Rating: 
Summary: WORST PRODUCT EVER
Review: I cannot speak on behalf of the other types of camcorders, but if you have a Sony MicroMv camcorder, do not buy this product. I started out with Studio 8 in May 2003 and upgraded to Studio 9 in May 2004 hoping that I would be able to create my first DVD with the upgrade. I won't get into the myriad of problems I experienced with Studio 8. I couldn't even get past the capture process in Studio 9. Studio dropped all but the first one minute of my tape. The problem has nothing to do with my system as I not only have a very powerful system, I've been capturing to a 160GB external hard drive. It turns out that Pinnacle is aware of a known error when trying to capture using MicroMv camcorders. They have been promising a patch since March and to date cannot guarantee when it will be released. I am truly sorry I wasted my money on this product. It just seems to be one problem after another with them.
Rating: 
Summary: When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, its a disaster.
Review: I had previously used Studio 8 to edit my movies and spent many, many hours trying to find work arounds and reasons for all of the crashes. Studio 9 is moderately better. I keep going back because it's very easy to learn and simple to use. I tried switching to Screenblaster and was really disappointed with the choices of transitions and menus. Studio 9 has a wide variety of menus included and even more if you're willing to shell out a little more money.
I have a nice computer that I bought with video editing in mind and editing and rendering is still a slow process. The program tends to crash for no apparent reason so I've learned to deal with that by saving my work every 2 minutes. It's far from an ideal situation, but when I finally have my project edited and completed, it looks almost professional so that makes it worth the headaches to me. Buyers have to decide for themselves if it's worth it to them.
Rating:
Summary: The Product from Hell
Review: I hate this !@#$ lol. Don't buy it! I lost all my sons first year little lead football video clips. I could never get it to add music tracks. It will not let you add mp3s etc. Ahhh!@#$%^^&*()_+=-
Rating: 
Summary: Easy and powerful
Review: I have a recent Dell Optiplex, very stable and powerful, with a SATA hard disk and a DVD burner.
I've been using the Version 8 release, with all the service packs, and noticed how easy it is to get amazing results with little effort.
I just got the Version 9 (Italian version), because I needed the 16:9 feature and could not work on my last videos with the Version 8 (I have a Canon MVX3i, with hi-def 16:9). Also, I felt the need to work full screen with higher screen resolutions. Now it is much nicer to use.
This release is not yet entirely stable: it crashed after successfully completing the burning of my first test DVD. But the autosave feature works ok, and the project was safe. Let's wait for the updates. The video, seen on the TV, was great!
The program enclose all the tools you need, including a nice dvd menu editor and lots of gadgets and high quality 2D and (few!) 3D transaction.
Be carefull that the "surround" audio that they advertise is not the 5.1 Dolby Digital. It is just a Surround Pro Logic, without the separation of the rear channels. Which could be more that enough for the amatorial videos, but should be more evident in the ads.
Features I would like to see added to the product: full 5.1 Dolby Digital audio and good quality variable rate MPEG 2 video compression (which, as far as I understand, is now only fixed rate), with anamorphic 16:9.
Anyway the product is very nice and worth its price.
-------
-------
A few week after I started using this software I have to come back and reconsider what I originally wrote. The potential of this software is great. If it did all it should, it would be fantastic. But there are so many bugs it's almost impossible to work. It's the third patch (9.0.8), and every time it gets worse. Some bugs are fixed, some new one are created. Now it's almost impossible to burn dvd's. I cannot believe they can release patches where you can find bugs after 5 minutes you use them! I would like to be refund! Two stars still because to potential is good. But as the software is today, it would deserve minus 5!
Rating:
Summary: Beware
Review: I have bought Pinnacle Studio 7 & 8. The application itself is not a bad one, and it is quite user friendly...when it works. My blood pressure has skyrocketed many times dealing with Studio 8. It kept on crashing on me. Not only did it crash, but I always had to reboot my PC in order for it to start working again. I learned to save every time I changed anything and I was always stressed about it crashing...and it always did...eventually. The worse was it crashing every few minutes or so. Paying that much money for an application that doesn't deliver like it should is unacceptable. I called Pinnacle to get an upgrade. Current customers get 40% off of the retail price, so, one would have to shell out another $60 to get the product to work. Does Studio 9 have the same problems as Studio 8? The customer rep couldn't guarantee that it didn't. He also told me that Pinnacle wasn't doing anything for customers that bought Studio 8 a few days before Studio 9 was released. Am I the only one that sees something incredibly wrong with that? Where has good customer service gone?
Rating:
Summary: Re Problems with studio 8 etc.
Review: I have over the past used many studio programs and I can not lie and say studio 8/Studio 9 are with out a few problems(just like the operating systems they sat on ) but having used other video software found a lot faster rendering etc (quality does suffer) so what I would say I have had no problems at all producing DVDs etc using studio 8, I have a 2000mhz processor with 512 of DDR Ram running at 266m so what's the problem you Guys in the US is it 110volts your on or What?
Rating:
Summary: Packed with "Bells, Whistles and BUGS"!!!
Review: I have owned this product for just over a month, and have been using it regularly. It is running on a monster PC packed with a 200 gig hard drive, 256 mb of video ram, 1 gig of system memory, a top of the line Pentium 4 processor, using XP professional. So, Pinnacle cannot blame the hardware! If you use the BASICS of the software, you MIGHT be ok - but when pushed to the limit, the software FAILS miserably! I am currently working on a 10 minute video project, adding an audio track and editing - a basic function of this software - yet, it cannot handle the process. The software constantly locks up performing simple tasks - such as opening a section of video. I have actually uninstalled the software, and reinstalled it just to get it to operate again. On the second install, I chose NOT to install the 9.3.5 upgrade released late in 2004, in hopes the software would be more stable - and in fact, it has been. Support is worthless - it took nearly a week to get a response, and the diagnosis was hysterical - I'll post it at my web site soon (drakkar91.com/studio). Equally sad is this software wins awards from big-name PC magazines - must be pay for play, because anyone putting this software to the test will see it cannot handle larger more intense projects. Spend your money elsewhere. Why pay retail for software like this? No wonder so many people download bootlegged copies off the Internet - it's not like you're getting good software or support for the money paid.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent software
Review: I have used 4 different brands of video editing software around this price point. Pinnacle Studio 9 is the winner in most regards. I'd give Microsoft's movie maker a highly defeatured second place for being very easy to use but far less functional. Pros of Studio:
- Very flexible
- High quality output
- Version 9 has been completely stable (hardware incompatibilities can cause problems though, as other reviews show, so check if you're compatible -- if you're not, the crashes are a royal pain as I've seen with other video software)
- Burn straight to DVD
- Create DVD scenes in your movie very easily
- Merges in photos effectively
- fades, wipes, effects are outstanding Cons
- Limited number of tracks for audio/video -- (as with all sw at this pricepoint)
- No pans and fades for photos, only transitions
- No support for WMV format, which is much more compressed but lower quality Overall, you can VERY easily go from your DV tape into Pinnacle, and then edit/cut/fade add music, etc, then burn to DVD with very professional results. The UI is intuitive and the results are great. If you're interested in slightly simpler work and don't need great flexibility, the Microsoft movie maker (free with XP) is actually quite good too. As of my last use you can't burn to DVD though so need added software for that.
Rating:
Summary: Audio/Video sync problems, among others???
Review: I have used Pinnacle Studio 7 and 8 on two different custom built computers and I am very pleased with both versions. I have read many reviews from other users that state that their audio and video are out of sync. I have edited several home movies and have compressed to both MPEG 1 (VCD) and MPEG 2 (SVCD) and (DVD). With all three formats, I have had perfect audio/video syncronization. I do not know what combination of factors would lead to these syncronization problems, but from my experience, assuming the uniformity of the Pinnacle Studio software from user to user, the problem is not inherently with this product. In addition, I have not made any particular note that this software contributes to the crashing of my computer any more than any other program or operation. The only reason I did not give this product a 5 star review is because of its transitions. The majority of its transitions display the Pinnacle icon, which I find to be a shameless plug, and I refuse to juxtapose it with images of my family for all posterity to see. I would also like to be able to superimpose images.
Rating:
Summary: Pinnacle is All Marketing & Sales
Review: I read some of the positive reviews here and wonder if either Pinnacle is hiring staff just to post glowing reviews or these users just haven't used the product and noticed the audio-out-of-sync problem yet. Certainly they would have noticed the PC freezing up 5 minutes into editing, so I'm going to lean towards the former. If you are the kind of person that likes to go against the grain and ignore all the real users' warnings to stay away from anything made by Pinnacle, then you have no one to blame but yourself if it turns out to be the nightmare it is for most users. Just make sure you fully test out the product within the store's warranty, because my Pinnacle product did not have a manufacturers warranty and I could not return it.
|
