Moving from Pinnacle Studio to Vegas 4

AnotherMovieMaker wrote on 2/3/2003, 8:08 PM

I'm new to this forum because I'm a current user of Pinnacle Studio 8. While I've been able to make several movie productions with this software, I have to be honest and tell you that, in all likelyhood, I'll be switching from Studio 8 to Vegas 4 when it's released.

Oddly enough, I heard about Vegas 4 on the Pinnacle board because there are many Pinnacle users that are having problems with Studio 8. It's gotten so bad over on their board, that some users are discussing other video editing software. Again, that's how I found out about Sonic Foundry and Vegas 4. Although I haven't had the bulk of the problems other Studio 8 users had, I'm still going to switch.

I know I may be comparing apples and oranges (Studio 8 vs. Vegas 4) because Vegas 4 is a professional level editing tool whereas Studio 8 is more of an entry level editor. However, I've tested the Pinnacle Edition demo (their professional level version) and, to me, there's no comparison. Vegas 4 is much more user friendly and a joy to use.

Anyway, just wanted to pass this along. Good job Sonic Foundry and I look forward to using your software. I wish I had heard of them sooner.

Comments

wcoxe1 wrote on 2/3/2003, 10:03 PM

I started with Studio 7 when it first came out, bacause my university wanted me to investigate teaching video, about a year ago (?). After 6 months of frustration and only two short "projects" (I hate to call them that, compared with what you can do with Vegas.), I dumped the whole thing and bought VV3.0a with my OWN money. The school didn't want to spend any more, but they wanted my opinion of teaching video (right, real smart).

My opinion is simple. Wish I had never heard of Pinnacle. The word now leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Vegas has a sweet taste.

And "FORUM," well, now THAT word has come to really mean something. At P* it was largely useless. No one seemed to know what to do, or really care.

However, at SoFo, even when things get a bit personal, which isn't often, you know you are among friends, who will back you and help you through thick and thin. There are some really great people here.

Welcome aboard.

bgccdx wrote on 2/3/2003, 11:29 PM

I actually bought S8 twice in 2 weeks, once in the USA (NTSC only version) and once when I returned to Australia to get the PAL version. Despite that, I bought VV3 and will upgrade to V4 as soon as it is available. I can actually edit videos with VV3 without it hanging once. With S8 I spent 80% of my time rebooting my machine, but I guess you already know that. Come on over to Vegas. You won't regret it.

Spirit wrote on 2/4/2003, 12:20 AM

This seems to be developing into a "me too" thread ! I had a low-end Pinnacle editing product and it was sheer garbage. One day I just chucked it all in the garbage - it was worse than useless - it simply ate up massive amounts of time without me having anything at the end worth showing.

Since I already used AcidPro, the switch to VegasVideo3 was very easy. One skim of the manual and I was underway within minutes. Of course there's great depth there too, and a year on I still don't know the half of it. What is good is that as I develop my skills Vegas has the depth to accomodate whatever it is I want to achieve.

Another interesting point of comparison between Pinnacle and Vegas is that my Pinnacle app ran soooo slooooowly, whereas VV3 has way more power AND runs orders of magnitude faster !

Maybe you can tell I'm a huge fan.

jdixon wrote on 2/4/2003, 7:50 AM

I am disappointed to hear all these disparaging remarks about Pinnacle! I have used Studio 7 and 8 for about a year and have nothing but praise for their product. It is so intuitive and user-friendly and when you consider the price - an absolute bargain! I am thinking of moving to Vegas because of the increased functionality - especially because of its multi-track capability and the way you can alter so many things on screen with the mouse. Vegas is a very attractive package, almost unknown in UK. I just wish it was a bit less expensive. Poor old Premiere is looking somewhat out of date now!

pb wrote on 2/4/2003, 9:41 AM

Pinnacle' DC1000DV is a decent unit, we've been using ours since October 1999 with nary a problem, editing everything from Broadcast TV commercials to news stories topromos to training videos. We did, however, have to buy After Effects, Boris FX/Grafitti/Title Dekko Pro/Sound Forge/Vegas Audio to supplement P* but for straight cut editing with the odd dissolve the DC1000DV is as fast as a low end AVID boardset.

Peter

bjtap wrote on 2/4/2003, 9:51 AM

I too have been very happy with my Pinnacle DV500. Worked the second I put in my computer and through every update on the drivers.... NEVER a hitch. IMHO it is Premiere that is holding Pinnacles back and that is why Pinnacles created their own software. I have an old PIII 650 which the DV500 board has made 'up to date' in that I can do clean real time.
Vegas 4.... like most of the others I am looking forward to it. SoFo has managed to make even my humble slower computer hum. In a month or two I might be able to buy or upadate my computer to a minimum 2.5er on the CPU, in which case I think my Pinnacle DV500 might not be quite as necessary.
Barry

vonhosen wrote on 2/4/2003, 9:53 AM

Studio is a good entry package, but even a keen home video fan will soon find it limiting & seek the power & flexibility of Vegas. I think compared to the competition Vegas offers extremely good value for money & when you bring support into the equation , Pinnacle Vs SF , well that one is even easier to answer :-)

riredale wrote on 2/4/2003, 11:12 AM

I started with StudioDV, then migrated to Studio7. Software was sometimes "quirky" and it was hard for me to understand just what was going on when I would insert a dissolve, or replace a dissolve with a cut, and so forth. For the price, S7 had a terrific feature set. I found the S7 message board to be very helpful, which was important because there were quite a few bugs to deal with. Nonetheless, I created a pretty decent 60-minute documentary with S7, and I especially liked the "preview quality" capture feature, where one could capture video at greatly-reduced size to the hard drive, do all the editing, and then tell the program to render out a full-quality version. The program would sit there for an hour, sending the camcorder this way and that, fetching all the bits and pieces needed to finish the job. The "preview quality capture" feature let me load all 20 hours of raw video into just 20GB of my old 40GB drive. Of course, these days one can buy 120-200GB drives for a buck a gig, so loading in those 20 hours at full resolution (260GB) is not out of the question.

Studio7 was very easy to learn, but what drove me to VV was the greatly-enlarged feature set, the utter stability, and the fact that audio and video stayed in sync. By that I mean that if one zooms into an individual clip in S7, the further down the timeline you go from the beginning of that clip, the further out of sync the audio representation gets from the video representation. This made precise frame-by-frame editing impossible.

Of course, all software has bugs, and VV3 is no exception. Past posts have described the "green triangle anomaly," for example. But VV3, while requiring a much greater investment in learning time, is much more capable and much more stable than Studio7. I can't speak for Studio8.

doormill wrote on 2/4/2003, 1:44 PM

I used Studio 7 and now Studio 8 and like them both. Can't match the capabilities of VV3 which I use for more advanced stuff(or now VV4). Studio 8 works well for me for simple(you can do more than you think thou) videos and most projects. S8 also has a great MPEG2 encoder that I use when ever I can. I think overall for the price it's a great program. Is it as good as VV3 or VV4? Not even close but it's not suppose to be. It's $50.00 not $400.00. I like using them together and often use them both on the same projects. IMHO, well worth the $50.00.

Have a good day!!