Me too. I bought Pinnacle Studio Plus v10 on a recommendation then found it couldn't preview a 30-second clip without crashing. I bought VMS+D6 Platinum the next day and I will never go back to Pinnacle. As others have said it's not as easy to use but that's because you have more power and control. It's never crashed and I burned my first DVD just the other day without incident.

Former Pinnacle user here too.

I swiched about 2 years ago. From Pinnacle 8 to Screenblast MS3 and then upgraded this year to Vegas Platinum 6. I had nothing but problems with Pinnacle from the beginning. I'm working on my 6th DVD with Vegas and there's no way I would ever go back.

August

I was with Pinnacle for years and years. So long that I had come to accept the software falling over, my computer locking up, and S-L-O-W performance as normal.

However, with the latest Pinnacle Debacle, I had no choice but to jump ship. Thankfully, I found a post on the studio board from someone who had changed to Vegas Platinum, and I checked it out. Imagine my surprise when I was actually able to edit a little project, add transitions, preview and make a DVD without one single glitch! The scales have fallen from my eyes--I am redeemed!

By the way, the final straw was with Studio 10. I loaded it onto my notebook (top of the line Gateway and less than 18 months old) and NOTHING would run properly. I couldn't even watch clips to say nothing of editing them. It was horrid!

Since changing to Sony, I've not had any problems. There's only one thing that's weird--I capture clips, load them, edit them, add transitions, render them and make DVDs and nothing falls over or locks up. Not even once! Very strange concept--software that actually performs as it should.

Oh, and by the way, I'm not editing 2 or 3 or 4 hour movies. I just make movies of our horses to show on the website and to potential customers and family....usually not over 3 or 4 minutes each. You'd think Pinnacle could handle that, wouldn't you?

Pamela Van Nest
Clinch Mountain Paso Finos

I almost had to attend stress-management therapy sessions because of Pinnacle. I bought three versions of Pinnacle Studio and tried on literally half-dozen computers.

These computers were new, fast, and clean, and I could NEVER get Pinnacle to run stable on any of them. One thing Pinnacle did teach me (even more so) was to SAVE OFTEN.

I don't know if you can tell, but I still have a lot of anger built up because of Pinnacle. They ruined a lot of videos and wasted years of my time.

I guess because Pinnacle has been around so long and all their pretty packaging, I just assumed they were the best, and if I couldn't video edit with their package, then why bother any thing else?

I don't remember how I came across Vegas Studio, but I am so glad I found them.

Thank you Vegas for being stable!!!
(and for the other cool things you do)

Edit: After reading vannest's post above, I think I do remember first hearing about Vegas on Pinnacle's web forum too. Ex-Pinnacle users were coming back to save the rest of us.

Thanks to whoever posted that Vegas link!!

I never used Pinnacle. Somebody on an Adobe Photoshop Elements forum told me about Sony. Since he was the only video-editing-knowledgeable person I had ever encountered, I followed his advice and bought it. VERY nice program.

You MUST print out the manuals that are on the CD. There are over 500 pages in the combined manuals, but they are VERY useful.

I printed mine out "duplexed" (on both sides of the paper) on my laser printer, then had them bound at Office Depot. Best money I ever spent.

Lou Sander
Ten Days into Vegas, and Getting Pretty Good at It

Sign me up too! I started my Video editing hobby using Pinnacle Studio 8 and appreciated it's simplicity, but was frustrated with the constant problems. In order to help them improve, I became a Beta tester but that was a futile effort too. After several projects with crashes, OOS, and various other problems, I had enough. My neighbor showed me his projects using Screenblast, so I had to get a copy. Have used Screenblast, Movie Studio 4, and now VMS6 Platinum.

Best decision I ever made. Have completed several projects so far, and all have been painless. While Pinnacle may be easier to use, the constant problems were too much for me. After having learned VMS, I never looked back. Sad part is, many years ago I recommended Pinnacle to my Father in Law. Big mistake on my part. (sorry Dad) He has since converted to VMS, and loves it too.

Way to go Sony! Keep up the great product!

I started with Pinnacle Studio 8 trying to edit my kids birthday party. It did good for awhile, then after a patch it went from bad to worse. I do not remember how Vegas ( Big Vegas ) came. I used the Trial Version and loved it but, price too high. Then learned about VMS 4 then 6.And still loving it! (Pinnacle + Avid=?)

Started with 7... It was ok but became "childish" rather quickly.
Moved up to version 9 a couple years later. Much better but unstable, VERY unstable!
I thought 10 would fix the problems and the performance issues but things went from bad to worse.
2 weeks after "upgrading" I move to "Vegas Movie Studio Plat." and it is wonderful. I am thinking about moving to Vegas 6 but it is a lot of money and I am not sure what additional abilities I would gain... Open to feedback on that. (should I start a new thread?).

RevJonG

>I am thinking about moving to Vegas 6 but it is a lot of money and I am not sure what additional abilities I would gain... Open to feedback on that. (should I start a new thread?).

Way back when, Chienworks made the comment that most of the Vegas projects he'd seen could have been done in VMS (or VideoFactory as it was then). VMS has come a long way since then! Very much IMHO, but I'd stick with VMS until you find it can't do something that you need to do.

Ian G.

Congratulations to those who have jumped ship. I left Pinnacle Studio back in the Studio 7 days. I started with Pinnacle Studio DC10 1.06 and liked it a lot. When Studio 7 came out I bought the full Hollywood FX package and really got into it. But Studio 7 was never anything more that a poor collection of bugs and patches that half-worked.

The final straw was when I had worked a week on a project and Studio wouldn’t render it. It would get so far and then stop. No amount of deleting and trying to render smaller sections would work. Pinnacle support said the only solution was to recreate the project from the start. So I took their advice and promptly went out and purchased Sonic Foundry VideoFactory 2.0 and recreated my project in one day with absolutely no glitches. I never looked back. I eventually moved from VideoFactory to Vegas 3 and now I use Vegas 6+DVD.

I went back and told people on the Pinnacle forums that they didn’t have to tolerate the crappy software but no one would listen. I watched as Studio 8 came out then Studio 9. Each one had the same exact problems. Then I stopped lurking there but I was just amazed at how much one company could punish their customers and have them happily come back for more. I just don’t get it. The product doesn’t work right out of the box on a brand new PC. How can you have the nerve to sell garbage like that?

Like I said, congratulations to all who have jumped ship. You are much smarter than the sheep that just keep buying the next version hoping that magically something would change.

IMHO, there is no video editing package that can come close to the functionality and stability of Vegas Movie Studio for the price.

~jr

I couldn't agree more. I used Pinnacle 8 until my hair started coming out! I then bought Adobe premiere elements, and found that their "minimum hardware requirements" were the stuff fantasy is made of...It took over an hour to render a 10 minute clip! That's when I discovered VMS. I can now create projects without the endless aggravation of system crashes. The best feedback is when family/friends see the final results and say "YOU made that???"

I was so excited with Pinnacle when I first bought it. My happiness was energetic as I installed it. Then I tried to make my first DVD.

My brother had our parent's old movies converted to tape. These movies dated from the 1940's through the 1960's. I spend hours converting them so I could turn them into a great DVD to play for our mom on her 90th birthday party. I spend weeks and weeks organizing them in Pinnacle (the crashes made it take longer) and finally I was almost ready to burn the DVD, I just needed to make one itty-bitty change. Then the unimaginable happened, Pinnacle crashed my hard drive and I lost everything! I had to reformat my hard drive. I was so disappointed that I would have nothing to show for her birthday party but I still wanted to make the movie, so I started from scratch again. Well, after the 3rd hard drive crash I realized that Pinnacle was death to my computer. It even wiped out my external hard drive.

Why didn’t I quit Pinnacle earlier? I guess it’s like throwing good money after bad. I had invested so much time into making this movie (7 months) that I just couldn’t give up, but finally I had to admit defeat.

I took my time in searching for another program. I’m so glad I found Vegas. I love how it’s so stable. I didn't realize that you could make a movie without crashing your computer. It's taking me a while to familiarize myself with this amazing program but the more I learn the more I realize this that this program is worth the time and effort. It's like learning Photoshop, the possibilities of what you can do are unlimited! Unfortunately, I couldn't complete the movie in time for my mom but I did make a beautiful slide show for her memorial. With the careful use of the pan/zoom, it almost looked like a movie. Everyone was impressed.

I'm also an Ex-long time Pinnacle user. I started with Pinnacle DV, then Studio 7, Studio 8, skipped 9, then the supposed savior, Studio 10 with the "Liquid Engine". All along the way I bought many Hollywood FX's, DVD menus, Transitions etc. I got Studio 8 stable with patches, but of course MANY of us wanted to experience the Liquid Engine. What a nightmare.

I started off trying to edit an old Studio 8 project, crash. Ok, whatever, so then how about a simple DV capture, a handful of transitions and a DVD menu. Nope. I still haven't got that one to render correctly.

I decided to take a chance on VMS+DVD Platinum. Lets me honest, it's no Pinnacle Studio.. be that good and bad. Studio is much more intuitive and easy to create some great projects (in theory). VMS has many more options, a much steeper learning curve, but at least it works. I created my first DVD with transitions and menus with MP3 background music. By golly it worked. Now to learn more.

> Studio is much more intuitive and easy to create some great projects (in theory).

I think you have hit on why so many people continue to try and get Studio to work. It is dead easy to use. They have an absolutely brilliant user interface for beginners. If their engine was stable, no one could touch them. I remember using Studio DC10 1.06 and thinking, “this is too easy”. It was very stable on my PC and you had everything you needed. Simple editing, great Pixelan transitions, beautiful Title Decko titles, sweet SmartSound music. How could you go wrong? As I said, the concept was brilliant.

But when Studio 7 came along, they just couldn’t hold it together. They would buy other companies for their technology and try and graft it on to what they had but it never quite worked right. But I was outgrowing Studio anyway. One video track was way too restrictive. That was one of the attractions to VideoFactory to me. I needed more tracks and Pinnacle refused to add them. (I don’t think a second video track was added until Studio 9 and by that time Videofactory/MovieStudio had 3 or 4)

If Sony would add the script engine to Vegas Movie Studio, I could deliver some script plug-ins to automate a lot of tasks and bring you back some of what Studio has. I don’t know if any of you have looked at some of the VASST script plug-ins for Vegas like Still Motion that does photo montages with Ken Burns style pan & scan in one click. Use the Suggestion Page to let Sony know that you want script support in VMS and I’d be happy to port these tools over.

~jr

After struggling for 2 months trying to get Studio 10+ to work, I switched to VMS yesterday. I've used Pinnacle Studio 7 and 9+, which worked, but not version 10+. While I may miss a few features of Pinnacle Studio, I'll be happy with a system that works!

Me too! me too!
I purchased studio 9 and fell in love with it's ease of use and tolerated its failures.To be honest I expected problems; capture, editing, burning dvd's because that's what everyone else was eperiencing with editors from other companies when I visited thier forums. I purchased S10 and that was the last straw. I attribute not being able to leave Pinnacle to something like the Helsinky Symdrome where you beggin to sympathise with your jailers and in some instances you don't even want to leave your captors given the chance of release. I tested VMS6 Platinum- it is rock solid- I loved it- tough concept for me to work thru ( creating work without the hassles )but having fun w/VMS6. Moving forward- bless yous all and the best for 2006.

Joe M

I have switched / tried just about every <$100 editing package out there. As a newbie and novice, I found that the easiest for me was the one I started with - Video Explosion Delux from Nova Development. I really like it because of the video overlay track that the other didn't have. Then I tried VMS and found that the layout is almost exactly the same. Plus I never had any abends.
I now have purchased VMS + DVD 6.0 (it doesn't say platinum). From reading the forums, I feel I have made the right choice. Thanks for the info.

BTW - Am I in the correct forum?

I switched. I bought Studio 10+. I spent 50 or so hours editing about 30 minutes for a DVD. I endured probably 50 crashes. The final straw was that when I tried to actually create the DVD, it was flawed. Sound and video stutters and drops. So, I bought Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. It was very odd to go the first several hours without one glitch. I have now successfully made several DVD's. Though I feel like I'm fairly well up on the learning curve, I'm still learning cool features and shortcuts every day. VMS is very powerful and quite easy to use. Same goes for DVDA.

I went back to the Pinnacle forum a few times just to peek in to see how things were going. No better after several months. After Pinnacle refused to refund my money, I posted messages there encouraging folks to give VMS a shot. My posts were usually deleted. I feel sorry for those who continue to beat their heads against the wall.

I do this as a hobby -- mostly family videos. I really don't understand those "pros" or "semi-pros" who continue to rely on Studio 10+. I think it is pitiful that Pinnacle has imposed such problems on people's livelihoods.

I switched too.
Get this one!;;; I bought a SonyVaio and could nog even get the Pinnacle software installed on it.
I have another PC with Pinnacle and use only for announcement slide shows for church.

When it comes to REAL video editing, nothing beats Vegas.

In the process of evaluating now. I'm concerned that I have to find a serial number for the capture application. If I have to buy the serial number for capture I'll probably not be switching to Sony's Vegas Movie+DVD. It would be absurd to charge for that piece on top of the price of the software package.

Studio is without a doubt easier to use, more intuitive, more integrated. It is also buggy and unstable. But to sit down and work, Studio blows Vegas away. But as others I am tired of work arounds and bugs.

Sony's interface is overwhelming at first and they need to work on integrating DVD burning with projects. And if they want to look at software that does a great job, TMPG DVD Authoring would be my first suggestion.

Jim

Jim, as i answered in your other thread, there is no separate serial number for VidCap.exe. Apparently your installation didn't complete properly. As you found out after you reinstalled VidCap was able to run without another serial number.

I mentioned elsewhere that I'm a convert from Pinnacle Studio 10 Plus.

Releasing software like that (PS10) in the state it is (completely unfit for purpose) should be a crime.

If a car was released in the same state, it surely wouldn't be roadworthy.