Rating: 
Summary: will not burn to DVD
Review: Home users, beware. Before you buy anything from Pinnacle, you need to know that their main market is professional video people. They market and sell to the home user, but after the sale, want nothing to do with you. If you work normal hours, you'll have to take a vacation day to get help from them, paying $30 a pop plus long distance charges for the privilege, after your first call, which is probably going to be about getting the product installed. I have not yet been able to complete the software installation, as I keep getting a message, after typing in all the characters in the serial number, that I need a valid serial number. Boycott this company until they decide whether they want our business or not.
Rating:
Summary: Another unsupported disaster from Pinnacle
Review: Home users, beware. Before you buy anything from Pinnacle, you need to know that their main market is professional video people. They market and sell to the home user, but after the sale, want nothing to do with you. If you work normal hours, you'll have to take a vacation day to get help from them, paying $30 a pop plus long distance charges for the privilege, after your first call, which is probably going to be about getting the product installed. I have not yet been able to complete the software installation, as I keep getting a message, after typing in all the characters in the serial number, that I need a valid serial number. Boycott this company until they decide whether they want our business or not.
Rating:
Summary: Avoid Studio 9 at all Costs!
Review: I bought a Dazzle 150 analog video capture device and it came with Pinnacle Studio 9.3 SE. Capturing from the device was a breeze. I didn't encounter any problems and the quality was quite good. Things started to look pretty bad when I started editing, however. At first, by adding a few existing MPEG-1 files to my storyboard, I was able to produce somewhat of a movie and with transitions in between. However, once I got to about 20 clips, my system started getting bogged down performance wise. Anything I did in Studio 9 took about 5 minutes to accomplish - and I mean anything! From a keystroke to a mouse click, every single input action I gave Studio 9 took forever to complete. What was Studio 9 doing? Who knows! I did some research on the Internet and found a suggestion someone made regarding turning off background rendering, so I did. I still had the same problem. Everything I did took forever for Studio 9 to process. It's not like I told it to make the movie, I was simply doing things like inserting transitions, moving a clip from one position in the storyboard to another, and simply clicking on an existing storyboard clip. After about the 25th video clip, Studio 9 now took about 30 minutes to do any little thing. It's not like I have an old, slow system either. I have a P4 3.0GHz hyperthreaded, 1GB DDR400 RAM, 120GB SATA HD, ATI Radeon 128MB video card, Windows XP Professional system! Now that's pretty fast! There should be no reason for Studio 9 to have to take 30 minutes to do something in response to a simple mouse click on an existing storyboard video clip!
So, in an effort to resolve this issue, I decided to go to Pinnacle's website and see if there were any patches available for download. There was: version 9.3.5. So, I downloaded it and installed it. Now, the program wouldn't start! It gave me a 'DLLMain entry point' error! Can you believe that? The patch made things worse! After reading some FAQs at Pinnacle's site regarding this issue, I did what they told me to do: 1) uninstall Studio 9, 2) remove the entire application directory from disk, 3) remove anything running from the background in memory (such as antivirus programs, anti-spyware, unnecessary services, etc.), 4) re-install Studio 9, and then 5) re-apply the patch. After going through steps 1 through 4, I was able to get the unpatched version of Studio 9 running. However, after installing the patch once again, I got the same 'DLLMain entry point' error! I still could not start Studio 9.3.5! I should've left it unpatched. At least it would've worked period!
So, I decided to reformat my entire hard drive, re-install Windows XP and then re-install Studio 9. I planned on only having Windows XP and Studio 9 on my system. After installing both Windows XP and Studio 9 on my system, I had a working version of Studio 9 running. So, I decided to try out, once more, the patch. This time the patch worked! I had to completely re-install my operating system in order to get this patch to work with my OS! What a nightmare! So, I created my project again from scratch. I added some video clips and some transitions. After about the 20th video clip, which are each only about 5 minutes in length, Studio 9 started to creep. It started getting slower and slower! After about the 25th video clip added to my storyboard, I decided to give up! This is not worth the time and frustration! I took my Dazzle 150 and Studio 9 package back to the store for a FULL refund (after carefully re-packaging the box like it was new)!
I will NEVER buy another Pinnacle product again! Their software is completely useless, poorly developed and obviously poorly tested. Instead, I bought a firewire card and converter and Intervideo's WinDVD Creator and ULead's VideoStudio software. Both ran just fine on my system. I didn't experience ANY slowness (unless of course it was time to make the movie) during my editing phase of using both programs, adding video clips to the storyboard didn't take 30 minutes to complete and simply clicking and keyboard actions didn't take 15 minutes to accomplish! These are really good programs that are fast, have great quality and WORK! Pinnacle's Studio 9 is the worst software I've ever encountered!
You've been warned - DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT! Note: the Dazzle 150 device itself was great, it was Studio 9 that was the problem. Oh yeah, another point, the Dazzle 150 can only be used with Pinnacle software - you can't use it with other video editing software such as WinDVD and VideoStudio!
Rating:
Summary: Locks up often
Review: I bought this with out doing much research and went with the sales persons recommendation. WRONG move. Studio 9 deluxe has been nothing but trouble for me. I got it to capture from my mini DV camcorder just fine and I started to edit the footage and was finding it easy and simple. I started connecting segments together and then began to adjust the length of the segments. At this point it started to lock up often, like about every other segment drop. After working with it for about 8hrs total I had my 25 min film clipped together. I then started to add wipes and then, about 5 clips into the 25 min film, it locked up on me and I had to back out. Now, every time I go back into it to add more wipes, the display locks up and will not show me the final product. I AM RETURNING THIS PRODUCT ASAP. Pinnacle has released 2 updates to this 9.0.0 version (the 9.0.0 version ships with the product)but, at this point, I dont want to even try the updates. The other reviews on this site listed above me tell the story. I think Pinnacle should stay in the Professional business. Count me out on this home version. I am looking hard at Pyro Professional from Abode. Its twice the money but I bet it will be half the headache. God Bless you in you decision ><>
Rating:
Summary: Locks up often
Review: I bought this with out doing much research and went with the sales persons recommendation. WRONG move. Studio 9 deluxe has been nothing but trouble for me. I got it to capture from my mini DV camcorder just fine and I started to edit the footage and was finding it easy and simple. I started connecting segments together and then began to adjust the length of the segments. At this point it started to lock up often, like about every other segment drop. After working with it for about 8hrs total I had my 25 min film clipped together. I then started to add wipes and then, about 5 clips into the 25 min film, it locked up on me and I had to back out. Now, every time I go back into it to add more wipes, the display locks up and will not show me the final product. I AM RETURNING THIS PRODUCT ASAP. Pinnacle has released 2 updates to this 9.0.0 version (the 9.0.0 version ships with the product)but, at this point, I dont want to even try the updates. The other reviews on this site listed above me tell the story. I think Pinnacle should stay in the Professional business. Count me out on this home version. I am looking hard at Pyro Professional from Abode. Its twice the money but I bet it will be half the headache. God Bless you in you decision ><>
Rating: 
Summary: Pinnacle misleads purchasers
Review: I purchase the Pinnacle Studio Av/Dv Deluxe version 9 video editing software. The package States that it includes 288 unique 2d and 3d transitions. The web site says " The package includes a professional breakout box, hundreds of additional 2D and 3D transitions and the full version of Pinnacle Studio v.9, the most powerful software video editor in its class" and the owners manual says it comes with the transitions. But I found out you must pay as much as $500.00 extra to unlock them. I found on their web sites frequently asked questions that this had been brought to their attention months ago and they have made no effort to change the web site or packaging to clarify that it may come with the 288 transitions but you can't use them without paying more. Most companies would put an * next to the description and explain that they are not usable without paying a fee. This is the most blatant false advertising I have ever seen. The reason some people can't make it work is if you use one of the locked transitions without paying the fee it won't burn the DVD. I didn't see that you had to pay extra and it will let you put them in but wont burn. No warning comes up or anything to inform you it wont work without paying extra. I have had no problems other then the false advertising it works good and mine is very fast to render and burn.
Rating:
Summary: Pinnacle misleads purchasers
Review: I purchase the Pinnacle Studio Av/Dv Deluxe version 9 video editing software. The package States that it includes 288 unique 2d and 3d transitions. The web site says " The package includes a professional breakout box, hundreds of additional 2D and 3D transitions and the full version of Pinnacle Studio v.9, the most powerful software video editor in its class" and the owners manual says it comes with the transitions. But I found out you must pay as much as $500.00 extra to unlock them. I found on their web sites frequently asked questions that this had been brought to their attention months ago and they have made no effort to change the web site or packaging to clarify that it may come with the 288 transitions but you can't use them without paying more. Most companies would put an * next to the description and explain that they are not usable without paying a fee. This is the most blatant false advertising I have ever seen. The reason some people can't make it work is if you use one of the locked transitions without paying the fee it won't burn the DVD. I didn't see that you had to pay extra and it will let you put them in but wont burn. No warning comes up or anything to inform you it wont work without paying extra. I have had no problems other then the false advertising it works good and mine is very fast to render and burn.
Rating:
Summary: No Audio, Poor Audio Sync
Review: I returned this program after countless hours trying to copy VHS tapes to DVD.I burned 4 coasters with no audio, video was fine. I spent hours on the phone with tech support and was given a different fix each time to try. When I finally figured out that when bringing up the volume control menu and selecting Properties then "Recording" I was able to burn the DVD with sound however the sync with the lip movement was terrible. I again attempted to copy a musical I created, the lip sync was even worse. After purchasing a book by Jan Ozer and trying to figure out how to correct the Audio Sync, I still lost the battle and returned the product to Best Buy for refund. Anyone buying this program is asking for a lot of headaches.
Rating:
Summary: No Audio, Poor Audio Sync
Review: I returned this program after countless hours trying to copy VHS tapes to DVD. I burned 4 coasters with no audio, video was fine. I spent hours on the phone with tech support and was given a different fix each time to try. When I finally figured out that when bringing up the volume control menu and selecting Properties then "Recording" I was able to burn the DVD with sound however the sync with the lip movement was terrible. I again attempted to copy a musical I created, the lip sync was even worse. After purchasing a book by Jan Ozer and trying to figure out how to correct the Audio Sync, I still lost the battle and returned the product to Best Buy for refund. Anyone buying this program is asking for a lot of headaches.
Rating:
Summary: Buy a DVD Recorder Instead!!!
Review: I said this in an earlier post, but it is the truth. Don't waste your time with this problematic software and capture device. I had Studio 8 which had the problem of audio not being in synch with the video (you'll see people talking and hear it a few seconds later), and Pinnacle denied it was a problem with their software (yet almost everyone complained about it on their own forums!) So they released Studio 9, and of course, that same problem (along with system crashes) existed. Finally, after a year, they admitted it was a problem, and they are looking into it...NOW. The company was in shambles but they finally got a new CEO recently with the balls (even though it's a she) to admit the clowns running the show didn't know what the hell they were doing. Anyway, save yourself the hassle and just buy a DVD recorder so you won't have to worry about whether your PC is fast enough, has enough memory, has enough hard drive space, etc. Believe me, if you don't, NO PC video software will work. Another thing is that even if Studio 9 works (which it doesn't), it takes 4-5 hours to just compile the video whereas the average for other editing programs like Adobe Premier and ULead MovieFactory is only 1-2 hours. This doesn't include editing time. Again, save the headache, and get a DVD recorder. You can always edit your results later with a program called ImTOO DVD Ripper which will convert your DVD into a format that you can edit with a WORKING software package.
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