I too have read the Studio 10 disaster. I have used Studio 9, which is a solid program and worthy of its price. It just couldn't do HDV. Before Studio 10 was released, I purchased Liquid Edition 6.0 from Pinnacle. That too was a mess. It could not record a timeline to my camera without crashing. I am still trying to get my money back.

When I heard Studio 10 was to use the same rendering engine, I decided to buy Sony, Movie Studio Platinum. I have gotten used to the program but, its not as intutive and user friendly as Studio 9.

Del.

Out of curiosity, I visited their board. Wow, what a mess. I am glad I did not go down the Pinnacle path a few years back when I was reviewing programs.

All the better for Sony I guess but having strong competition keeps everyone moving forward. I've always read the program was buggy but it seems like Pinnacle has really fallen on their face this time.

It makes me wonder how PC Mag still keeps them up on the charts with this type of feedback (and they don't even include Sony in the comparison between Adobe and Pinnacle). Must have someone on the inside.....

Ric

I drop in at the Pinnacle boards occasionally when I need a laugh! I too ran from that POS (Pinnacle Odorous Studio) after all the problems I had with 9+ (9.4.3). What I find really funny is I ran across a post by one the developers saying that there is a 9.5 patch coming soon but don't know when or what it fixes. LOL

As to the SmartSound, I still have that POS loaded (albeit gutted) just for SmartSound and for capturing.

True that Vegas is not quite as easy as that POS, but Vegas is a true NLE, incredibly stable and is much more powerful. I am glad that I jumped off the pinnacle railroad tracks.

Ahhh, the good old days...

Or should I say the bad days when I used to (try to) use Pinnacle.

I had version 7, which litterally crashed everytime I did a little something. Drove me crazy.

All the forum guys said "something must be wrong with my computer".... come on man, my computer runs smoother than 99% of the PC's in the world... clean, fast, etc..

Anyway, then Pinnacle 8 came out, and I was soooo happy. Maybe this would solve all my problems. NOPE.

I actually gave up video editing for almost a year, thinking, if Pinnacle's products don't work, nobodys can. Well, I did use MS-Movie Maker for a while.. it sucked, but at least it didn't crash.

I don't remember how I came across Sony Movie Studio 4, but I downloaded the demo, and I could NOT get it to crash. Then I started trying to make it crash, and I couldn't do it. I'd drag a ton of stuff, add a bunch of effects, move stuff around, it just didn't crash.

So I bought it.

Then I bought the Platinum 6 upgrade.

Never looked back.

Goodbye Pinnacle!!!

:)

I'm a recent convert from Pinnacle. I would spend hours and hours working on a project and lose it after the crash came, and it always came. Then my whole laptop crashed and I lost everything on my hard drive. After the third time, I realized that everytime I lost my hard drive I was working in Pinnacle. I've now crossed over to the good side. Movie Studio + DVD Platinum hasn't crashed my computer once (knock on wood). I only wish the program came with better manuals so the learning curve wouldn't be so steep. While it's not as easy to use as Pinnacle, I can see that it offers much much more and I'm very happy.

Welcome! While I do agree that the program does have a larger learning curve but at least you will be spending your time learning new features, etc. instead of trying to recover.

Hope you enjoy the ride........

Ric

>I only wish the program came with better manuals so the learning curve wouldn't be so steep.

From memory, the Pinnacle approach to learning the app was "Do A, do B & do C and you'll have a finished product". The trouble was that that was all I ever did, and the results were horrible! I think the trick with VMS is to take baby steps - learn how to do the basics like capturing clips, putting them where you want them on the timeline, splitting, adding transitions etc. The "Show me" feature is very good for this! As you're learning how to do things you'll start to realise what you can do with them, and it all falls into place.

Ian G.

Hi, everyone! I'm an ex-Pinnacle owner.

I just bought Pinnacle studio 10 last week and it was a disaster. It never worked!

Today Best Buy was great about exchanging it to Sony Vegas 6 movie studio. I'm thrilled with Vegas 6 it and look forward to doing many new projects with it.

Back when I was an unhappy Studio user, the guys at Pinnacle told me to use a pc only for editing.

What??? I should use a dedicated pc for a 50 bucks software???

AHAHAHAHAH!!!

That is hilarious all right. :) :)

Sounds like Pinnacle!

I bought Pinnacle Studio when it was version 7. It worked OK for me at that time. I upgraded to version 8, then 9 and both of them were pieces of junk. They barely installed correctly and crashed continually.

There is this core group of people on the Pinnacle web board forums that try to help people but I don't understand how they continue to put up with Pinnacle's flawed software release process. The products they release are barely alpha-level in terms of outstanding bugs.

When you read reviews of Studio from people like PC Magazine, they must either be out of touch with reality or getting some sort of kickback from Pinnacle.

This latest fiasco, Studio 10/10+, had a bunch of people hoping this would all be ended once and for all. Pinnacle sure hyped it stating how it was based on the Liquid Edition (their high-end product) engine. It seems that it is their worst product release to date.

I am so glad that I ditched Studio for Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Now I can concentrate on video editing and not having to hold my breath that my software is going to work.

Good riddance Pinnacle!!

Oh, I remember those days well.........

Hi all!

I am having BigEgg post this for me as I am using the trial version of
Vegas Movie Studio Platinum and the forum won't let me post until I
have registered a product with them...and I can't buy until I figure out
this one issue!

I'm a soon-to-be former Pinnacle Studio 9 user, and I've been
testing Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, but there's a problem
I've run into - how are you former Studio 9/10 users getting
around the fact that VMS doesn't let you use the
CUSTOM button to customize your MPEG2 files?
With Studio 9 I was constantly changing bitrates to get my
mpeg2 files the right size for burning...and now I'm stuck
with preset templates (unless I purchase the full Vegas 6
which uses the PRO version of the mpeg2 codec)
How did you get around this limitation?
(FYI - I burn mpeg2 files with DVD Workshop 2
once they are in the format I need - I won't be using DVD Architect)

Thanks so much! :)

-Greg

"how are you former Studio 9/10 users getting
around the fact that VMS doesn't let you use the
CUSTOM button to customize your MPEG2 files?"


If you're trying to fit something to a disk render as an avi file
and adjust the bitrate and size in dvd architect.

Well I'm a noob DV editor, and having taken the advise at Pinnacle's Studio +10 forum, I purchased Vegas MS 6 with DVD (non-plat.). I made my 1'st 2 min. render last Sat eve. with nothing more than intuition and a few trips to the on-line help. Used Vid & Audio overlays, slow-mo, and cue-cards (or whatever they're called). Turned out really good. It was of my nephew scoring in professional junior hockey with music vid combo. I've got a longer script planned, but need to capture more live hockey footage 1'st.

Glad to be on-board!

quote by stevec5375
-------------------
"There is this core group of people on the Pinnacle web board forums that try to help people but I don't understand how they continue to put up with Pinnacle's flawed software release process."
-------------------

I think some of them may be pinnacle people that have shed their "support" persona - for whatever reason. If that is not the case, it is a bit scary that the users know more and provide better help than the actual "support" people.

I used to use Pinnacle Studio 8 and didn't really have any problems with it. There were a fair amount of people on the boards there for whom it seemed to work fine. I don't think they are Pinnacle employees in disguise. So for me, switching to VMS wasn't about bugs or problems with Pinnacle.

However, once I tried the demo I realized that VMS is just so much better of a program in so many respects. That's the real reason to switch, IMO, and that it works as it's supposed to is that much more of a reason for some people, eh?

Count me as a former Pinnacle Studio 10+ user. I can't believe that I didn't find out more information about that product before I bought it. Probably 40 hours of my time and money wasted -- but the time cost me a lot more. The crashes were very frustrating. However, what made me finally give up is that I simply could not get Studio 10+ to create a clean DVD file. So, the entire reason for buying the software was something that it couldn't deliver. I think chaos is an understatement. I can't recall experiencing a product that was such a disaster.

With about 8 hours under my belt with VMS, I have created about 30 minutes of content (using about 20 or so photos and video clips) with music, text/titles, etc. Not one hang or crash. While it took me a while to learn some things thanks to a lack of documentation, I can tell that VMS is actually more powerful than Studio 10+. The one feature I will miss is the DD 5.1 or surround support. Otherwise, everything seems more powerful and, of course, much more stable! It is refreshing to have a program that actually works.

I couldn't help myself. I had to go back to the Pinnacle web board forum for Studio 10. It's gotten really bad over there. People are jumping ship from Studio because it just will not work.

If you're a recent Studio convert. Welcome! You'll find this software much more enjoyable to use in terms of stability.

Recent Studio Convert here... :)

I was put onto Pinnacle on a recommendation, having never used it before. I bought Studio Plus version 10 and regretted it within a few hours - couldn't even render 30 seconds of video without crashing. What a mess. Not only would Best Buy not refund (hey guys, we're all assumed to be software pirates, yarr!), the customer 'service' guy was downright rude about it; Pinnacle won't refund because I didn't buy it direct from them, for which I guess I can't really blame them.

What's nasty is the forum moderators will edit or delete posts, and close and even delete entire threads, that are critical of Pinnacle or the software. I don't like censorship, even something as trivial as this.

I bought Movie Studio+DVD Platinum the next day and haven't looked back - sure it's a little harder to use but that's because it gives you more control. I just today "finished" my first documentary project (a 15-minute visit to a Reptile Expo in San Antonio, TX) and it'll be posted online in the next couple of days. If I'd tried to do this with Pinnacle I'd still be working on it this time next year, or worse.

Go Vegas!

I got a refund from PC World in the UK on the grounds that what they sold me wasn't fit for its purpose (video editing and DVD production).

I had no trouble.

Which was a bit of a let-down really, as I had gone in expecting a fight for my money.

Oh, what the heck. Here is my two cents worth...

Yes, my friends, I too was a Pinnacle user (or sucker depending on how you look at it). I started and ended with Version 8 point something or other. Same problems as everyone else, crashes, hanging, frustration, high blood pressure, etc. I found out my problem had to do with the chipset on my motherboard (Pinnacle doesn't like the VIA chipset). Well, I asked over and over if Pinnacle could provide me with a set of hardware components that would work reliably with their software. No luck, not even a reply. I wasn't asking for a lot, just give me a high, medium and low end system with hardware that would work reliably without crashing or having to use work arounds.

I think it is also extremely misleading to advertise all of those awards and Emmy's that it is supposed to have won. I somehow doubt that it was Studio 8 that won the awards, maybe their higher end product.

Needless to say, I found Sony Movie Studio and haven't looked back (except to go back to the Pinnacle forums for a good laugh every now and then). It doesn't matter which forum for the version of the software you visit, it is always the same old complaints.

Well, I am a happy camper now and my wife is a lot happier these days as well. The sky looks bluer, the coffee smells better...

Al