Rating: 
Summary: So far, so good
Review: I got the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe in spite of the reviews I read here, having faith that the version that's shipping now will have resolved some of those issues. That, and I know you have to take reviews with a grain of salt. That being said...I had absolutely no problems with the installation of the hardware or software, paying close attention to the installation manual (which tells you to NOT allow windows to install the hardware drivers, to do so during the software installation). The installation even allowed for a free upgrade download from Pinnacle's website. The version I got was 8.4, but I was upgraded to 8.5 during installtion. I haven't played around with the software enough to get really good, but was able to put together a nice minute-long movie of my dog, with full title intro, credits at the end, a couple of transitions between scenes and an MP3 soundtrack. All without reading the software manual, and only have the software installed for a couple of hours. It's pretty intuitive. However, I did have a couple of problems. The title generator caused the program to crash with no errors on two occaisions. I was using non-standard fonts that installed on my machine, so that may have cause the problem. Also, I've yet to master the art of optimizing output. I burned a couple of VCDs, both of which looked a bit choppy (lo-res) on my TV. I'm hoping the out-to-DVD and out-to-VHS qualtiy is a bit better. The MPGs that I created look good, but are a bit small (resolution-wise). Overall, I'm very happy with the product. It will allow us to make very interesting and professional-looking home movies.
Rating: 
Summary: Works well, but only with included software
Review: I got this when there was a $... rebate and wish I'd looked around first. First, let me say that it seems to do what it says with the included software, except that I have yet to find the "batch capture" feature to let me capture files from an entire tape in one pass. So if you're a casual user who just wants to edit both DV and analog home videos you actually get some pretty good capability for not much cash (especially if you can catch a rebate). BUT... you should be aware that other software probably will not recognize the analog I/O, so if you want to use something other than Pinnacle Studio (I'm a musician and sound designer so Vegas Video is a much more complete tool for me - and it has a "capture tape" button!) you may have to do some workarounds to bring analog video into your project or to send it out to your non-firewire recorder (e.g. VHS deck). For me, I kind of wish I'd bit the bullet and gotten one of the standalone Canopus analog to firewire converters (which have gotten great reviews) and a separate firewire board instead. At $... for the Canopus and another $...for a firewire board, that's a bit more cash, but worth it if you don't want to have your selection of software dictated by Pinnacle. Again, I'm more of a semi-pro user with definite needs so Studio Deluxe may not be a bad deal for you.
Rating:
Summary: Basic Editing - Powerful System Required
Review: I have a little experence using video editing programs, so I was able to get this up and running fairly quickly. Here are my opinions: Pros:
Easy to install - Had it installed, updated, configured, and editing in under an hour. Easy to use - Had my first 1 hour video (with 13 chapters), captured, edited, rendered, and burned to DVD in under 4 hours (with breaks). Great results - My projects look very professional and "clean". Cons:
Very weak documentation - I had some experence with this type of software, otherwise my review would have been like some of the others posted here :-( Very resource intensive - I had tried to use this software earlier on my old PC (P3 550MHz, 128M RAM, 12G HD) and it crashed or failed almost every time. My system (Dell XPS P4 3.2 GHz, 1G RAM, 240G RAID 0 HD) has no problem handling this software.
Rating: 
Summary: Do Not Buy!!
Review: I have used this product with adobe premiere, and had luck capturing the analog viedo, but the video is very poor quality, the firewire on the card doesnt work, and when I have another firewire card installed, it conflicts with the pinnacle interface, and I cant capture any video (dv or pinnacle analog). The trouble shooting guide does no good. There are NO issues or problems that I had addressed in the trouble shooting guide. My recomendation is DO NOT BUY!!! This hardware has done NO good for my purposes!!
Rating: 
Summary: Did not even need the manual - believe it or not!
Review: I installed this system (using the install guide), and figured I would read the user's manual. I have never used any editing product before, and I am really low-tech. But, after the first couple pages, I got bored and figured I would just try it myself first. You know, I would read if I got into trouble. I did not need the manual. This product was really user friendly. I used it for a work project I was doing - I was having so much fun, I did not want to stop working!! I can't wait to find free time to make small movies of my kids - what great Birthday presents they will be for Grandma/Grandpa.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to use, but can't capture analog video
Review: I purchased this package to enable me to make copies of some older 8mm tapes. From looking at the product tour on the company's web site, it looked like just what I was looking for. I got it home and installed easily. The software was easy to use and seemed pretty powerful for this price range. I was thrilled. I got my camera hooked up and was ready to start the transfer. Everything looked good and I was ready to go. The capture process looked great. However, when I started to play back the captured segments, the video was very choppy and jerked around. I also noticed that the sound was not in sync with the video. On a 20 minute segment, the sound was about 2 second off. This is really bad considering that both the sound and the video were going into the same Pinnacle card. I have now spent the better part of four days trying all kinds of things to get this to work and nothing has helped. The tech support is awful. You basically get to look through a set of questions and answers. Most of the answers seem to be "make sure you have the latest version of the software and drivers". The only way to ask for support is to post a question to their support forum and hope some answers. After waiting three days, I haven't heard anything. I wish there was a simple easy to use product that would allow me to do a quality job of transferring my 8mm tape to DVD. I guess I'll try one of the tape-to-DVD places that will do this for $20/tape. I won't get to put all the cool menus and transitions and titles on for this price, but at least my tapes will be backed up and I won't have to worry about further degradation of the quality.
Rating:
Summary: Nice product, if you're willing to troubleshoot
Review: I saw over 100 consumer reviews ... praising this product and an equal number saying that it is hopelessly buggy or simply does not work. I am a moderately experienced PC user who bought and installed Studio Deluxe version 8.25.21 in June, 2003. This product is beautifully designed and rich in features, for a consumer video product. I found a number of blatant and frustrating bugs, but in the end was able to create a beautiful 30 minute video. Here is what I recommend: 1. Go to the Pinnaclesys.com site and spend at least 20 minutes going through their forum postings. Notice that the forum is nicely designed and very active. Notice that there are hundreds of very frustrated users who have spent weeks or even months getting Pinnacle to work the way it's supposed to. Notice that many of the threads have almost no helpful info from Pinnacle staff and are sprinkled with comments like "Hello, Pinnacle... anybody home?" or sad accounts of trying to get phone support. Users list the things they've tried, and eventually somebody comes up with a solution or work-around. Do not buy this product unless you are willing to troubleshoot your problems with other users on the Pinnacle forum and try 7 things before finding the thing that solves your problem. 2. If you make the plunge, buy it from a local retailer with a 14 day return policy (or better) and get right to work. 3. Install this on a late model computer running XP. Follow all their install recommendations (and those on the forum) to the letter, including adding a 2nd hard drive. My PC was a ... Dell 2350, but it was very up-to-date, and it was adequate. 4. If you are working to a deadline, leave lots of time for problem solving and refining your work. No matter what software you use, you will spend a crazy amount of time polishing your video. 5. Complete a small project before starting a large project. You may lose your work and have to start over, or find that you are unable to output your work to DVD. 6. There are bugs in this software, but keep your cool, and don't blame everything on Pinnacle. In my case, 1/3 of the problems were operator error, and 1/3 of the problems were due to a bad DVD burner. 7. If you can, wait 6-18 months. The whole video editing/ DVD burner situation may be ready for prime time by then.
Rating:
Summary: OK at video editing, awful for DVD burning
Review: I was OK with Studio 8 for the first few months I had it, I made simple VCDs and DVDs of my friends, it was amusing. Then I tried to make some more complicated things, with multi-level menus, and a number of different file types, and fill up the whole DVD. I ended up with about 5 coasters. The pinnacle tech support was no help at all. Then I found TMPG DVD Author, used to make DVD files which are then burned from within the program or burned with Nero. TMPG has not produced any coasters yet. Now I do all my editing/transitions with Studio 8, render it, and use TMPG to actually make the DVD. So all in all, I had to spend an extra $90 for a REAL dvd authoring progam to go along with Studio 8.
Rating:
Summary: Beware very buggy
Review: I wish I had read some of the reviews here before buying this program. It looked great, very nice design, lots of options. A few crashes here and there, but I've learned to save often. The real problems come in when you try and burn a DVD. Its really bad at only burning part of your DVD, which causes your movie to stop in the middle. Adjusting brightness can lead to an black screen on final DVD burn. Still images, which you lay titles over etc, all get lost when you save your project and reopen it. Its too bad, the layout and design is just awesome. I had such high hopes when I read through it. I hope they can fix some of this for the next release, since this version is nearly useless.
Rating:
Summary: Worked for me
Review: I'm not sure why the Pinnacle Studio didn't work for the previos poster, but it works great for me. I purchased it specifically for its analog input/capturing capabilities and have been very impressed. I run a college language/media laboratory and my work there includes digitizing video and placing it on our server. Pinnacle studio allows you to save your output in many formats inclugin Real-Media format which produces very small files of more than acceptable quality. Editing on this system is a joy. My only concern is that creating your own titles is a slightly clunky process (on the 7.0 version of the software, at least).
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