I started with Studio400, Then moved to StudioDV ver 1.0 thru 1.4. After reading about everyone's experience with Studio 7 and 8, I see that I dumped Pinnacle's trash at the right time. My first real editing hardware and software was Canopus' DVRaptor with Premiere 5.1c. It was wonderful! I'm now using VV3. I miss the variety of 3D transitions I had with SoftExplode but I can live with it!