Here is a requote of my post on Studio several months ago when this topic first came up. You might do a search on STUDIO or PINNACLE.

"Goodness, I hope that it will do good Analogue capture of scenes to SEPARATE clips, in the same manner it makes separate clips for DV.

My Pinnacle "Studio DV," which I got WITH Capture Card and Cable for $75.00, could do analogue scene "separation." Unfortunately, although it appeared to be separate clips, it was really one HUGE hour long file with "logical" markers which made it LOOK like separate scenes. NOT the same, and had SERIOUS drawbacks.

Dumped that program when I learned a few things, but the card and cable, which would cost about the same price as the whole schmeer in CompUSA (That great Mexican owned company), work great with VV3c.

Please, PLEASE, Please, SF, DON'T do it THAT way. (The Pinnacle way.)"

Having REAL separate .avi files for each scene has definite advantages.

Get Vegas...you'll not only never regret it, you'll be impatient for the next versionand only because you will fall in love with it!! the next good thing about it are the forums...here, at the creativecow.com, and many others...incredible user support...

I can't live without it...though my wife could!!!

My first SF purchase was VideoFactory, the competitor to Studio 8. I was trying to decide between Studio and VF, and I chose VF because I read several stories of people having problems with Studio locking up and crashing.

A few weeks later, I was talking to my pastor at church. He uses Pinnacle Studio 8. He asked me to come take a look at a project he was working on. He loaded it up, and it immediately locked up. After a few seconds, it crashed. He told me that it does that all the time to him, especially when he moves the mouse fast. He said that he just thought the software was so complex that you had to be very careful. I told him that this was a problem with bugs plain and simple, and he is now a happy owner of VF.

Vegas, on the other hand, is not direct competition to Studio 8. It just simply blows Studio away in all areas. There are so many cool things that Vegas does that you just won't believe, and many of them are not highlighted by SF. It's almost as if they don't realize how great a program they've developed! :)

Get Vegas. You will never, ever regret it.

Jim

I started editing on DC10+ then moved to Studio 7 when I got my DV cam. I thought it was great. However, as my projects got longer and more complex, I began having many stability issues (as you said, one visit to the Pinnacle forum says it all. It's a scary place). When I first got Vegas, I missed some of the features and the simplicity of Studio...at first. That lasted for only a couple days. Once I became familar with Vegas, it opened up a whole new world of editing for me. A the icing on the cake was, it is stable as a rock. I kept Pinnacle on my computer for a while thinking that I would use it for simple projects, or take advantage of the Titledeko. Haven't used it since I had that thought. It's been about 8 mos.now.

There's not much that I can add to this thread, but here goes:

- I own Studio since the analogical days (Studio MP-10). When I went digital, I naturally got Studio DV. And when Pinnacle announced the updated software (called Studio 7), I went for it.
I had been struggling with the software for 3 years. It took me 6 months before I could overcome the hangs and produce my first VideoCD from Hi-8 tapes.
Then, one day, I "depleted" the software. I could do everything it offered me, but I wanted more. And it was not available (effects, keyframes, more than 1 video track ...)

Then I learned about Video Factory and tried it. Quite nice indeed, but the User Manual opened by appetite for Vegas ...

Then I got Vegas ... BLAM !!!

Since them, ***not a single crash, anymore***. Which is quite something.

Later on, I tried other solutions (Ulead VS & MS, Premiere, Avid, MainActor, ...) and always returned to Vegas. Which is quite illustrating.
Never bothered to upgrade to Studio 8. I read the forums also... I kept the Firewire card, which works fine ... and I do my occasional analogical captures through the DV camera.

My only few regrets (well, maybe someday SoFo will care):

- Vegas does not frameserve (neither Studio...)
- Vegas does not accept the plugin structure of Premiere (neither Studio...), which leaves many fine freeware and commercial add-ons unavailable (Boris, Adorage, Adobe, ...). To clean the honor, Vegas has Pixelan and Satish !...
- Vegas does not integrate with SmartSound (Studio does, Premiere also).
- Vegas does not work with Hollywood (Studio does, Premiere also).
- Vegas does not work with Titledeko (Studio does, Premiere also). You can use the standalone, however.

I also wish that VV had the same Plug-In structure that Premier and Boris, etc. used. Perhaps it is possible to have a DOUBLE structure, retaining the current good structure, and adding the ability to use Premier and Boris type plug-ins. Please?

I use both for different needs. S8 did have a few minor problems that seem to be getting worked out. Mine was fairly stable to begin with but it is a lot more fussy about what's installed with it than VV3. They are 2 different style programs which both have use. Assuming you are lucky enough to not have problems to start with S8 is a great beginners program and it can get pretty sophisticated with the use of Hollywood FX Plus or Pro but VV3 will simply blow it away for pure editing and output ability. It's been reported on the S8 forum that you can get it with rebate as low as $10.00 now. I use it for a lot of things and it can do a quick video faster than just about anything out there. In S8 they added a new very good Mpeg2 encoder and nice DVD authoring as well with Motion Menus and Buttons. One output does it all right to disk(assuming you don't have the problems that others have reported). Vegas is by far more advanced and stable but it's also not as easy to use or learn. Sometimes I capture and start in S8 and then bring the rendered .avi into Vegas to do the more sophisticated stuff to finish. I also some times go the otherway and make just what I need in VV3 and then bring it into S8 to finsh to DVD.

Have a good day!!!

I use both for different needs. S8 did have a few minor problems that seem to be getting worked out. Mine was fairly stable to begin with but it is a lot more fussy about what's installed with it than VV3. They are 2 different style programs which both have use. Assuming you are lucky enough to not have problems to start with S8 is a great beginners program and it can get pretty sophisticated with the use of Hollywood FX Plus or Pro but VV3 will simply blow it away for pure editing and output ability. It's been reported on the S8 forum that you can get it with rebate as low as $10.00 now. I use it for a lot of things and it can do a quick video faster than just about anything out there. In S8 they added a new very good Mpeg2 encoder and nice DVD authoring as well with Motion Menus and Buttons. One output does it all right to disk(assuming you don't have the problems that others have reported). Vegas is by far more advanced and stable but it's also not as easy to use or learn. Sometimes I capture and start in S8 and then bring the rendered .avi into Vegas to do the more sophisticated stuff to finish. I also some times go the otherway and make just what I need in VV3 and then bring it into S8 to finsh to DVD.

Have a good day!!!