all these other people are saying - THIS IS ONE OF THE "BUGGIEST" PROGRAMS EVER WRITTEN! I have lost countless hours of work because the program crashes. Don't buy it!
User Rating: 3/10
Frustrating and Huge Drain on Personal Energyby - June 18, 2003
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Review:
If you are masochistic, then this is your type of program. Program captures my video easily. Then I have the joy of realitively quickly (figure 2 hours for 45 minutes of video) and easily use the nicely featured editing tools. Then just when I have my film perfectly edited, with a selected menu for DVD (so that I can selected chapters of a video vs. viewing the entire video)all of the bells, buttons and whistles of my project are working PERFECTLY. Then when I attempt to make a disk ALL of my carefully crafted work disappears into an unopenable file. All of my time and energy (not to mention my money) is for naught. Pinnacle deserves to go the way of Enron. It has perpetrated a fraud on both its customer base and its investors. Pinnacle has sold a product that it must know doesn't work and which it doesn't support. Such a shame. With the cost of digital cameras and camcorders coming down, there is a huge need for a simple reliable product at any reasonable price. Why can't someone build it? Why can't C/net honestly review these products so that I wouldn't have purchased Studio 7, Pinnacle Express and Studio 8 Upgrade? Why can't C/net support and really publicize a product that genuinely works properly?
User Rating: 5/10
Works, but could use a human interface specialistby - June 18, 2003
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No, that's not a request for employment
While the software hasn't crashed on me yet, and does what it is supposed to, half the user interface was apparently designed by a Martian. No progress meters during long renders and burns. Directory settings hidden in odd places. Right-click (i.e. contextual) menus are not contextual -- e.g. things you should be able to do on the menu are greyed out. You can't make a Title into a Menu even though Titles can have any Menu element. Hint to Pinnacle: yes, a human interface specialist is worth the salary. Tell your CIO/CTO/CFO to stop penny-pinching. If half the user interface was designed by a Martian, half the user manual was designed by a Venusian, or possibly a sadistic Talmudic sage. There are no full screenshots, so you have to guess where the windows and menus shown are supposed to show up. Although each chapter covers one subject, the details of how to perform actions pertaining to the subject are spattered throughout the manual. The lack of accompanying screenshots makes things difficult to understand. Overall, the product is powerful, but it takes lots of experimentation and false paths. If you are not fully conversant with computers and technology, and are not patient, get another product.
User Rating: 4/10
Looks Great, Totally Uselessby - June 18, 2003
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Interface looks great. Features seemed to be the solution I was looking for. Bottom line, can't produce DVD's or VCD's with the program...rendering is horrifyingly loooonng...final output and burn always fails. Junk. The worse type of program. Will waste hours upon hours of your time before you realize the software is crap. Pretty face, but that is all. Save your money and look elsewhere!
User Rating: 4/10
HORRIBLE STABILITYby - June 18, 2003
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I am so frustrated with this program I can't see straight. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PROGRAM! It wouldn't be such a bad program IF IT WORKED! I cannot tell you how many times this program has failed on me right in the middle of every task I try to complete. I have downloaded EVERY fix for this crap, and IT STILL FAILS! And no, my computer's stability has NOTHING to do with it. Brand new computer, 2.53 speed processor....GFORCE graphics, 120 GB hard drive, etc. I am very familiar with programs such as this one, and learn their functions very quickly....what I learned about this program is: IT'S STABILITY IS CRAP!!! DO NOT BUY IF YOU PLAN ON SPENDING A LOT OF TIME ON A PROJECT ONLY FOR IT TO CRAP OUT ON YOU RIGHT AT THE END OR PREFER THAT IT EVEN WORKS!
User Rating: 3/10
Has CNET used this programby - June 18, 2003
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I have a pentium-4 2.4 with 1gb of ram and 128mb of video ram and a raid 80gb HD and this program locks-up and crashes to no end. Will not capture and has locked up 3 times in rendering. I bought ulead videostudio 7 so far so good
User Rating: 5/10
Stability Problemsby - June 18, 2003
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I have been using Pinnacle Studio 8.0 (with all the new upgrades) for five months now and I have very mixed feelings about it. I use the program to mix down home videos to which I like to add titles, music, and other effects. I just bought a new computer -- an HP with an AMD 2600+ processor and 1 Gig of RAM. I am including this information because the computer is very fast and new (so there is not much on it yet). Let me start with some positive notes. At this point, I have edited six short movies and they are beautiful. The program is easy to learn and manipulate. The title graphics are very good (especially when compared to some other video editing software such as MyDVD and ArcSoft ShowBiz) and I am generally pleased with the transitions and the overall look of the movies. However, I am also new to video filming and editing, so I am probably easily "wowed." Now the negative. The program is REALLY UNSTABLE. If I were just making a few cuts, the stability would probably not be an issue. However, I like experimenting with different titles, slow motion, video stills, music (from CDs and mp3), and fast edits. If I attempt to do too many things at the same time, the program starts to freak out. I have learned to save my project very frequently, but this doesn't always save me. I have had the software change my titles and still frames even after they were saved. On occasion the software has lost files (such as a still frame image), locked up, or won't work properly. Usually, if you shut down and reboot this will help. I have learned to reboot on a regular basis while editing to keep things on an even keel. It is especially important to reboot before burning a DVD. Just last week it crashed while burning a fairly long (30 minute) DVD and afterwards that file would not open again. That was over 5 hours of work which are now gone. Another small problem I found is with the customer support. Pinnacle comes with three months of free customer support when you buy the program. I called twice. First of all, be prepared for a LONG wait. I waited over 40 minutes each time during non-peak times. Overall, Pinnacle Studio 8 has a lot of promise, but I am currently looking for another program. It is too bad because I could be very happy with this program if it would stop crashing.
User Rating: 1/10
Useless for burning VCD'sby - June 18, 2003
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It works well when I captured and editted, but fails miserably to make a readable VCD.
User Rating: 3/10
This product is loaded with bugsby - June 16, 2003
Pros: Great feature set. Very easy to edit, author, burn DVDs
Cons: The product just isn't stable. For one simple project, PS 8 crashed more than 20 times. Many post referring to issues on different h/w & s/w configs. I doubt that the platform is the issue.. Basically I think these guys shipped PS 8 before it was re
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User Rating: 4/10
So disappointingby - May 8, 2003
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This seems like a very easy to use, powerful video editing suite. I was impressed at how quickly and easily I got my digital video camera to feed to this program and how easy it was to edit the video. As soon as I started to mix it up a little and add soundtracks, transitions and titles the program started to fail. It turns out that many of this programs bugs are well-established. A brief search on Google groups turned up many people having the same problem I am having with titles--posts going back at least 6 months. It turns out that for many of us, adding title screens is easy, but when you reopen your project they have all changed. Sometimes the titles have all changed. When I revert to the last saved copy--the last saved copy has been changed also. How frustrating is that? So what do I do? I go to the website. When the website even loads at all, I cannot reach the customer support area. I've had better luck using the video editor built into Windows XP--and it is less frustrating.
User Rating: 5/10
Too many lockups and crashesby - May 8, 2003
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I can't believe Pinnacle touts 8 Emmy awards for this software. I am using a Sony VAIO, 2.8 Ghz, 1GB memory and it's failing this badly? Maybe it's because of XP, but if that's the case, Pinnacle shouldn't say they're certified on it. I am extremely discouraged by this tool. Seems like most tools out there have problems. I think Sony's ClickToDVD software is the most stable, but its DVD authoring capabilities are limited.
User Rating: 6/10
Conflicts with almost everythingby - May 5, 2003
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Studio 8 has received awards as a great video editing program yet most users don't recommend it. Why? Because it has bugs galore. The design, feature set and price of the program are superb and it's a joy when it's working properly BUT it can head South at any time. My copy develops additional bugs when I install Pinnacle's Edition igh end editing program. With Edition installed -- neither program is useable. Problem is that most video editors are unstable. Would love to know which one works reliably.
User Rating: 1/10
Not truly XP compliant, tons of conflictsby - May 2, 2003
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Studio AV/DV Deluxe is a major pain in the butt! Rough first install, lost all my CD Drivers. had to manually edit registry to get them back. Multiple resource conflicts required another dozen drop and add driver routines before it would finally capture. Routinely hung up while making any movie after the first five minutes of rendering. Also tends to have problems seeing MP3 files at times, also can't read WMV's! I still haven't figured out how to have it burn a videoCD since the software now doesn't recognize my CD Burner as a device. I'm running a P4 with 768MB of RAM and windows XP. I've resolved to editing the movie using Microsoft Movie Maker 2 (free w/XP) and burning to CD using Nero (bundled with the burner) and a 16$ plug-in... I could have saved the $299 and just bought a $40 capture board to do that! As others have said, good promise, BUT loads of system problems. I know my way around PC's, if you don't, advise you to reconsider something else.
User Rating: 5/10
incredibly unstableby - April 24, 2003
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editing features are awesome, you easily produce nice projects as long as you look at them within the Studio interface. After that, I have never been able to render and produce a DVD : crash, crash, crash.. I followed the tips given in various forums, including Pinnacle support site : uninstall, clear registry, upgrade disks speed and capacity, add ram, tried various BIOS settings... To be honest, I must admit that I read bas user comments before purchasing this software, but, as my PC is perfectly stable and I had no problem with any software, including very demanding ones like video encoders, I was sure that the reported problems came from the user machines, not from Studio. Believe me, I was wrong ! Don't do the same mistake.
User Rating: 6/10
Buggy, buggy, buggyby - April 21, 2003
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I had major problems with Pinnacle Studio 7 and I thought Studio 8 was going to correct them. The program is even more unstable than Studio 7 was. It crashes and freezes constantly. Product support is bad. They always try to find an excuse rather than a solution. Don't waste your money on this product.
User Rating: 6/10
Very good but depends much on quality of hardwareby - April 18, 2003
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I have the softwar since version 6. With handpicked and very good hardware it works great. If it doesn't like Your hardware, then it crashes often. Also it's not wise to do anything else. DVD burning doesn't work for me, but I can use CopytoDVD which works great. Overall it gets the job done if You know how to work with it.
User Rating: 6/10
I wish it workedby - April 18, 2003
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My computer is a Abit KRZ7A-Raid. AMD XP-1800 w/ 512meg of DDR2100. running 2 60gig WD IDE ATA 100 drives in Raid 0, OS WinXP sp1. Video is a ATI AIW 7500 64meg. DVD and Burner are Lite-ons. I'm very happy with the performance of my computer and WinXP. I am using Pinnacle 8.5, wich made a good improvemant in stabilty over 8.3 but it still is way too flaky to be any use to any one. To bad too, nice interface.
User Rating: 5/10
Frustrating beyond beliefby - April 18, 2003
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I am surprised at a few comments on these pages. Some say that the speed with which version 8 was releaed meant it was full of holes. Some say the only people that are happy with it are the digital format users, not the analogue ones. I have used previous versions of the software and always used digital devices, and this product has never run smoothly. Be it black-out on the tape, inability to capture analogue and then transfer to digital (fixed by sheer luck) or compile, it has been completely frustrating in all of its guises. Technical support ignore issues for which they can't give an immediate fix. There is always a tendency to blame your hardware. Don't do what I did by spending $$$ upgrading (both hardware and software) just to find the problems still exist. I dont believe the manufacturers appreciate the frustration of customers discovering they have unuseable software after spending immeasurable hours painstakingly creating their movies.
User Rating: 2/10
Steer Clear if you use a Sony MicroMVby - April 16, 2003
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Video Capture for the MicroDV Sony products crashes my brand new top of the line XP system every time. Exporting MPEG files takes for ever and likely as not will crash before completion. Lousy manual and Useless tech. support.
User Rating: 6/10
one clarificationby - April 16, 2003
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in my review below I mentioned MPEG quality as an issue..I am still continuing to research this and the pinnacle may not be the problem - (one 'reference' encoder produced similar results to pinnacle in the encode)...overall, I feel my comments still hold (issues w/ stability, etc.) and this product still needs work, but in other forums, the mpeg encoding has gotten some fairly good reviews...
User Rating: 6/10
Features would be great if they workedby - April 15, 2003
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This software would be great ... if it worked. I have a relatively new 'big' PC (except for ram) and unlike others have had no problems burning w/ my DRU-500AX (Sony) (Have p4 2.0 w/ only 256 meg, 2nd 120 gig WD HD, XP). However, the biggest problems I have had in making just a few projects are: - Crashes - version 8.5.21.0 (newest) still crashes - not as frequently as prior versions seem to but it still crashes - Projects get corrupted by the software - mostly the DVD menus get corrupted and you have to rebuild them (and having a backup doesn't help)..this is really frustrating. The background audio also seems to need to be reripped multiple times in the project but I don't know whether that's a 'feature' or a bug - this is a pain but not fatal. - MPEG conversion - initially I thought it was ok, but on my current project I have been disappointed - the analog tape on a cruddy VCR looked noticibly better than the rendered MPEG (and capture is not the issue; I know this for sure). I read online on the pinnicle forum (which they are to be congratulated on for having despite that this version of code is basically unusable) that the rendering seems to have changed across versions. No matter what the features, if the MPEG is below the usability threshold, features don't matter. For this reason alone, I am investigating the other products. This package has a lot invested in it and can be great, but right now, I can't recommend it - it's not ready for the market. If they're smart, they'll realize the marketing hype will catch up with them and they won't be able to sustain the product. Hopefully they'll take all the $$ they have coming in and pay some OT for the development team to fix these problems. They have a thread for suggestions on future features - I would tell them that get the s/w working before doing anything else otherwise there won't be a need to worry about future versions. Pinnacle - pls. turn this around...
User Rating: 6/10
SLOW!!!!! Craches a LOT!by - April 14, 2003
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I got V7 with my systems - worked fine. I BOUGHT V8.0. This has been an EXTREMELY bad dream. I have had V8.0 for a long time. I have used it to capture movies bur have NOT been able to use it to create DVD's. I finally committed to MAKING it work. I spent HOURS reviewing the manual and setting up my system. It IS creating a DVD. BUT it is scheduled to complete a 1 hr 15 min capture in another 8 hours. It has been running for 3 hours! I am running a 1.8 P4 with 512mb and 1/4 TB of storage available. I am also searching for ANOTHER SW product to capture and render DVDs.
User Rating: 5/10
Constant crashes offset great featuresby - April 14, 2003
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Compared to other DVD software I have, MyDVD and ShowBiz, I prefer the features of Studio 8. However, I have yet to have a session without multiple crashes or losing some piece of work. I have a brand new system with all the latest patches - this is the only program out of about 40 apps installed that crashes. I also am not thrilled that an Athlon XP 2400+ with 1GB RAM and dual 7200 ATA100 HDD's takes over 1.5 hours to render and burn a 35 minute DVD.
User Rating: 6/10
Excellent user interface, buggy as anythingby - April 14, 2003
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I couldn't get capture to work Editing vido was extremely intuitive and easy. Making a DVD was a nightmare. I've only managed to get a 10 minute DVD burnt. I've tried over 20 times to burn movies over 60 minutes long, without success (at over 8 hours processing per movie you can understand the frustration caused!). This will be excellent software when they fix the huge number of bugs in it. Go and look at the Pinnacle forum if you want proof!
User Rating: 4/10
The Pitsby - April 14, 2003
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After hours of editing you decide to make a movie. Constant rendering hang ups.Very frustrating. Unable to burn a DVD. Pinnacle help is useless. The program is useless if you cant burn the finished product.Harved
User Rating: 7/10
Works Most of the timeby - April 10, 2003
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This program has worked grat for me with the exception of the one flaw I've found. If I do a 1 1/2 hour movie and burn it to DVD it works fine in my DVD player. However, if I do a 5 minute movie my DVD player doesn't read it. My system specs are 1.7xp, 768 megs 333 ddr, ati graphics card, 2 hard drives 1st one 40gigs second 120gigs, winxp pro. I do agree the technical support sucks.
User Rating: 9/10
A Monkey Could Make Video With This!by - April 9, 2003
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Studio is awesome. I purchased DV7 and just recently picked up the 8.0 upgrade. I used this program for editing on a friend's wedding video and it turned out great. I am extremely impressed with the new effects and have had none of the operating troubles described below. I run it on a P4 1.5 ghz system with 500 meg of ram and a Western Digital 120 gig drive. My only gripe is that Windows media 9 codec is not included for output. Still, I just output to AVI and then encode with program off the MS website.
User Rating: 9/10
works as advertised!by - April 7, 2003
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I read all these reviews on CNET about various DV editing software, and found fault with each product listed. I was truly perplexed about which one to buy. Adobe's was too expensive and mainly for pro's. I used Ulead's VideoStudio 4 and hated it, so I wasn't about to buy their v7. So, I took the leap and bought Pinnacle's product, and guess what!? To start with, it has a 50$ rebate...then I loaded it and started using it, WITHOUT reading the manual OR taking the tutorial. It is very esy to use, just play with it a bit....I was even half buzzed when I was using it. It's great product. I've heard people complain about stability....maybeso, here are my system specs: AMD Athlon 2200XP+ 1Gb pc2700 DDR RAM Asus A7V333 Mobo I would suggest LOTS of ram and CPU power....in my case, it works like a dream.
User Rating: 5/10
AVOID IT!!!!by - April 6, 2003
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The interface is great; however, getting the final project to disc is nearly impossible. Customer support is non-existant. If you ever do a get a reply to your problem, the solution is always to do a clean re-install (which doesn't work). Find something else
User Rating: 1/10
STAY CLEAR!by - April 4, 2003
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This "program" sucks. I bought it with my new Sony TRV-18 DV Camera. Captured video great - spent MANY hours putting together my first video creation - CRASHED. HOURS of work - DOWN THE TUBE! Yes - I saved - many times (every 2-3 minutes). So - what happened when I tried to open my SAVED work? Red screens everywhere. This program truly sucks... I even uninstalled, re-formated my NEW 120 GB WD DEDICATED Hard drive for video - reinstalled Pinnacle - spent another few hours on my movie - and after several crashes and more red screens - THAT'S IT - IT GOES BACK TO FUTURE SHOP! Never again, Pinnacle... Thanks for the "memories"... Computer: Cel 1.8, 384 DDRam, 40 gig WD; 120 gig WD dedicated HD for video; Microsoft XP Home.
User Rating: 2/10
I gave upby - April 4, 2003
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This software(studio 8) is not worth even 5 mins of your time if you are considering using it. Sure the interface is good, easy to use. But the moment you try to make a movie, it will show you its doing something and in about 10 mins, will cause the PC to crash, or lock up. This typically happens when you are looking away from the monitor! I cant understand how they can cheat people with this piece of useless software. They are just milking money.
User Rating: 4/10
Won't run long enough to do anythingby - April 2, 2003
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This program looks great and will run long enough to get you really excited about what it "can" do but it crashes continuously. I've owned it for more than six months, loading updates when they're available but I haven't been able to produce a video with it yet.
User Rating: 5/10
Don't Waste Your Money Like I Did!by - March 29, 2003
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I have a brand new laptop which has a DVD burner, 1 Gig of RAM and a 60Gig hard drive. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to use this program for days now. It freezes all the time, where the CONT+ALT+DELETE doesn't even let you escape...can only do a forced shutdown to get out of it! Many times, I'd reopen the file, only to see vast chnages had been made to the file that I didn't do. I have NEVER worked with a piece of software that was so unstable and full of 'bugs'. Pinnacle should be ashamed of themselves for even offering such a piece of software. I know it's gotten great reviews and it's true, the feature set (if it worked) would make this a fabulous program...DO NOT believe the marketing hype...it's just not a usable program, PERIOD! The documentation doesn't answer the important questions, and seems to assume that the user is totally familiar with all of the indiosyncrasies of the varios CD and DVD formats and compatibility. There's no information whatsoever as to adding still digital pictures and what resolution and size the files should be in to reproduce on a standard TV screen when playing on a consumer DVD player, etc. I feel that I have been duped, once again, by a slick package, great marketing, and over-zealous reviews from people like ZD-NET and others, who obviously have much different computers than I do. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!
User Rating: 5/10
Bad Newsby - March 29, 2003
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Tech support useless. After working hours on a project, when commanded to make a movie the rendering process constantly hangs up. Unable to burn to DVD.
User Rating: 5/10
Piece of Junk!, Locks up all th timeby - March 26, 2003
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I like the menus and ease of use, but it lock's up all the time forcing me to start over again. If they could get there stability problems fixed it would be great! But I will never recomend them because of all the problems I have had.
User Rating: 5/10
In a word.... unstableby - March 25, 2003
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ease of use and interface great but you have to go slowly or it will stop working. I have the latest computer so its not the speed.
User Rating: 5/10
looks great, but it doesn't workby - March 25, 2003
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The feature set is great. it is easy to use, unfortunately you can't burn most of the time and the program locks up the rest of the time. i spend several hours rendering on a clean build with only studio on it and it still is unstable. tech support is non-existant. they should give this an emmy for "worst software ever".
User Rating: 6/10
Couldn't Install Up-Gradeby - March 20, 2003
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Couldn't install the Studio 8 up-grade, it would just sit there and hang. After uninstall Studio 7 refused to open, even after many hours with tech support. Ulead's VideoStudio 7 works fine as well as MainActor. They broke a great product.
User Rating: 7/10
Greatest Features and ease of use but does not workby - March 19, 2003
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This software by far has the most user friendly features and ease of use but it constantly crashes my Win XP and will not make a working DVD and I have all updates for windows and am using the latest update for studio 8, v 8.5.21.
User Rating: 6/10
Very buggy, very frustratingby - March 16, 2003
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After a lot of experimenting I found the Studio 7 version that was reasonably stable. I expected V8 to be more stable, but to the contrary...
User Rating: 5/10
Product should be called Painnacleby - March 14, 2003
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Product is totally unstable and should be called PAINnacle. I wonder if positive comments are from Pinnacle employees.
User Rating: 3/10
buggy, unusableby - March 12, 2003
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I was able to make one movie with this program--enough to figure out that the features were pretty cool. Since then, it always seizes up when I go to actually export the movie. Despite the neat features, it's literally worthless. Thank God I got BestBuy to take it back.
User Rating: 5/10
Crash, crash, crash...by - March 11, 2003
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I bought this software because the only capture card I have is Pinnacle's Studio DC10+. When this software works, it's great. But it is so terribly unstable that it's almost useless. It never fails to crash when I first launch it. It's dreadfully slow too. Rendering is something I set it to do while I sleep at night. And I have a pretty good PC too. The interface is great, the editing tools are intuitive, and the results are very good when everything works. But it's so crash prone and unstable, I now only use it to capture analog video when I need to. Then I import that file into Windows Movie Maker 2. To burn Discs, I import the WMV files into NERO and then burn SVCDs, etc., I can do in about two hours with Movie Maker and Nero what it takes me 8 hours+ to do with Studio 8. Don't buy it.
User Rating: 6/10
Dream Come True Turned Nightmareby - March 10, 2003
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Fabulous features and ease of use, making for a fantastic creative editing session. But, the nightmare begins when trying to use the Make Movie Function. Rendering is slow and torterous with constant lock-up problems often occurring just before scene transitions. Don't know why they give you so many features if you can't even have them in your finished product. A tese of the worst kind after spending hours on editing. It's truly unfortunate to see such a good user-friendly program end up in the "stay away from" category, but until they come out with a more trouble free version, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they are only interested watching their movies in the preview window, and even then the playback skips scenes and has a lot of stutter and other glitches that are not very pleasant. The only option I found was to split movies to two disks (at the expense of further editing to fix places where the program seizes up during rendering), so I wouldn't have to spend my next lifetime trying to get a 45 minute movie on to a DVD.
User Rating: 7/10
Some ups and downsby - March 8, 2003
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Studio 8 is a very easy and powerful video editing software package to use. The only complaint is that is extremely slow and pauses alot on a 2.6 ghz p4 vaio. Also, it has lots of gliches with the dvd burning which is discussed on their web site but not really addressed. It is easier to burn the finished product with another software product. Customer service is also poor with extremely long wait times. Overall the editing is great but the burning is poor. Pinnacle needs to iron out the gliches.
User Rating: 5/10
crash test dummies would like it only!!!by - March 7, 2003
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Spend many hours on a wedding video for some friends. My friendship had stake because the movie is still not finished thanks to countless crashes of this fu...... program. Do not waste your time and buy something else!!!!
User Rating: 3/10
Very frustrating, very unstableby - March 6, 2003
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Installation was the only thing that went OK. After that, nothing but frustration. The program crashes frequently, many problems with video capture. I have never seen such an unusable program. Haven't even been able to attempt to burn anything to CD because the program freezes and trashes your project before you can get that far. I can't imagine how this product made it to retail. Unless you have unlimited time to waste on a non-functional piece of software, I would suggest staying away. Studio 8, if it worked, would be great. Unfortunately, it just doesn't.
User Rating: 
10/10
Worked as advertised first timeby - March 6, 2003
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Opened box installed and captured, edited and burned DVd and it played great. I highly recommend it. I have new Sony notebook with 120 gig external firewire drive and Sony miniDV camcorder.
User Rating: 3/10
Unstable and agonizingly slowby - March 5, 2003
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I have worked with Studio 8 for about 3 weeks and have given up. I have the latest (8.5.20) updates, to no avail. My projects involve long (up to 45 min) clips. It takes 10 min + just to load a project, and every so often the disk thrashes for 5-7 min for no apparent reason, during which time nothing can be done. It takes 7 hours to render and compile a project with nothing but clip trimming (no transitions, titles, etc). Sometimes it will burn projects only partially. It also freezes or closes about twice an hour when you are editing. Great, eh? This might work for brief shots of Little Johnny getting licked by a giraffe, but is by no means a serious product. That's a shame, because it has a good feature set. Run, do not walk, away from Studio 8.
User Rating: 6/10
crash and burnby - February 27, 2003
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This is the buggiest program that I have ever owned. There ought to be a class acition law suit served to Pinnacle. I have a clean XP system that runs everything except studio 8.
User Rating: 7/10
8.5 has been a dream for this Analog Camcorderby - February 27, 2003
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I am using 8.5 to capture from my old VHSC camcorder. I have tried DVD Complete (deluxe), Sonic MYDVD, and a few others. Non would save at the quality level Studio did. EXCELLENT slideshow feature, accepts mp3s, wavs, and cd music (DVD Complete does not accept mp3). All in all, I have had a great experience with this product and would HIGHLY recommend it!
User Rating: 7/10
Not compatible with MicroMV format.by - February 26, 2003
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Despite the latest patch, Pinnacle tech support admits that MicroMV format(Sony) does not work with Studio 8.
User Rating: 3/10
All Sizzle-No Steakby - February 26, 2003
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Much what has already been written typifies my experience with this product from Pinnacle. For example, when I tried to put two different music clips on one short video segment, the program crashed repeatedly. After waiting for 45 minutes to get a hold of their tech support, I was told that their newest update (8.5) had a bug in it and does not allow two music clips to be used. The tech suggested I reinstall and not upgrade to relieve the problem. Yeah, this worked but I now have all the problems associated with version 8.3 such as not being able to burn to my DVD because the software hangs up in the "rendering mode". This software is junk and I would strongly suggest to anyone contemplating purchase to STAY AWAY!
User Rating: 7/10
A good editor, not writerby - February 25, 2003
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the interface is one of the best. ease of use- the best. me being a 13 year old, a good mavie maker, take my word for it. BUY IT- first timers only. Adobe Premiere is a GREART product, but the ease of use and great interface isnt ther- unlike Pinnacle. Upgrade to 8.5, most problems fixed right there. my suggestion: AFTER COMPLETING THE MOVIE, WRITE IT BACK TO TAPE-DV- AND THEN IMPORT all over again IN ANOTHER PROGRAM, THEN WRITE TO DVD. trust me it works <(o.0)>
User Rating: 3/10
Terrible softwareby - February 22, 2003
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This is the worst software I have ever worked with on Windows XP. It crashes for no reason and at any times. Files become corrupted and you lose all your work. Do not invest any money into this product.
User Rating: 1/10
Does not work with ATI All-In-Wonder MPEGsby - February 21, 2003
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Beware that VBR MPEGs captured with All-In-Wonder's DVD mode do NOT work properly with Studio. It fails to encode the audio properly so audio dropouts are frequent. Also, fast forward and reverse play can lock up your DVD. These are apparently known bugs and a patch is coming, except that every patch seems to make the program worse than before (For example, the latest patch (Feb 2003) broke the DVD navigation system) The program is a memory hog and will frequently lock up your system due to constant disk swapping. It very rarely writes DVD+Rs to successful completion and does not recognize DVR+RWs. Its encoding speed is agonizingly slow. Setting chapters is a test of your dexterity because you have to drag a very tempermental thumbwheel to very imprecise locations on your movie clip instead of being able to type them in as frame counts or seconds as in ULead. And while you do all this, pray it doesn't decide to disk swap. That will keep your machine locked up for 10 minutes. Their website says the product won a bunch of Emmys. I have two possible explanations: they are either lying or those who gave out the awards are idiots.
User Rating: 5/10
Tired and Angryby - February 19, 2003
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Features and ease of use are worthless if a program doesn't ultimately do what it was purchase to do. The burner drive that existed in "My Computer" before starting Studio 8 came up missing both there and in "Device Manager" after starting the program. Because of this the "CD setup" dropdown only showed my standard CD drive when I was ready to make a movie. I have pgm upgraded, tried different PCI slots, turned off all background pgms, checked the knowledgebase at Microsoft and Roxio (suggested by Pinnacle tech) all to no avail. By the way, my wait time (my dime) for tech was 40 minutes before the line went dead and 35 minutes the second time before I received the worthless advise shown above. I could not recover my burner without a reboot. Very handy. If you like to go nuts, buy this program!!!
User Rating: 6/10
Good idea, poor product!by - February 18, 2003
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The features are great, but the implementation is really bad! It is very buggy, adn slow. I have had several scenarios where it would crash, and/or hang my system. Their technical support is very poor, and slow; basically they say to re-install a newer beta version, and if that crashes, toobad! They have a huge users forum, but it is also poorly organized, and hard to track responses. I hope they get this right sometime!
User Rating: 5/10
Could drive you to suicide...by - February 15, 2003
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It's been years since I've found software so temptingly attractive yet frustratingly defective. The video capture and editing works great, and you will find yourself investing hours creating gorgeous video from your home movies, digital stills, etc -- as long as you're just previewing it within the Pinnacle program. But the Make Movie and Burn DVD functions NEVER work -- always producing lockups and crashes. To make matters worse, Pinnacle support denies the problem and provides the usual stiff-arm defensive responses: "uninstall and reinstall", "try our new beta" (worse bugs), and their best yet: "get a cooling fan for your computer". That one's at least a little fresher than the "get an uninterruptible power supply" line. The combination of tempting your creativity, then frustrating your efforts to show others, could be one of the most effective psychological tortures ever devised. Can we use this on Al Quaida? I'll talk -- I'll talk -- just let me get my video out of this roach motel... Bottom line: you'll be tempted, but DO NOT BUY and DO NOT USE even if you find it for free.
User Rating: 4/10
Will Drive You to Drink!!!by - February 14, 2003
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Can't begin to express my complete exasperation in trying to get this software to work. The proof is in the feedback here and at the support web site at pinnaclesys.com. As a software developer myself, I am amazed that a company can get away with releasing such garbage. It's obvious that they threw this product out there as they knew it would be gobbled up by users looking for reasonably priced product. We suckers are now the ones working out all the bugs for them! Consider yourself warned. KEEP YOUR HAIR AND DON'T BUY IT!!!
User Rating: 7/10
Beware!!!!by - February 14, 2003
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Will not burn DVD's, I had to use Sonic MyDVD it worked just fine. Dont waste you time....trying to Burn DVD's
User Rating: 8/10
Upgrade now availableby - February 13, 2003
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I'm a first time DVD creator. I bought Studio 8.0 last fall just after it was released. The next couple months were frustrating and rewarding. I finally produced my first 60 minute DVD and I will be doing much more. But it took many hours on Pinnacle's Support web site to make it happen. But just recently, Pinnacle posted and update to version 8.5 and things are looking much better...most of the problems with the original version are gone. In the process, I looked at several other packages. Nothing I saw even comes close. The combination of ease of use and capability are unmatched. And the big thing is you can do it all right in the software: capture; edit (insert clips, trim clips, transitions, titles, etc.); DVD authoring (with full moving menus); and burn to DVD. It's just awesome. Now, it has been a love/hate relationship up until now. But most of the negative reveiws here are based on the original 8.1 version (which did have it's issues) and which I would not recommend. Now with 8.5 out, I can finally give my recommendation! But before you do anything, upgrade online to 8.5 (free). You won't be disappointed. (BTW, I did try 2 other video editing software products, both of them had problems/crashes as well and were no where near as easy to use, didn't have the same capabilities, and you had to use another software product to burn to DVD). My latest project: About 60 minutes of Arizona vacation video, moving menus, Smartsound background music (unbelievable tool), multiple transitions (some 3D), a slide show with music, and scrolling credits at the end. My kids loved it when they saw their names scrolling by under "Starring" just like a real movie! Buy it, upgrade to 8.5, enjoy. And keep looking for future upgrades, they still have a couple things to fix and it keeps getting better.
User Rating: 5/10
Very Buggieby - February 11, 2003
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This Product is GREAT when it works. It is equally NOT GREAT when it doesn't, which unfortunately is often because of the frustrating bugs. Most of which don?t show up until you?ve invested countless hours in a project. Technical support is non-existent the replies are always the same uninstall re-install or install the latest beta. I would not recommend it until a stable (bug free) version arrives.
User Rating: 1/10
might be a good program, IF...by - February 10, 2003
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Recieved this as a piece of Bundle software with a ATI AIW 9700 Pro. Program installs okay, but consistantly ropping frames and audio goes out of sync. Little help from Pinnacle web page.
User Rating: 8/10
All Pinnacle wants is a "Rain Dance" firstby - February 8, 2003
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I had no experance prior to wanting to create a family Movie on DVD. My project was only going to be 100 photos, but snowballed into 1500 photos. Now to find the right software. All I found out there were "Plane Jane" Effects/Transistions", and by fluke I found Pinnacle. I made 3 movies, part 1 and 2 between the 1500 photos,1500 3D transistions added, each movie a 1 hr DVD at highest quality. I encountered most of the problems I read here, but hung in there and did not give up. What I found, as stupid as it sounds, Pinnacle wants a little "Rain Dance" before some of it's features work. The slow rendering almost made me want to kill my self. I could not be creative waiting 3-5 minutes after I dropped a transition (4 min X 1500 photos @!#) or moved something, nor did I understand why the "Render as a background task" seemed to slow it even more. I chalked it up to, It doesn't work. However, I Didn't give up, tried again and found that when it was rendering slow, go and click the "render as background task", then work on something, seems even slower, then go back and click the "render as background task OFF", and it has worked at lighting speed ever sence. But, you have to do that "Rain Dance" every time you open your project to work on it. It is not logical to turn it on, turn it off and then it works in the off mode.....But it does. I went from waiting 3-5 mins to put on a transition, delete or move a photo down to lighting fast(doing the Rain Rance). I also found that on my 30 GB hard driver and 750 Ram that it crashed often and for no reason. I finally out of frustration, added 1 GB Ram memory & gave Pinnacle it very own dedicated 30GB hard drive with only the Windows operations sytem on the drive, and Bingo, another Rain Dance and Pinnacle was happy to work. No more crashing. I had no problem making DVD, CD, Music or the DVD Menus. Using the Menus, don't use the auto select markers, add the menu markers yourself where you want them, and works great. Compared to other software and trying to learn it, Pinnacle is beyond words in ease to learn and use. For Movies, The effects, Transitions, and Music (and of course yr photo/video) make or break a great looking project, Pinnacle has the Best and largest selection of Effects and add ons you could ask for. People raved about my movies and the effects. Remember that Pinnacle takes alot of memory to Render, compile and burn, I lost count at 16GB it had so far used while just in the rendering stage, and the file it's self was another 5GB on my hard drive. Only the strongest & fittest will hang in and conquer to enjoy the results. Finding and figuering out all the quirks (Rain Dance) almost had me breaking my keybord over the desk, but once past that stage, success!! Pinnacle has quirks like all other software, but when you weigh out what you get in the end over the frustration of the quirks every that software has, It's a winner in my book. On to the next Movie project.
User Rating: 6/10
Getting better but still not there yet.by - February 7, 2003
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A few problems with stability. The main problem I have after fighting the software from 'crashing' and spending a lot of time to "make" a decent film type prodution is to 'render' with-out stopping part way through.
User Rating: 2/10
Why do we put up with this stuff?by - February 6, 2003
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Frequent crashes, numerous quirky errors, poor quality output, sloooow.... Not worth the money spent.
User Rating: 8/10
Too many bugs - no supportby - February 4, 2003
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I was wary of buying studio 8 in the first place after having trouble with my first pinncle studio, but thought they would have got it right by now - wrong. A complete waste of money - there is no support from pinnacle. The software is useless.
User Rating: 5/10
Just like the bunny, it keeps crashing and crashing and crashing....by - February 4, 2003
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Good features, just cant burn a DVD with it. They say tell Microsoft.
User Rating: 5/10
Great for making $3.00 coastersby - February 4, 2003
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This program is great for editing video. The problem is trying to make a movie, or to burn DVD. It takes so long to render a video, you can cook a 15 pound turkey in the oven and eat it before this program is finished. That is, if it has'nt crashed and you had to start over again. I have so far created 2 good DVD's and 4 that won't work, and most of the time it won't even burn to the disc for some reason. Don't get it, your wasting your money!
User Rating: 7/10
Would be great if.....by - February 4, 2003
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Like others here I jumped at this package largely as a result of raving reviews by various media outlets. (I wonder if they have actually taken a project from capture to burn in their review of this product.) I currently have three outstanding support tickets out and each update seems that is was written by someone who really has no idea as to what would help. Ticket 1 - Audio synch problems. My large caputured AVI file is flawless, no synch problems, etc. But when I open the AVI file in Studio and scene detection takes place, audio is off by about .9 seconds to the video. 2. Chapter scenes for DVD/VCD burning don't start where the user designates them to. In Studio (as with all other editors) you have the ability to determine where scenes begin and end and where chapters should start. The problem is that even though you specify the location of a new chapter, the video will not start at the extact point where you defined the chapter but rather a few seconds after. Making for akward transitions. 3. Rendered VCD MPG file has intermittent audio drop outs.
User Rating: 7/10
Great product after the software update.by - February 3, 2003
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I would like to start off by saying I was prepared to slam this product like most of the other reviewers at CNET. I spent many, many, many hours trying to get this product to work as promised. Adding music from a CD would cause my system to hang. I could add ripped music as a sound effect, but then my movies would encounter ?compile? errors or ?burn? errors. Text overlays simply didn?t work, and worse yet destroyed the projects as I attempted to make the movies. I was about the give up when I came across the 8.3.18 software update, located at the following URL: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/support/display.asp?ProductID=454&SubDocTypesID=67 My success rate is now 100%. I can add music and text overlays to my projects flawlessly. The 3D transitions this product contains are amazing. I haven?t attempted to add music from a CD, but adding music as a sound effect is a more robust solution. I highly recommend you install this upgrade before you throw in the towel. On a bad note, it still takes approximately 6 hours to create a 1 hour DVD, and this is on a 1.8 GHz P4, Windows XP box with 768 MB of memory and a dedicated 40GB hard drive. Still, Studio 8?s picture quality far exceeds what I was able to get from MyDVD and ULead, with many more features. In summary, it was a painful experience, but the updated version is a great product. I have to recommend it.
User Rating: 6/10
will not produce finished movieby - February 3, 2003
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capture and edit work great. software will not "make movie".upgraded software,no luck.looks good think your home free never renders properly.DO NOT BUY!!!!!
User Rating: 8/10
Edits and burns great dvds from digital 8 and high8 camcorderby - February 2, 2003
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I have had the program for about 6weeks now. My machine is a P4 2.4g , 512megs of 2100ddr memory Intel motherboard 533 fsb.80gig 7200rpm W.D. C-drive & 100gig 7200rpm video drive.G-force 4 4200 video card. Sony DRU500a sony dvd burner. I just burned my 6th dvd. There coming out great now. There was a learning curve. I made a coaster or two.. More my fault then Studio 8 's. On one occasion I did set up to burn two copies of one DVD, First one came out perfect. On second one,the tray opened half way thru and the program said the disc was done, it only had the menu and a few minutes of video on it.Ill set up to burn one disc at a time now. Two notes for perspective buyers: 1 You can only burn one hour of DVD quality video on a 4.7gig disc. It takes about 13gigs of hard drive space to capture that hour. 2.When to get set to burn It takes 3to 4 hours to Render & Complile the video. ( at least thats how long my set up takes). The actual burn onto the disc takes 30 minutes (2x) burn speed. In conclusion, it may seem like a gamble to purchase this product with all the unhappy customers.I felt that the odds were with me ( more recommends than Don't's ). Things worked out good. Home movies have never been easier to watch.(and chapter skip when neccasary).
User Rating: 2/10
Wasting my Time!by - January 30, 2003
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I bought the Pinnacle Linx USB Plus and the Studio8 LE software that comes with it 3 days ago. It worked great at first but since then I can't find the analog capture device. I've spent 3 long days and nights installing and uninstalling the software. Now, I'll probably have to spend hours on my own nickle with customer support, If I can get through. I'm trying to load on a brand new Sony GRX-760 laptop with 512megs ram. I haven't had trouble with any other software yet.
User Rating: 4/10
Heed these warningsby - January 28, 2003
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Believe what you see from the user reviews here and in the Pinnacle forums. It may work for some people, but I've wasted a lot of time trying to work around the many bugs in this product. Tech support is weak. They have been regularly releasing beta service patches but they often institute new bugs for every bug fixed. I can't believe it got the Editor's choice rating. The editor must not have used the product under real circumstances. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much other software available in this price range with all the features "offered" by Studio 8. I have an AMD 1800, 512 Megs RAM, ATI Radeon AIW 8500DV. Studio often comes to a crawl when clicking from one scene on the timeline to another. Rendering often hangs as well. This will be a great product when all the features work as advertised.
User Rating: 8/10
No Problems for me.by - January 27, 2003
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I purchased the deluxe version which includes the harware to also capture analog video. I have captured digital and analog,edited with both formats,then burned to DVD+RW that played on my home DVD player. Though it needed some tweaking to get the proper configuration to capture and output the two diffent formats,it did work. And work pretty well. 3D effects and transitions are cool and easy to use. The only problem is that it might hang up one time out of ten but that is not a problem because you can adjust the auto-save feature to a shorter length of time that way it saves more periodically. Then simply close and reopen the program and it picks up right were you left off. Not a bad deal with the $100 rebate. That makes it worth it.
User Rating: 5/10
Not good for converting your old VHS tapes to DVD.by - January 27, 2003
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Rendering your old VHS tape to the hard drive the quality is very low and takes a very long time. Not worth ytour time. Pass on the delux card and Stuido8.
User Rating: 7/10
better than Studio 7by - January 26, 2003
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I used Studio 7 for a couple months (with Express) and was wishing for an integrated solution to DVD burning - Studio 8 is pretty good - maybe a bit more unstable than Studio 7, but I wouldn't got back.
User Rating: 3/10
Simply it doesn't workby - January 25, 2003
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Don't buy this program, it doesn't work. I wonder why it was released. It hasn't been tested enough and we (the buyers) are the beta testers.
User Rating: 5/10
Find Something Elseby - January 25, 2003
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Crash, crash and crash ... when it does work . . . slow slow and slow rendering ... have brand nre PC with plenty of memory, disk space and speed ... even turn off all background programs ... so many complaints from purchasers .... where are the fixes?
User Rating: 5/10
Two-steps Down from Studio 7by - January 24, 2003
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I bought the upgrade with glee for the DVD authoring capabilities. I was rewarded with a long list of problems where Pinnacle kept pointing the finger somewhere else (i.e. hardware, codecs, you name it.) It squished my Sony-recorded 16:9 MPEG video when rendering (only AVI was correct), it hanged, slowed my system to a crawl (P4, 2.4GHZ!, 512MB RAM!), had problems with Radeon hardware acceleration and refused to recognize my MP3 files, to name a few problems. Support was poor and slow and when I asked for a refund, was told you can't "return software." Would anyone accept that answer from any other retailer selling a buggy product?!?!?! Even cars are covered by lemon laws these days. It's time to do the same for the software industry to make them accountable for asking us to foot the bill for less than quality product. Check out Microsoft Movie Maker 2.0. It is a leapfrog step from 1.0, does most of what Studio does, AND WORKS BEAUTIFULLY!
User Rating: 8/10
They got it together now!by - January 23, 2003
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I got the product at the end of last year, and it worked almost flawless. The only thing which sometimes caused problems was the DVD burn, with a strange error. But after installing the beta and later on the original patch, it works like a dream. I've tested it on both an XP home edition and a W2K computer. It does work more stable on XP, but not that I wouldn't reccomend it for W2K. Together with a Canpous ADVC50 and my Sony DV cam I'm in video editing bliss. Only drawback is the fact that some features I'd like to see there (like clipping/cropping) are not and will not be included. Also, it's best to convert DivX AVI's before editing them in studio. In My Humble Opinion it is more then it's money's worth!
User Rating: 6/10
Dissaponted with output qualityby - January 22, 2003
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I bought a dv videocam for quality pictures; and the studio 8 deluxe to put edited videos onto VCD. The first VCD was burned, and I watched a very pixelated show.Terrible!
User Rating: 4/10
Completely Unstableby - January 20, 2003
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I purchased this product and have spent countless hours trying to get it to work, without any success. Won't capture video (no problems with videowave and Ulead Videostufio). Try to edit after capturing with alternate program and it crashes. The tech support seem to feel this is a hardware problem. Why no problems with the other products then? Tried to get my money back...still waiting to here from someone in "sales". Don't waste your money (and don't read reviews from websites, they're worthless)!
User Rating: 5/10
What a waste of time and money!!by - January 19, 2003
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I have Falcon Northwest with 3.01 GHZ, 1GB of ram, dedicated 160 GB Raid 0 array for video, and this product will NOT work. I purchased Studio 8 Deluxe over 3 months ago and still have not been able to write an edited video to DVD. At first I though it was the DVD writer or the media. However, after several successful writes with competitor products, I have concluded that most of my problems steam from Studio 8. I have spent countless hours trying, reloading, reconfiguring with no success and wasted lots of DVD media on failed burns. Most of the time the system will render for hours (and I mean hours) only to have it crash and reboot the system before writing and yes I download the updates and reinstalled several times. I specifically bought this product to edit and burn home movies to DVD and it after countless hours it just hangs, gives me errors. I'm also surprised that CNET gives it such a good review. How can this product be an Editor?s Choice? Their own review states that it is unstable!
User Rating: 5/10
Dentists have highest suicide rate, Studio 8 users are second highest!!!by - January 19, 2003
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Excuse me while I go jump off a bridge! This program has more problems than my ex-girlfriend and that is a lot of nasty sh**. There needs ALOT of work required by the programmers before this product meets up to their supposed 8 Emmy Awards. Crash, Crash, Crash and I have a very high end system top quality components. Do your research with others as well read the posts of all products before you burn your money.
User Rating: 8/10
Even after restoring the PC from scratch with nothing else running, Studio 8.0 frequently locks up.by - January 18, 2003
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It takes many crashes and hours to be able to produce a video. I wish I never upgraded. Time to go back to the earlier version and use another program (Ulead Video Deluxe - Trial version has been working great! - time to buy) to make the DVDs.
User Rating: 3/10
Shameful that 8.0 was releasedby - January 18, 2003
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I wish I had read CNET about a week ago, before I purchased Pinnacle Studio 8. This software is so loaded with bugs that it should have never been brought to market without significantly more development and testing. It fails at doing the most basic of tasks that it is designed to do (create DVDs). These are not minor bugs, the software simply does not work. I went through a succession of upgrades, patches, unistalls and reinstalls, registry issues, etc? and finally reverted to trying their latest beta version and all contained design flaws that prevented successful DVD authoring. What a shameful display of the need to get to market overwhelming the responsibility to do proper development and testing!! I have wasted about 40 hours of my time over the last week reading the Pinnacle support forums and trying to get their trash to work. All for nought!! I am resigned to the fact that I burned $100 as a learning experience and will now look into alternatives offered by Pinnacle?s competitors.
User Rating: 4/10
Crash, Crash, Crash!by - January 15, 2003
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I was initially thrilled with program. It would capture MicroMV from my Sony IP-220 camera, and it started to allow me to edit just fine. Then the CRASH goblin appeared. I was never able to create a complete movie before the program locked up and quit responding. Major frustration. It even corrupted my Windows XP Pro so badly that it crashed! I had to have it reinstalled. I finally sent the program back to Pinnacle and told them to get their act together. Oh yes, I did download the updates and I did ask help from their support folks. They might help somebody, but they didn't help me. They haven't refunded my money, and I'm still looking for a good program to edit my movies and to create a DVD capable of being played on my TV's DVD player. Anyone have any suggestions?
User Rating: 8/10
Best solution on the marketby - January 15, 2003
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I think what most people fail to realize in their reviews of DVD authoring software, is that the system crashes and screen freezes they experience are not software related, per se. There are a lot of factors that are involved in authoring DVD's. I've used 10 different DVD authoring packages, including DazzleDVD and WinDVD Creator Plus, and found Studio DV 8 to be the most stable of all. In comparison to the rest that I've used, Pinnacle's website, while maybe not the best, has more information than most of their competitors. The technology still has a long way to go to get to the level where everyone's expectations are. Make sure your system has enough memory, processing power, and hard disk before you complain about the software. Also make sure you run disk defrag's often. This helps tremendously! Also keep in mind that some of these programs focus on the editing aspect of DVD creation, others focus on the Authoring process. It may take one or more different software titles to get the desired results.
User Rating: 6/10
Won't burn DVDsby - January 15, 2003
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Can render an MPEG but not compile and write DVD. . Why are magazines recommending this product ?
User Rating: 5/10
Use only with XP and latest patchesby - January 14, 2003
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I've *finally* managed to get Studio 8 to work with my Sony IP55 (MicroMV) camera. But in order to do that I had to install XP (I was using Win2k) and use the latest beta drivers (8.5.5). I bought it when it was first released, and it's taken me this long to get any results. I haven't done any large projects yet, and I'm not too sure if I want to with this...
User Rating: 5/10
They're Not Lying - It stinks.by - January 13, 2003
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I spent half a day learning and building a great video with the family. It was beautiful until we tried to burn it to a DVD at which point it hung up. I downloaded the beta version as suggested by tech support - didn't help, except now my movies have some unknown error when it tries to render it. I wish I had read these reviews before I bought it.
User Rating: 6/10
It just doesn't work!by - January 12, 2003
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It's not the money you wasted that will frustrate you if you buy this product, it's the time you will waste trying to make a movie that will completely frustrate like no other program can do. I have an HP 763n with 2.53 GHZ, 512mb of ram, dedicated 80Gig hardrive for video, and this product will NOT work. I specifically bought this product to burn DVDs and it after countless hours it just hangs, gives you errors, and it's full of bugs. I read all these reviews before I bought the program thinking that with my powerful computer the problems would not occur, but the thing is that Pinnacle has created a program for which there's no computer invented yet. I'm surprised that CNET gives it such a good review. Shame on them too! If you are reading this review, don't make the same mistake I made, buy something else.
User Rating: 8/10
I does everything great except give you an output!by - January 11, 2003
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I sure wish I would have seen these other comments before putting out the bucks! I have YET been able to burn a DVD that is useable! The support page of their website doesn't even seem to exist!
User Rating: 7/10
Looks OK to meby - January 11, 2003
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Although it takes forever to render DVD movies, the program was stable and produced excellent DVD movies.
User Rating: 3/10
Lots of features...if you pay more!by - January 8, 2003
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Nice interface, but I found it unstable. Product features are limited...all those effects are only for customers willing to spend a lot more money for expensive add ons. I call this type of marketing "Trapware". I had to continually fight with and outwit the software to get title overlays and audio from my MP3 files to stay put. I have to save after every step since this thing is so flakey. I'm running XP on an AMD 900 with 640mg ram and find the Windows Moviemaker 2.0 beta an equal choice (for free!)
User Rating: 5/10
Just Don't Buy This Piece of Crapby - January 8, 2003
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Don't waste your money on this one. The software is very buggy and slow on my brand new P4 2.2 system. It crashes often. I guess I should have purchased a Mac. Tech support is non-responsive and useless.
User Rating: 8/10
A bargain!by - January 7, 2003
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Amazing to have this much power available in a sub-$70 package. This technology was unavailable just 3 years ago- at ANY price!
User Rating: 6/10
Won't make usable DVDsby - January 7, 2003
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Even after working many hours during the past 3 weeks with version 8.3.18 and beta 8.5.5 (only the beta will actually create a DVD), DVDs still result with choppy transitions, halted play at chapters, and a host of other problems. It is truly a shame that such a good-looking product could have failed so badly in its execution. I would gladly pay twice the price for this same product if it was stable and actually worked as advertised. I have had some success with previous versions of Studio (1.05 and 7.x) outputting to tape, but only after many patches and many hours of work. Version 8 is currently unusable for making DVDs (the reason I upgraded from version 7) on my system (and many others' on the Pinnacle user forum) other than for very short and very simple ones. But if all you want is to do is a simple transfer of your video to DVD without editing, you certainly don't need the aggravation of Studio 8.
User Rating: 6/10
Great potential, but buggyby - January 6, 2003
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I was immediately impressed by its features and intuitive I/F; however, it crash frequently even when NOT doing anthing! Being a software professional I was able to get around some rendering bugs related to overlapping scenes with FX transitions. There is a log file "message.log" that was indicatingI had overlapping scenes, but the program gave me NO clue. I also discovered that 3D peel FX transition removes a piece of the movie. In particular, after adding the FX, my movie was 2s shorter causing the audio to be out-of-sync even after removing the unexpected audio dissolve FX you get with the 3D peel. I have also used Magix Video Deluxe which is much more stable, but has fewer features. This has been my 1st project with a video editor and though frustating at times, I was able to generate my movie after removing most of the Hollywood FX transitions. For $10 after rebate, its NOT bad. But I would NEVER buy this for $100!
User Rating: 1/10
Rubbish - at least with DC10+ (analog)by - January 5, 2003
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Have tried the program in both Win 98SE and Win 2000 with the same surprisingly bad result in analog mode. All looks OK, capture, editing, make video to tape or avi - no objection from program at all but when you then play it the video stops all of a sudden, audio continues with frozen picture. Scenes are simply jumped over and all becomes a mess. This is the normal behaviour the program may just as well surprise you with a crash. Worst of all: you get not help from program at all. You cannot achieve any information about a clip like you can in Ulead MSP or Adobe Premiere. This is not a program for 2002 - it“s a bad joke!
User Rating: 6/10
Not worth a centby - January 4, 2003
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I bought this for $0($40 - $40 rebate). After trying to use it for 10 days, I finally gave up. The biggest problem is when it cannot find your capture card, the program just refuse to start(what an idiot program) I am now using ULead VideoStudio 6.0 SE bundled with my 1394 card.. Just super! I use it to make svcd(MPEG2 captured by movieMaker). I can make menu, special effect... Ashame with Pinnale, and the stupid program
User Rating: 5/10
If it worked it would be great!!by - January 4, 2003
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In 20 years of computing and programing I have NEVER seen such an unstable piece of software. The idea is great but the product is in need of some serious help. My win2000 operating system has crashed once in two years but since Studio 8 I have rebooted my machine a google times !!! To those of you who say it works perfectly, you need to wake up and slap yourselfs.
User Rating: 6/10
Ok capture/editing. No way in Hell to output to DVDby - January 4, 2003
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I have used this product for a very short time and was able to successfully capture and edit a video. However, my Pioneer 4x DVD Burner seems to be one expensive cup holder if I try to use it with Studio 8. The project seems to render everything fine and then it crashes after or during Completing. Tried different operating systems, updates, patches, device drivers for my hardware. No luck.
User Rating: 4/10
Don't even bother trying it.by - January 4, 2003
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I Bought it and have worked on it(Studio8)for more than 4 weeks just to try to get it to work since there was alot of awards given to them. No hope. Customer Support is that what they call it now a days when you pay for longdistance for more than an hour wait so you won't get an answer. Dont try it even if you get it at half price. Horrible, And don't even talk about a stable Cumputer because I guess we all have unstable computers.
User Rating: 5/10
Great features, but can't output work!by - January 4, 2003
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Three steps to using this product. Capture, edit, and make movie. The first two work pretty well, excpet that it crashes often as everyone else has described here. However, the biggest issue is that I cannot get an error free DVD. Someone else said that they have made many 4 dollar coasters. Maybe we should all get together and sell our coasters, that will be the only way for this product to survive. Big dissappointment!
User Rating: 6/10
Works on limited systemsby - January 4, 2003
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Good GUI, but very unstable for anything over 45 minutes for me. Give me a compilation error. Mpeg encoder rivials TMPGenc's quality (very good) and as slow as TEMPGenc. Check out http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=1&SectionID=143&lng=1&ProductID=454&SubDocTypesID=181
User Rating: 7/10
Top Line Potential - Bottom Line Outputby - January 4, 2003
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I have regretably joined the crowd of those who are having problems with the Studio 8. After being a Studio 7 user with both DV and DC10 cards I thought the upgrade to S8 looked superior. After nearly two months of trying, leaving the computer to render for sometimes over 24 hours, without getting a single usable, error free DVD. I have to agree the initial version was not ready to actually create DVDs. Steps one and two work fine for the most part. The problem is in rendering to any output other than back to DV. Their beta version 8.5 is also suicide. I tried it to try and fix (according to their hype on their web page) and it proved to be even more unstable. Tech support is also getting worse on this one.
User Rating: 5/10
Good until you try to "Make Movie"by - January 3, 2003
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Studio has three steps: Capture, Edit and Make Movie. Capture and edit worked great, were easy to use and provided a lot of nice features. But, then comes Make Movie - getting the actual output to disk/file. A lot of people have the problem that while going through the rendering process in make move the studio hangs. Therefore, you do all this nice capture and editing, but can't do anything with it. See the Pinnacle website forums under Studio 8. One post on rendering freezes has over 250 replies and more than 10,000 reads. No help from Pinnacle. Don't buy if want something useful in the end!!!
User Rating: 5/10
Somebody Name a Better Alternativeby - January 3, 2003
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I have read alot of the reviews. If many of the reviewer's do not like this product I have one major question. What did you replace Studio 8 with? I own Studio Version 7 and I want to upgrade. I use a Pent III 933 mhz with Win 98se. Thanks!!
User Rating: 6/10
Pinnacale You Should Be Ashameby - January 3, 2003
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This product must have been rushed to market or Pinnacle has no or little quality assurance programs in place to test their software. Good Software does not crash on average PC?s with average operating systems. Just looking at the number of negative comments tells you that there is a big problem with this software package. My personal experience with Studio 8 showed me that it was a very unstable product truly not ready for market. I was able to install and capture video edit, and output to tape out. If you do not mind several hours wasted because of system crashes and losing your project during the process. Rending was a very slow process but it did not crash and outputted correctly I do not have a DVD burner so I have not tried that option yet but from what I have been reading that might be a challenge in it?s self. This is by far the worst professional engineered piece of software I ever owned straight out of the box. Even if your PC meets or exceeds Pinnacle?s recommendation it is still gamble weather it will work on your PC. Hopefully Pinnacle will get their act together and get this product fixed before their reputation is totally damaged in the home video editing market.
User Rating: 3/10
If you like lock ups, stuttering frames, titles that don't work, this is for youby - January 2, 2003
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I've used several such programs. Capturing & editing are pretty good. But once you try to burn a DVD you get a different major problem each time. The Pinnacle user forums are FULL of frustrated people with the same problems trying to burn DVDs. Buy something else.
User Rating: 6/10
Takes a bit of work, but can be usefulby - January 2, 2003
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I've spent about a week with the product, P4, 1.2mHz, 256MB (waiting for 512 upgrade to show up), 2 HDs, 60MB and 120MB, using the larger one for scratch space. Bought after receiving a third-party analog capture device, which it won't recognize. Need to capture to mpg externally and then read in. Using PCMag's EndItAll2 to clear resources, and found rendering slow, but it did complete. Finished DVD had some stuttering and audio dropouts. Went to support site and upgraded to latest video and sound card drivers, but I think what fixed this was disabling screen saver AND power management (disks and screen set to ALWAYS ON when rendering). Have now successfully burned first DVD+RW without playback glitches. Have only read a little more than HALF the manual but intend to finish it, and hope that tripling my memory will improve rendering time a little.
User Rating: 6/10
Great editing product, but USELESS.by - January 2, 2003
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This product has great potential. It has a wonderfully intuitive UI, but it won't create a clean MPEG output. I've tried three versions of this software, all with different MPEG rendering problems: dropped audio, dropped frames and stuttering transitions. What a shame. Don't waste your time.
User Rating: 3/10
Don“t try this at home !by - January 1, 2003
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AWESOME ! Now, I“m able to record my Studio-edited Videos via my graphics-card - trying to play my videos over the studio deluxe videoout only makes my system freeze - AMD/VIA Users shouldn“t even think of trying this f****** software at home ! In the user-forums at pinnacle“s homepage, you“ll get an idea of what this software is like - a waste of time and money.
User Rating: 4/10
Hangs in 'Capture' modeby - December 29, 2002
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Can't get anywhere with it. I have a more-than-adequate system, running XP. When I click the 'Capture' tab, the computer freezes - badly (have to switch off power). Pinnacle support gave a few suggestions, all to no avail. Took it back to the shop for a refund.
User Rating: 3/10
pinnacle should get jail time.by - December 28, 2002
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This program has never worked with anything that I have tried.It crash's my system, It locks my system no matter what I do. I will never bye any pinnacle products again. as a matter of fact they should go to jail for robbery for stealing my 100.00 dollars. for example, If I walked up to a person and stoled 100.00 dollars from them and got caught I would go to jail. these people are stealing millions and getting away with it.
User Rating: 6/10
Crashes galore, extremely buggy...by - December 26, 2002
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This software would definitely earn my recommendation if it worked correctly!! From the installation there's tons of bugs. And then from capturing video to editing to even a simple task of burning the movie to a CD or DVD there is tons of problem. If you don't believe me, check out pinnacle's offical discussion forums and see for yourself! http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=1&ForumID=683&SectionID=143&lng=1
User Rating: 5/10
Poor support repeated problemsby - December 25, 2002
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Persistent problem with analog capture and support system is long complicated and unhelpful
User Rating: 5/10
Great product - lacks some stability and important featuresby - December 25, 2002
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I use windows XP - have a top knotch system and found that this product could not keep the audio and video in sync. I also found that Studio 8 just periodically shuts down with no error while recording. I also own Roxio Studio, and used a card by eMuzed that seems to work just fine. The Roxio studio does not cut it when it comes to features though. So when I tried to import the AVI files recorded from Roxio into Studio 8, I found that Studio 8 didn't understand that file format. This really sucks as I wanted to use Studio 8's editing features.
User Rating: 3/10
Buggy worthless peice of @%*$by - December 23, 2002
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This program will crash on you at more different spots then anyother prog out there. (BTW, my computer is new, Windows XP with no other program/system malfunctions.) Infact I'll go once step further ad say that in all my internet computing experience, going on 15 years now, I have never written a user review on a program before. Funny, it took this poor example of software quality control to get me started. Use Ulead Media Studio or Borderbund Moviemaker
User Rating: 5/10
Unstable, buggy junk with poor support.by - December 23, 2002
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I don't understand the positive review by the editor, nor those others making the comments that attribute the problem to other buyers not having the correct setup. Absolute nonsense from those folks. Robust software will not crash at the drop of a hat on standard machines with standard operating systems etc. What a shoddy excuse for poor software engineering. I have no idea where the CNET reviewer is coming from but Caveat Emptor folks, don't trust the judgement of everyone you read who writes for CNET.
User Rating: 9/10
Studio is it! Forget the rest.by - December 23, 2002
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After reading about the negative effect people seemed to have with Studio, I feel I must lend my 2 cents. First, the equipment I have: WinME, AMD-Athlon 1700; 20gig hd (DMA enabled; very important), 512 ddr, Sony Digital8 w/ firewire port. After loading the software I had a difficult time capturing video; cruised Pinnacle's site; learned that WinME disables HD's DMA; I had to enable it. Once I did that capturing DV quality video was a snap! Next, editing was too easy with the different transitions, sound effects & title screens. Adding music was a breeze; Finally, exporting out was great. Previously, I worked w/ Premiere 6 and had a nightmare of a time to export. Studio makes this easy with diff. formats. My preference is to export out to my video camera for the best results. The only negative I have about Studio is importing AVI files. For some reason, Studio doesn't work well with them. Other than that, it's an amazing tool for $100! I plan on shooting more frequently with my video camera thanks to Studio & my PC!
User Rating: 5/10
Defines the term "glitch"by - December 23, 2002
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I run a public video editing lab at a major university and we decided to go with Studio because of its ease of use and softer learner curve for our students. Whoops. We run Studio 8 with the bundled card and break-out box on three separate computers with individual configurations. We have YET to smoothly complete a project on any Studio machine. Literally, 3 out of 5 students must start over and rebuild their projects after they've worked on them for hours. The problems are all variable as well: unfunctional capture, audio synch, burning errors, general lockups, corrupted project files, you name it. I can't believe this program made it out the door. This piece of software had really great potential to make digital video editing easy and fun. In fact, the only reason we went with Studio instead of Adobe Premiere was because we were afraid our students would have a much harder time with Premiere. The time I have spent trying to clean up the mess that Studio leaves behind more than makes the purchase of Premiere a viable option.
User Rating: 3/10
I should have read the reviews before I boughtby - December 22, 2002
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This product is very unstable and can't seem to capture stable video. The sound doesn't syncronize with the video.
User Rating: 3/10
Menus?by - December 19, 2002
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It is not easy to understand how the menus work. How to make menu? How to make chapters? Though it can make animation menus, but the stuctuer is very confusing.
User Rating: 4/10
Absolutely, don't get this softwareby - December 17, 2002
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I have used this software everyday for 5 months. It is absolutely totally unstable, unpredictable and completely unsupported by the manufacturer. Do not think twice. I've spent many many hours learning every work around, fix, bug avoidance. Our company has many packages bought and can't yet afford another. We simply made a big big boo boo. We had version 7 which worked fine and upgraded to 8 thinking it would be better. It's not, but we rebuilt all our titles around this software.
User Rating: 5/10
Ready for Christmas, but not ready for Prime time.by - December 16, 2002
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Our local Fry Electronics has rows of boxes of the Pinnacle products on display, presumably for the Christmas Season. I have been a long time user of Studio DV and Studio 7, but, in my (possibly incorrect) opinion, the current Studio 8 release has a number of bugs in it that make me concerned about the stability of the product and what appears as side affects from re-architecting the software to accommodate DVD authoring. The A/V sync problem when converting 8mm or VHS to digital remains. If you are upgrading to burn DVDs, there is a restrictive bug in that area. If you create a DVD that has the common menu structure of ?Play Movie?, ?Select Scene?, ?Other Material? S8 will appear to create the DVD properly and it will even play in most DVD players. But if you look at the first chapter AFTER the ?menu shared? chapter 1, you could see a slight pause and the elapsed time will be inaccurate for the rest of the DVD. You can see this as the elapsed time freezes on chapter 2 (Sony DVD players) or duplicates the same time in both Ch2 and 3. If you want a menu structure that is essentially ?Select Scene? only, then you are OK because there is no shared chapter. I know of no work around. After reading numerous reviews and BB posts, one impression I have come away with is that the degree of success or failure with this product varies widely from user to user ? even if you have eliminated any system problems.
User Rating: 4/10
Sooooooooooo UNSTABLE !!!!by - December 15, 2002
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Had spend $100 for nothing. Trying to make a movie since 4 weeks. The software just keep crashing, crashing and crashing. When I finally finish to edit yesterday, after 3 hours of work (just trying to delete 6 minutes of film) because of crashes an re-start over and over... I tried to burn a DVD, after 2h40 of rendering, it crashed again. Burning is impossible...I'm just wasting my time since 4 weeks!!!! The Tech support is just useless. If you need nothing you can call them !
User Rating: 8/10
Product is great, and I have no problemsby - December 13, 2002
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I can't explain why I wouldn't have any problems and others would, but I'm doing perfectly fine with my fairly bare bones system, and thoroughly enjoy the software. I have an Intel Pentium III 500 MHz, with 384K RAM, running Win 98 SE. I optimized my settings with guidance from videoguys.com. I have no problems outside of the usual Win 98 instability. The software itself is great. It's very intuitive and easy to use (much better than Videowave). I can make great little movies of my kids, add music (the automated background music is a great thing to have even if there aren't enough choices), burn it to a CD in VCD format, and then mail it to my parents who love it. This is a great way to capture and share memories. No complaints from me.
User Rating: 8/10
Render Lockupsby - December 12, 2002
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I like many others here have a quality PC, XP Pro, DUAL AMD 2100MP 1GB RAM ATA-RAID etc. I have also used pretty much everything else on the market. This software would be great if it could only fulfill it's core roll:- creating movies. I have had few stability problems with any part of the program, however, rendering a movie to any format will result in a stall regardless of movie content, transitions etc. As the saying goes, YOU GET WHAT U PAY FOR!!
User Rating: 7/10
Great featues... IF THEY WORKED!by - December 12, 2002
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I invested a lot of time and effort in trying to get this product to work to no avail... I have a 2.53 GHZ, 512mb of ram, dedicated 80Gig hardrive for video, and this product will NOT work. I specifically bought this product to burn DVD's and it is VERY UNSTABLE. I am appalled that Pinnacle has allowed this prdoduct to be be released on the market given its instablity. Just another example of how big compainies only care about profit!
User Rating: 3/10
Doesn't work - you'll kick yourselfby - December 11, 2002
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Pinnacle seems to be completely helpless regarding it's ability to understand the issues in version 8.0 Their Web site is full of people who cannot create movies because of a fundemental flaw. You will spend hours trying to follow all the solutions but to no avail.
User Rating: 6/10
Waste of $89by - December 10, 2002
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Have yet to sucessfully burn a DVD, crashes right after rendering, and why does it take a dual 1.67GHz machine 2 hours to render 20 minutes of DV video. Very disappointed.
User Rating: 5/10
Too many crashesby - December 10, 2002
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I used Studio 7 with Win Me very successfully. After upgrading to Win XP I also bought Studio 8. Some projects, begun in studio 7, don't work in studio 8. Titles do not roll correctly and the software often crashes. Windows re-boots when I exit the program. This is not worth the money unless they fix the bugs. They do not even acknowledge them yet.
User Rating: 1/10
This product won't run.by - December 6, 2002
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Tried to install this on 2 machines, bith new Dells with 1.8ghz+, 256ram, fast hdd one with Win 2K other with Win XP and the video drivers won't install on either. Locked up both machines, crashed one twice. Have wasted a week on this garbage. Avoid this product if you have high blood pressure (or wish to avoid it).
User Rating: 2/10
Very limiting and buggyby - December 4, 2002
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The card included with the Studio Deluxe is not compatible with any other editing software for analog captures. This means you are forced to use Pinnacle's extremely buggy Studio software with the Fisher Price looking interface. This would be tolerable if the software would allow you to capture more than one video without having close and reopen the application in between each one. I bought the Studio Deluxe for the hardware abilities, but they're no good to me if I am trapped having to use their software. What if they release a new version and stop supporting the version I have? Then my hardware becomes useless unless I buy their update. No thanks. I'm returning the Pinnacle tonight and I've already ordered a Canopus ADVC-1394 which doesn't force any unstable software down your throat and costs the same.
User Rating: 5/10
The Crusher software....Bewarn!!by - December 4, 2002
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Before you decide to purchase this software, review all our comments....most of it is bad rating. Good Luck !!
User Rating: 5/10
Poor analogue captureby - December 3, 2002
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Wont capture analogue. I have followed Pinnacle support inst. for uninstall and re-instyall. Still wont work. Everytime you ring they tell you something different.
User Rating: 5/10
Slow and unstableby - December 1, 2002
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Takes about 10 hours to render, compile, and burn a 60 min. DVD on my 1.8 gig full loaded PC. SW is very unstable. It crashes regularly while trying to compile and burn DVD's.
User Rating: 8/10
Good Features but nothing worksby - December 1, 2002
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I've been using Studio 7.I was extremely happy with that product. So I bought this Studio 8 for the new features but Studio 8 fails miserably in MPEG encoding. If I make VCD or SVCD also with studio 8 its jerky. Its worth less don't go for Studio 8 If you are looking Good video editing software from Pinnacle look for Studio 7 but not studio 8.
User Rating: 5/10
sound track does not sync!!by - November 25, 2002
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OK, I have been into firewire downloading/video editing since it's inception. I have tried a dozen different products and Studio 7 is the best I have ever seen. Never had any trouble with it, even downloading 2 or 3 hours of DV tapes, editing and returning to tape. Video studio 8 cannot even download 20 minutes of video without the sound being off track. If you have been using it, I suggest going back and making sure that speech lines up with the movement of peoples mouths. All of the features aside (Yes, my computer crashes often) if the sound won't syncronize, you can't do anything. This procuct is completely unusable and a waste of money. Downloading MPEG video from DV camcorder does not work, and background rendering crashes the computer. I switched back to version 7 and have had no probems. TMPGE will create DVD video files anyway, and ULEAD DVD Movie factory does an excellent job making DVDs and VCD's. My computer is: XP2100 CPU, 768MB PC2100, ATI All in Wonder 7500, Fortissimo II soundcard, ECS K7S5A Mboard.
User Rating: 7/10
Undecidedby - November 21, 2002
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I have read all the comments from everyone - mosly negative. It sounds like Pinnacle should hire a lot more support people to handle the problems ASAP. This many people most likely can't all be wrong. I had 7.0 and did not have any trouble then upgraded to 8.3 I have burned several DVD-R's. The 8.3 freezes when I am in settings and move around the different tabs "MPEG, Tape, AVI" etc. I then have to restart the program. I am not sure if it is my machine or the software that is the cause. I have an Athlon XP1700, 640 2100 DDR, MSI GeForce2, Audigy MP3+, Pioneer DVR-A04 burner, U100 60GB + U100 40GB HD's running on XP Pro. My 2nd ? is about the time it takes to get a movie from DV tape to DVD. 1 Hour tape capture, copy and paste in edit (no real editing) then make DVD disk with MPEG2. The whole process to get a 1 hour tape onto DVD takes about 3 hours or so. I am not an expert in the DVD format yet so I don't know what is normal but this seems like a long time. The people that can't burn properly should see if their DVD burner is on the compatible list for Pinnacle. They should also try running DXDIAG.exe to test out their system for problems. I see the biggest problem here is poor support for a product.
User Rating: 4/10
I can't believe they released thisby - November 21, 2002
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Frankly, you might be able to get it to work, but the time it would take is impossible. Support is useless.
User Rating: 6/10
Very promising software, if only it worked!by - November 18, 2002
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If it worked properly it would be an awesome video editing software, specially for novice users. Unfortunately, it's very unstable, it crashes or hangs for no apparent reason, even when you're using a powerful pc. One is better off using another software.
User Rating: 5/10
Don't even try!by - November 15, 2002
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The previous Studio versions already took a lot of time for rendering, but version 8 reaches the limit. It is just not able to create a DVD or an image file for a DVD. My computer was busy for many many many hours but a 37 minute video was just not possible. Every time I tried Studio stopped with a fault message that only said "Failed to compile". And that's it! Thank you Pinnacle for all the time I wasted on your @!$$!@# product!
User Rating: 6/10
Unstable, unusefulby - November 14, 2002
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Got the same problem as other user reported. MPEGDECODER2.DLL crashes followed by a crash in MFC42.DLL and the program closes. Thumbnails grey, no matter what I've tried it did not work. Forget it!
User Rating: 3/10
Great Concept - Software doesn't workby - November 14, 2002
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I used Studio 7 and was generally happy with the results. There were some dropped frames, but overall the software worked as advertised. I upgraded to Studio 8 so that I could burn DVDs from my DV camcorder. I have yet to succeed. The program hangs every time. In fact, just leaving the program open often causes it to hang. Tech support is almost non-existent. Average time between emails is a week. Their support board indicates this problem is widespread and has been public for months. Take your chances if you buy this software!
User Rating: 6/10
NICE FEATURES - MOST DONT WORKby - November 11, 2002
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I have been using Studio products for several years. Studio 7 is an excellent Software but does not have DVD authoring and only imports avi. format. I was really excited when I found out about the new features in Studio 8.0. I got the program the day it was released. Tons of problems. Crashes, sound problems, dvd burning problems, transitions problems, etc... If you look at the Pinnacle web site and go to Discussion Forum you will see what is going on. Pinnacle did release a patch on 10/16/02 which fixed a few issues but it still does not work as promised. This version is so different from 7.0 that its basically should have come out under a different name and version 1.0. Tech support is useless for most part cause they know they have problems and they dont have the solutions yet. I believe that in a year or so Pinnacle will correct most of the problems. But if you want to buy it today you should be aware of what you are getting. IF the features worked as promised this would by far be the best sub $100 program out on the market. I hope this review will help you make up your mind.
User Rating: 8/10
Not a bad program for the money. KB November 11, 2002by - November 10, 2002
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OK, I am in the video stone age still using an old RCA analog camcorder with years of tapes that cried out for editing. I bought the analog version of Studio 8 and I am happy with its performance. It will crash at times, but I think that is due to operator error and computer problems rather than the software itself.( I have a 1.8 Gig machine with and 80 Gig HD and oddles of RAM.) I made my first 16 minute video after only three hours of trial and error.Its easy to use and really great fun to see the end results on the finished tape or CD.
User Rating: 3/10
crashing, crashing and crashing!!!by - November 9, 2002
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I'm not able to work with this software. It's crashing when capturing, when editing, with hollywood transitions and burning a DVD is "impossible mission"!!! My worst software acquisition!
User Rating: 3/10
cannot produce a DVDby - November 8, 2002
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This is a slick product unfortunately you can't produce a DVD with it, and tech support is no help whatsoever. I wish I had read the comments and problems that MANY other users are having. when producing a DVD the software routinely locks up the computer. Go to studio 8 discussion forums to see how many people have problems
User Rating: 5/10
Crash Crash Crash Crashby - November 6, 2002
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I have never been so frustrated with software since the days of Windows 95... I had no idea companies were still around that created such unstable software. Good ideas, but bad implementation (developers)... I have been completely unsuccessful in accomplishing any task by this product - except I did make a few $4 cup coasters ;( I even downloaded and tried their "Edition" program, which retails for $699-799 and it is a poor performer as well. I'm running: Windows XP Pro (I've reinstalled with Win2k to try. NO luck), 2x1GHz P3, 1GB Memory, 2x 36Gig U160 10K SCSI drives, ATI Radeon 8500 w/128MB in a dual-head setup using 2x 18" LCDs.
User Rating: 8/10
Try XP-PRO on a clean diskby - October 31, 2002
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Insatlled a week ago on a 1ghz AMD system with 256k mem with win 98. DID NOT WORK!!! All types of problems really disgusted. THEN I installed WinXP-PRO and bumbed my memory to 512 now it works-- burned my first 38 minute DVD this AM. Maybe this thing will be ok afterall.
User Rating: 3/10
Even with a $50 rebate, I feel ripped offby - October 31, 2002
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Like most everyone else says, this program crashes all the time. Video Factory is easier to use and very stable. I had heard Pinnacle Studio was good software, but I am very disappointed.
User Rating: 1/10
crashed my whole machineby - October 30, 2002
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after install on a stable win 2k machine (abit IT7/AIW Radeon/P-4/all rock solid)tried to capture video, then it crashed and rebooted the computer by itself,,,after reboot computer had so many freaky things happening had to slick and start over. Havent seen anything like this since easy cd crashed win 2k boxes. there should be lawsuits....
User Rating: 5/10
Rendering MPEG doesn't work!!by - October 30, 2002
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The software is very buggy! Rendering doesn't work, locks up, and the support patches don't solve the problems. Very sorry I bought this useless software.
User Rating: 10/10
Works great, No fooling!by - October 28, 2002
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Captured and imports mpeg-2 just fine on my machine. So easy to use it just took a few hours to put the timeline together. Re-rendering is time-consuming, to be expected. Burned a 2.25 hour dvd with only a couple issues which were user-related and will be fixed on next burn attempt. Put your ULead products on the shelf and get Studio instead. HW Specs: ABit KX7V333, Athlon 2000XP, 512 PC2700 DDR, 40 GB capture drive, 100GB editing (7200 RPM each), All-in-Wonder 7500 Radeon, XP Pro full version w/ SP1, Sony DRU-120A burner.
User Rating: 4/10
Can not import MPEG as it claims.by - October 28, 2002
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I was very happy with the previous version. However, this new version is totally disappointment! I bought it thinking that it can edit MPEG files. But it has a big problem. The audio part does not work. I tried to import the MPEG files generated by Studio 8 itself with diferent resolutions. None of them works! Their on line tech support only ask me to wait for the bug fixed version. The worst of it is that them do not let me return it. I will never buy Pinnacle System's product any more.
User Rating: 10/10
Don't know whats so difficult!?by - October 28, 2002
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WOW! Best Buy suggested pinnacle over any others and it was truly worth it. I have a 1Ghz processor,256mb ram, 60GB HDD,XP Pro, and it runs fine. I did not have to tweak anything, just plug in the card, and I started capturing and editing video. No DVD burner, so not sure how well that part works. This is way too easy.
User Rating: 7/10
Great product, but very unstable for long movies.by - October 27, 2002
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I have used Studio DV, Studio 7, and now Studio 8, and all I hae to say is that the more Pinnacle tries, the more unstable it gets! I have never had so many problems with any other product but this one. I am a power user and my system far exceeds the recomended requirements: Pentium 4 2.2Ghz, 1GB PC-2100 SDRAM, 80GB 7200RPM drive (where Studio is installed), 60GB 7200RPM drive (where my edition is done), etc. The amout of money that I have already spent with Pinnacle products, including numerous hours with Tech-Support saying that my system doesn't meet the minimum requirements (Yeah right!), I could have not wasted $500+ and not have to go through all of the agony. So, overall, I would definately NOT recommend this product to anyone ESPECIALLY biginner users!
User Rating: 6/10
Extremely unstableby - October 25, 2002
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Studio 7 works fine on my computer. I upgraded to version 8 on that same computer - a terrible experience: just clicking around a bit makes it crash. I chose not to remove version 7 - but somehow installing version 8 makes version 7 unstable too. Patches didn't change anything.
User Rating: 7/10
Doesn't Work - Should be recalledby - October 24, 2002
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Tried on two seperate machines, One P3 933 and One P4 1.6Ghz - Different brand/chipset vid cards and different motherboards - Crash Crash Crash, unable to complete any task you start successfully.
User Rating: 8/10
The best video editing software in its class!by - October 23, 2002
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Studio 8 w/HFX Pro is simply one of the most amazing video editing programs on the market. I own many other brands which I will not take time to mention that don't even come close. One of these was much more expensive. You simply can not beat this product for ease of use and cool features. There are some issues depending on your system but Pinnacle provides a webboard with volunteers dedicated to helping out.
User Rating: 6/10
Forget this, wait for next releaseby - October 22, 2002
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What a waste - completely unstable. User interface is great and very easy to learn and use. Just try to make a movie - this product hangs virtually everytime. Patch didn't help. I should have burned a $100 bill instead because it is now completely uninstalled and useless
User Rating: 5/10
A good product but zero when comes to CD burningby - October 19, 2002
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I bought Studio8 DV version 14 days back and have wasted 15 CD-Rs till date as the burn fails every time spoiling the discs permanently. On CD-RW it just does not work. Same Pinnacle when used in mPEG with VCD option enabled, and on using 'Nero 5.5' for burning VCD from this created mpeg file, burns VCD perfectly both on CD-R and CD-RW. Why cant Pinnacle solve this problem or refund me my money? their telephonic support is pathetic and inadequate.
User Rating: 6/10
Buggy, unreliable for DVD burningby - October 19, 2002
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Nice features if they worked - DVD burning buggy (tried HP and Panasonic drives) - this should never have been shipped. Are Pinnacle legally liable for all the DVD-Rs that users will waste?
User Rating: 6/10
WANT MY MONEY BACK!!by - October 17, 2002
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Though I was very excited about S8 release, I have never been so disappointed by a program than this. The program regularly hangs up, the mpeg encoder produces jerky video, I can't record back to my camcorder,... And I have tried all recommended fixes on their website with NO improvement. I recommend people STAY AWAY from this program until Pinnacle gets there act together.
User Rating: 5/10
Success rate is about 1 in 4by - October 16, 2002
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Very BUGGY software. Hundreds of complaints and Pinnacle can't/won't fix the problems. Two patches have come out and not resolved the serious problems
User Rating: 1/10
Horrible codecsby - October 15, 2002
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Very awful conversion from AVI to Mpeg-2. The codecs on Pinnacle Studio 7.0 don't work well for conversion to MPEG-2. Real player, quicktime and Windows MP all have trouble recognizing Pinnacle's MPEG-2 output (all players spout out - error, file type not recognized). This is garbage.
User Rating: 10/10
Cheap and powerfullby - October 15, 2002
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I had no problems getting it to run. After I installed it, I ran the update from their web-site, maybe that's why it worked so good for me? Anyway, I like it!
User Rating: 7/10
Awesome if it worked, but it doesn't.by - October 14, 2002
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Even on a system that greatly exceeds the on-the-box limits, even in it's own installation of XP on a dual boot system, even with everything turned off, and even with week's worth of tweaking and tuning, this bird doesn't fly. Turns out that for clean output on some oem systems, you've gotta be able to adjust the PCI latency, and Dell's bios, among others, doesn't allow that. You can edit to your heart's content with only relatively minor glitches to slow you down (save often), but forget getting your project bakc out to tape if you can't get to the pci bus in bios. That's not on the box, either.
User Rating: 6/10
8.0 or 8.1 Not even a Beta release !!!by - October 14, 2002
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I don't know, but the 8.0 version doesn't seems to be not even a Beta version!!! How unstable can a program be. My PC is a 2,0 Ghz P4 with 2 HD (80 Giga each) 512 Mb etc.... But 8.0 and all my other programms are running just fine. But I have installed 8.1 and all other patches (including using the reg delete tools) about a dozen times. I managed to connect my DV without any problems but editing a project is a real nightmare. At the end I have waisted many hours with zero result..
User Rating: 7/10
Never allows you to RENDER A PROJECTby - October 13, 2002
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I've been able to create wonderful projects, but the minute I try to publish it to a CD or just save it to a disc in .avi or .mpeg it stalls out. This program cannot "render/create" the finished project so people can watch it on screen. BEWARE of PINNACLE they SUCK!
User Rating: 4/10
DONT BUY IT!!!by - October 13, 2002
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RENDERING NIGHTMARE!!FREEZES UP !!TECH SUPPORT HORRIBLE!!40 MINUTES EVERY TIME I CALL!!ITS NOT TOLL FREE!!
User Rating: 7/10
I simply could not get it to work.by - October 12, 2002
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Using Piccacle studio was the biggest joke I've ever exierenced. I was amazed at first by the features and ease of use of the program until I realized!, its very unstable and the very simplest of tasks it is unable to complete. Also considering my Pentium 4 computer was running the program, I don't think it was my computer causing the problem. To top it all off, going to the 'Help' tab in the program and selecting 'Technical Support' led me only to an internet page that told me about upgrading to the very LATEST in Pinnacle instability. I don't think so Pinnacle.
User Rating: 10/10
I won't use anything else! Absolutely wonderful!by - October 10, 2002
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I have tried Ulead Video Studio 6, Ulead Media Studio Pro, Premiere 6.5, Ulead DVD Workshop, Vegas Video 3, and some other editing and DVD authoring packages. I've basically deleted all of them and am left with Stuido 8, and I could not be any happier. This is the most enjoyable application I have ever used! Pinnacle deserves the greatest praise on this one. I recommend it highly. PS - I've noticed some users here had stability problems. I can guarantee it is a problem with their computers. I work professionaly in the field and have installed Studio for quite a few users, and they are not having any of the stability problems mentioned here. Video editing is very demanding. If your system is unreliable, then don't expect editing and authoring programs to work reliably. If you have a decent well balanced system, Studio 8 will work perfectly, and you won't need anything else!
User Rating: 6/10
Great Product Concept, Extremely Poor Executionby - October 10, 2002
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It has every feature that a newbie Video editor would want to create home videos - from capturing to DVD burning.......but the features stays ONLY in the concept. They don't work. I haven't seen a more UNSTABLE product in my 20 years with the computer industry......NON-EXISTANT Tech Support (can't blame the field guys alone when the developers dish out such a nightmare).........VERY GOOD user forum that forms the Support Group for the VICTIMS of Studio 8.
User Rating: 10/10
The Best & Easiest To Use Softwareby - October 10, 2002
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This software does MORE than many much more expensive programs! It's absolutely awesome. I have Premiere and Vegas Video, but I barely use them. Studio does everything so MUCH FASTER! It's very easy to setup, very fast, and very reliable. I have recommended it to a few friends, and they all love it as well!
User Rating: 5/10
They released it before it was readyby - October 10, 2002
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I have had nothing but problems with version 8. Version 7 works flawlessly. I regret spending my money on the upgrade.
User Rating: 7/10
Atractive product - poor executionby - October 10, 2002
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I have Compaq 8000X (AMD +1900) with nVidia 3 graphic card ? a very standard set-up. Obviously not standard enough for developers in Pinnacle who created this very easy to use, full of features package which behaves more like development version of a software than a commercial product. Opening project freezes computer to the point that has to be manually switched off. After installing and reinstalling during 1-week period I?m giving up. I used every trick in the book and from Pinnacle support site. The ?old? version 7 works without any problems. What a shame? I would not recommend this product at this time.
User Rating: 5/10
HORRIBLE Performanceby - October 9, 2002
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Product takes approximately 5 minutes to 'Detect the Scenes' in a 15 second mpeg video. It's obvious they have performance issues when they add with the product install a Performance Enhancer that adjusts your BIOS settings.
User Rating: 8/10
Works great for me!!!!by - October 8, 2002
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After reading all the negative reviews I thought I bought a lemon. After using for 2 weeks and burning over 20 DVD of home movies I have no complaints. Maybe people except instant burning like with cdrw format, sorry that is unreasonable. Maybe some are using old machines,don't know much about video editing, or worse they don't know much about a computer other than using WORD! I have used 3 different software for burning DVDs and Studio 8 is by far the best.
User Rating: 8/10
Lets think about this people...by - October 7, 2002
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Tech support and web site is USELESS, I agree, but if you read enough, you will see that as well as complaints about not working, others DO get it to work. Studio 8 is PICKY on what hardware, chipsets you use. It has worked FLAWLESSLY for my- AFTER I TOOK CARE OF SOME PC ISSUES I HAD. I have created over 10 VCD and SVCD (no DVD BURNER yet) and they work FINE in my DVD Player. Stop complaining, look at WHAT systems/ Hardware work with the software and use those. There is one error I have seen repeated: IT DOES WORK WITH ATI AIW CARDS! I can use Studio 8 to capture from my TV TUNER and then edited and created a SVCD of the show I tape. No more VHS for me. In case others are interested, here is my PC (Which was built just for this Program) AMD XP 1700+ (1.47Ghz) GIGABYTE GA7-TXE MB 512MB DDR2100 RAM 60GB U100 7200RPM HD ATI 7500 AIW RADEON 64M VIDEO SOUNDBLASTER LIVE! DIAMOND SUPRAMAX Modem WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION. I bought the STUDIO 8 DELUXE so I also use the AVDV capture card as well. Best Buy has a $100 rebate thru January 03, for those interested. It works, you just need to educate yourselves as to what NOT to have as a PC. Should PINACCLE publish this info? YOU BET. This they are guilty of.
User Rating: 6/10
Absolutely unable to make a movie!!by - October 5, 2002
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The editing features in Pinnacle Studio 8 are really great. The timeline editing is precise. You can cut and merge clips with ease. It's a snap to add backround music at any point on the timeline. The problems only surface when you try to actually MAKE A MOVIE!!! It is unable to render anything over 10 minutes long. It completely freezes and you have to kill it. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY LIKE I DID!!!
User Rating: 6/10
stability unprecedented poor !!!by - October 2, 2002
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After installing the program on a 'clean' Win98 config Studio8 takes a long time to get started and crashes within a few seconds/minutes telling about an invalid instruction in MPEGDECODER2.DLL. I did not even have the chance to do anything, let alone sonething with MPEG decoding.... This experience is completely opposite with my experience with StudioDV and Studio7. Please get the problems solved soon!
User Rating: 7/10
Will not render moviesby - October 1, 2002
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Like so many other people have found, this product simply will not finish rendering a movie for burning onto a DVD. Technical support is non-existant and I have yet to get through to a support consultant (even though its a premium rate number). I've given up paying Pinnacle to play me background music and will return the product for a refund. How can you review a product that is simply so unstable as to be useless, other than say 'save your money'.
User Rating: 6/10
Features and Faultsby - October 1, 2002
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PC Magazine touted how wonderful this program is-sounded like the Holy Grail of Video editing. I'll agree that 8.0 is feature-full, however the CD-burning portion leaves only doubt in my mind. I tried to burn a project to CD. It begins the rendering process, but never finishes the task...stalls in the middle. Try to move things around to kick-start it? Doesn't help...still stalls in other areas. I'm surpised their FAQs doesn't even acknowledge this problem...must be serious. Judging from the other ratings here, I'm not the only one having problems. Until this problem is resolved, Studio 8.0 is worthless. What good is a project if you can't off-load it!
User Rating: 5/10
Would be great if did not crashby - September 28, 2002
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I have installed V 8 today and am now continually re booting my new laptop Window XP system. It's a joke that this product can be on the market when it simply will not function. It's a shame as I found it quite easy to use and full of features, all worth nothing if I can not render a video file.
User Rating: 4/10
Won't do JACKby - September 26, 2002
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I give ease of use a 1 cause no matter what I try to do In the program It just doesn't work. And when I finally do get the program to do something It crashes. Junk program. WON'T DO JACK.
User Rating: 5/10
False Advertisement on MicroMV supportby - September 26, 2002
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The 8.0 product out of the box did *not* come with MicroMV support. We consumers learned this the hard way - by trial and error. Why? Because the website product sheet, product box, and user manual claim support. But a little digging into the tech support Knowledge Base revealed that support was coming in a patch. That Knowledge Base article has just been updated to say that some MicroMV support has been made available but ONLY on Windows XP installations. So anyone with Windows 98/Me/2000 is out of luck! And where on the box/website/manual does it say that?!?! This almost (if definitely) qualifies for a class-action suit for false advertisement. Take heed with Pinnacle 8.0. MicroMV is only the most glaring defect. Check the Pinnacle User forums under key topics such as Capture and Make Movie to see all the other problems people are experiencing.
User Rating: 5/10
Crashes or loopsby - September 23, 2002
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I had to upgraded from DC10Plus because my new PC has Windows XP as OS. Cannot output S-VHS via DC10+ hardware: PC loops every time. Apart from that Studio almost always crashes while rendering. After downloading a beta version of Studio 8.3 I get even more crashes and I cannot ad sound files from hard disk (only from CD).
User Rating: 7/10
Crash, crash, crashby - September 20, 2002
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a perfect example of product rushed to the market. It crashes 6,7 times out of 10. Wait for the next release.
User Rating: 10/10
Fantastic program; easy to useby - September 15, 2002
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I've never edited a movie before, but learned to do it quickly and easily with this product. While the manual is not organized in the most helpful way, I brokoe off on my own after trying the tutorial, and produced a great music video in one afternoon. I did learn to capture using FULL quality, not preview, otherwise you stand the VERY frustrating chance of having your final video scenes off by a few seconds. Takes a huge amount of disk space, but what fun.
User Rating: 4/10
Unusable!by - September 12, 2002
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I'm a long time user of Pinnacle products & was excited with the new features offerred by Version 8 (esp integrated DVD authoring). I was previously using Studio 7 & ULEAD DVD Movie Factory. Since upgrading to Studio 8 on it's release, I've had nothing but problems. Rendering & compiling crash at various points and give nebulous error messages. The support site (www.pinnaclesys.com/support) is riddled with complaints about the product's instability. I cannot believe that they took people's money for this product! I'm waiting for fixes for the product but going back to ULEAD for dvd authoring.
User Rating: 5/10
Unfinished and buggy!by - September 12, 2002
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Contrary to what the website, box and manual say Studio 8 does *NOT* support the MPEG2/Micro MV format. Also it hangs whilst in the middle of rendering. At the moment I'm waiting (along with lots of other annoyed customers) for patches to solve these problems. Until then it's virtually unusable to me!
User Rating: 9/10
Very cool and easyby - September 12, 2002
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Pinnacle studio is very cool and easy. It's enough if we just want to bring videos on CD media.
User Rating: 5/10
$800 AUD down the toilet!!!by - September 11, 2002
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I, as am heaps of people am having massive rendering problems! The program works fine on my PC (my specs are over double the recommended) my latest attempt was when I tried to render a 3 minute long clip with standard effects, only a couple of transitions, and when I went to render it (to burn to a cd) 3 hours later, nothing, the screen doesn?t lock up and the program doesn?t crash, it just sits there saying, ?RENDERING, please wait? look for something else guys!!!!
User Rating: 7/10
simply the easiest and quickestby - September 10, 2002
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I have had problems also with the program but it had to do with a corrupted capture. This happens when either the capture for some reason was abrupt in the beginning or end of the clip or usually the clip was preedited with special effects that confuse the program. It is unfortunate that such a great program would have such a fatal flaw.
User Rating: 5/10
RENDERING HANGS FOR 6 HOURS HORRIBLE TECH SUPPORTby - September 10, 2002
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Seems to be a lot of people upset about the time it takes to render a movie before it gets burned to VCD or DVD. I let a 25 minute movie render for 6 hours and still nothing. Called Tech Support, waited 48 minutes on the phone. Guy had no clue. What good is a product that will not work and no way to talk to tech support.
User Rating: 7/10
I'm ready for my close-up Mr. Demille!by - September 10, 2002
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Great! I have lots fun creating my own movies! E-Z to use and the quality of the capture from my VHS-C is great! The output also looks very good! Advice: Get a much memory and the biggist drive you can get!
User Rating: 6/10
Find another productby - September 7, 2002
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After looking around for a program that would provide menus for DVD and VCD authoring, I was more than excited when I came acoss Pinnacle Studio 8. A big part of my buying this product came from the glowing reviews version 7 got in the magazines. The features are great and there is a lot of potential, but it crashes everytime I go to burn a CD. Totally unexceptable in this day and age. The only support I got from Pinnacle was an e-mail (4 days after I sent in my problem) telling me to check back on their web site every so often to see if a patch was ready! By the way, I own more than 1 computer, different makes and configurations and Studio 8 crashes on all of them. I'll stick with VideoFactory for now.
User Rating: 5/10
Frustrating and unstableby - September 6, 2002
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Studio 8 has the potential to be a great program, if it really worked. Sadly, it crashes often and is completely unstable. The tech support has been useless in helping my problems. I have successfully burned 2 DVDs, but do you really want to put up with 20 crashes and several failed burns, and many hours of wasted time for this?
User Rating: 5/10
Rendering halts; check Pinnacle forumsby - September 6, 2002
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I have a trouble ticket open with PS tech support rendering stops at 14~`15 minute point for many users.
User Rating: 4/10
Stick with Studio 7by - September 3, 2002
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I also received an e-mail from Pinnacle to upgrade from 7.0 to 8.0 for 1/2 price. I was interested in creating DVDs with menus. Sounds good in theory, but EVERY TIME during rendering, the program errors and closes (without saves. If you check the Pinnacle User Forum, this problem is widespread (Although not offically acknowledged as a problem.) I don't have a problem making MPEG and AVIs and copying to VCR tape- but then again, that's what Studio version 7.0 does! Save your money, don't get the upgrade until they fix the bugs in this "beta test" product. I am so disappointed in 8.0 after having so much success with 7.0
User Rating: 3/10
crashes; tech support worthlessby - September 3, 2002
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This would be a decent program if it worked (but see below for a big feature problem). After waiting for 14 hours for it to render my video to DVD format, it crashed saying "A required resource is not". A look at the pinnacle web site indicates that they know about the problem and say a fix will be coming "soon". Other times, the program just crashed and disappeared from the taskbar. There's also no way to build a DVD from smaller pieces. So the only way for me to condense down 24 hours of videa to two is either to buy a hard drive that will hold all 24 hours (250 GB, give or take), or make it piecemeal and dump it out to a video tape to read back in later. I can't dump the fragments to disk because the only input Pinnacle accepts is the video card. I have no idea if the other products are more useful or more stable, but if this is the best there is, don't expect DVD authoring to be painless.
User Rating: 4/10
Stick with Version 7!by - August 27, 2002
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Outrageous! This program crashes almost everytime I try to load anything! Rendering time is significantly slower than with Version 7. I'm switching back. Stay away until Pinnacle gets their act together!
User Rating: 5/10
Crashes oftenby - August 26, 2002
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Major bugs in some areas, freezes upon rendering, and problem with titles. Great product if it worked.
User Rating: 5/10
The girl on the box is cuteby - August 22, 2002
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There is nothing else good to say about this version or Pinnacle. There is no Tech Support; the support site is screaming with people with rendering lock up issues, Pinnicle is not responding to bug reports or customer issues. I don't know what version of Studio 8 CNET evaluated, but it isn't the same one Pinnacle is shipping!
User Rating: 9/10
Excellent Product for the priceby - August 22, 2002
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I have used another competing product in the same price range, also another product in a higher price range. This product has the features and the ease of use that is very well done.
User Rating: 6/10
Customer service and supportby - August 20, 2002
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I have Pinnacle Studio 7 which came with my computer and I found it to be an easy program to use with nice transitions, rendering is slow and not very reliable. Also it only captures AVI and cannot import MPEG files. Compared to Ulead 5.0 which did not always work well, I found Pinnacle Studio 7 better. I got an offer to upgrade to Studio 8 which is supposed to capture AVI and MPEG plus also burns to CD/DVD. I placed the order on Aug.4, got an e-mail confirmation that it was shipped on Aug.8 by Fed-Ex and gave me a tracking number which turned out to be incorrect. Several phone calls and e-mails have not produced any results. My credit card has been debited without having received the product. They cannot provide me with a correct tracking number, which they say they do not have, I cannot get to speak to the head of the ordering dept. because they say, no one is there, they do not know what city the item is shipped from only that it was shipped from Indiana. I have called Fed-Ex, UPS and DHL and none have any trace of the product going to my address. What kind of company is this? I live in Canada and have ordered many times from the States and have promptly received the items within 7 days with no problem and always given correct shipping information and the item was always charged to my account after receipt of the item. Frankly I am appauld that for a company claiming to have an award winning product, their customer service leaves much to be desired. I hope that none of your viewers experience what I have been through. I am not sure where to go from here as I have paid for an item that I do not know if I will ever receive. I am writing this so that someone else does not fall in the same trap. By the way Ulead Studio 6.0 is a great product with great results, it came bundled with another product.
User Rating: 5/10
Pinnacle programs and support poorby - August 20, 2002
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I have tried for over a year to get first Studio DV an d the Studio 7 to perform with win 98 and win xp without much success. Tech support is very slow and poor. So I don't expect 8 to be much better.
User Rating: 6/10
Not too AMD friendlyby - August 19, 2002
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Will lock up if you have an AMD KT133A Chipset from VIA. Does not work with ATI Capture cards. Too proprietary. Nice interface and easy to use, if it works. Yo are better off with Ulead's VideoStudio 6 for stability and ATI compatibility.
User Rating: 9/10
Powerful and Flexibleby - August 17, 2002
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Cons:
Review:
Great for beginners and intermediates with it's very easy to navigate interface. I bought the DV version with my Sony TRV27 and I was up and running in a matter of minutes. Did the research and it has more than enough features for the hobbyist.
