I switched from Pinnacle 9.4.3 about a month and a half ago.
The powerful tools I now have at my fingertips is amazing.
I'll admit that VMS+Platinum was a little more complex, at first, than I was used to, but now I'm lovin' it.

And another one in the process of switching.

Been with Pinnacle since Studio 7 and progressed to S9.4+. I seem to have got off lightly compared to most - never really had any serious problems and completed a fair few projects OK. In the end though I got frustrated with the slowness and always found that DVD menus looked a bit "clunky" and were very frustrating to design and build - always a bit hit and miss.

Trialled Vegas Studio, mainly for DVD Architect (which I think is fantastic - powerful and very intuitive). Was a little disappointed that the trial version didn't allow the burning of even one DVD to give it a proper evaluation but took the plunge and bought the full product a week ago . Still finding Movie Studio a bit daunting (waiting for the manual to print - all 406 pages of it while I type) and no way near as intuitive as Pinnacle but am looking forward to getting the time to have a proper play. First impressions though is i'm glad i've switched (for DVD Architect if nothing else).

Did Pinnacle ever get their act together or is Studio 10 still full of problems?

I crossed over to Movie Studio two weeks ago from Studio 10.

A long term and prolific user of Studio 9 (albeit with some workarounds to cover the glitches) I moved to Studio 10 last October. This completely halted the production of any video of any sort on my PC. Since then I have gone through the relentless patching cycle, and entered into diagnostic tracing with the Pinnacle support staff. When the latest "final" patch arrived and nothing worked for me I took the plunge.

I produced 3 DVDs last weeked from the backlog of material, no glitches. I have been converted.

I know firsthand that Pinnacle 10 still has issues, if not more issues than 8 & 9. I used Pinnacle 8, 9, and Liquid 6 for a few projects and then 10 came out which I thought would have a few more gadgets to it, but what I found out was 10 couldn't burn a DVD to save it's soul. I'm glad I tried just a few 15-20 minute projects as none of them worked. Later on I found out online that I wasn't the only one having this problem. My current project now on SMS is running at 16-18 hours (so far) and everytime I burn it just to show a friend how it's coming along, it works like a charm. I'll never go back to Pinnacle - Here I come Vegas 6.

"Here I come Vegas 6."

Welcome. Now go back to the other forum and save a few of those tortured souls.

Started with Sony Screenblast 3 and upgraded to VMS Platinum DVDA. I have a Sony computer and figured there would be less hardware/software conflicts.

HaroldC

SONY Media Software is pretty much hardware agnostic, meaning that it runs very well on just about any Windows-based PC. There is no special tie between SONY Computers and SONY Media Software other than both being owned by the same company.

I checked in at the pinnacle forum earlier and there appears to be a mass defection/revolt happening. Pinnacle decided to quit development on Studio ver. 9 and not fix any current bugs. That will leave a lot of people, myself included, with a non-working app.

I expect there will be more people show up here in the next few weeks or so...

I was wondering how long it would be before Pinnacle finally imploded. They have treated their customers terribly over the last few releases. I'm glad I dumped their product and moved on.

Yes, just read the DvD Arquitec manual, I had the same problem trying to do express DvDs whitout knowing the do and don'ts.

After using Studio Plus for one year. I switched and will never go back to a Pinnacle product again. Vegas is great to use... I have had it for a week and am editing my 40 minute long vacation video and am doing it in 1/2 the time... and it looks 1000x better!

Vegas is much better... even for capturing videos!

After using Studio Plus for one year. I switched and will never go back to a Pinnacle product again. Vegas is great to use... I have had it for a week and am editing my 40 minute long vacation video and am doing it in 1/2 the time... and it looks 1000x better!

Vegas is much better... even for capturing videos!

My path is a lot like JR's, I started with 1.06, moved to 7, built a new PC based on Pinnacle's "recommendations" - as in, "you need a different video card", "...a faster hard drive...", "...more ram might help..". I used Studio 7 and Studio 8. I downloaded every patch for 8. I bought VideoFactory because I wanted to be able to pan and zoom photos...I used VF for about 6 months, then started using Vegas 4. I'm now on Vegas 6d + DVDA and life is good.

I do keep Studio 8 installed as a host for smartsound; very occasionally use it for Hollywood FX (thank you JR for your tutorial on that).

OH My! Reading this thread has been like the best therapy for me. Have used Studio 8 for several years and have been mentally unstable since. As soon as I installed the program it removed my CD-ROM drivers. . . . on two machines! The rest of the problems posted here . . . I have been through most of them and so many more. Just too painful to go into them now.
I had often been influenced to upgrade to a newer version in hopes of less problems.
But wait!!! Why should I pay to get the newest version of a program when they cannot make the older versions simply work as advertised?? So, I refused to give up more money to Pinnacle Hell for more abuse.

I bought Vegas, read the manuals from cover to cover, and love this program. It WORKS. It does not crash and freeze and,and,and. . . .

Thank You Sony! I have Salvation!

I haven't switched from Pinnacle (though I have used it), but from Magix Movie Edit Pro - good when it works, but unstable iwth MPEG and the latest version in the UK was unstable with DV-AVI! I had to save my work after EVERY edit.

VMS is the only video editing program that hasn't crashed when I use it. It's sleek, it's fast, it does exactly what is says on the tin!

Worley

I'm actually a Vegas6 / DVD Architect3 user rather Vegas Movie Studio user, but decided to contribute to this thread when I saw the topic.

I too was a Pinnacle Studio user from version 7 through version 10. For years I put up with the frustrations of Pinnacle's lack of quality, but continued to spend money on upgrades always hoping that the next version would fix the problems I encountered. When I upgraded from Studio+ 9.4.3 to Studio+ 10.2 my productivity crashed (as did the software). I suddenly could not complete any of my projects as the utter lack of even the slightest level of quality caused the software to either behave incorrectly or crash altogether. Additionally, anything that it did do correctly took an agonizingly huge amount of time.

My moment of truth came when the installation of the patch from version 10.2 to 10.5 kept crashing and tech support could do nothing. Since I am a Win 2k Pro user and version 10 requires XP, I realized I reached a dead end. At the same time, I found that I had reached the limits of what Pinnacle Studio could do with regard to implementing my editing concepts. That is, it could not create the videos that I envisioned because of its lack of features. I started searching for a product that was a professional level editor that was also rock-solid. As a result, I purchased the Vegas6 / DVD Architect3 editor. I have been using it since February 2006 and I am now a happy man.

As for Pinnacle Studio, I rolled back to version 9.4.3 and only use it to generate very short clips using Hollywood FX Mega. Do not underestimate the great things that this effects package can do (particularly if you upgraded to the Mega level). It is the ONLY reason I still have anything bearing the Pinnacle name on my system. Too bad it is not available as a plugin for Vegas!

I have not switched. I use both. Each does something the other does not. Each has attributes. Can't figure out why so many of you have stability problems. My computers (first a Pentium 4 running XP home and later an Athlon 64 running XP pro) have never had a stability problem.

And, then, I have been totally unable to get Architect that came with the Platinum 6 to burn any DVDs. Actually, it acts as though I don't have a DVD burner in my computer. However, Pinnacle does recognize the burner and burns DVDs flawlessly. My efforts to get Sony to help me figure out why Architect will not recognize the burner have produced no meaningful or useful responses. Just canned referrals to web pages.

So, we all have different experiences.

Well,I can't say that I have switched either, but out of necessity, I am learning another editor. And the winning choice was VMS. Pinnacle is so extremely easy to use (the truth hurts). But, after 3 versions of it, and having the ball dropped on me at the 11th hour, I am forced to move on. Seems that the curtain is closing again one more time, so the show must go on.

VMS seems to be very stable, and DVD architect actually burned 4 different projects in a row, with no arguments! Boy, there is a lot to learn here, but I plan to take it one step at a time. Wish me luck!

Hello, MSmart!

Welcome and good luck.

It will be interesting to see how many new posts there will be here in the near future.

Count me as a convert. I "had" Pinnacle Studio 7, 8, 9, 10 then I switched. Pinnacle's forums are clogged with "can't get it to work" type questions. Vegas Movie Studio questions are more like "how do you do this".

It really doesn't matter what I miss in Pinnacle, bottom line is, if it doesn't work what good is it? I don't mean to sound like it doesn't work at all, but video editing shouldn't be like gambling.... spend money then pull the handle to see if you win.

Doing some editing yesterday I suddenly got sweat on my forehead: I could not remember when I had saved my work the last time...
:-)
Before I switched to Good old "Sony Screenblaster Movie Studio" years ago It was routine to save the job every 10 minutes or so - that is - if the editor did not crash or hang before...

Praise to the Madison people who have expanded and added many features to the program since then - but always have managed to keep the software Rock stable.