Rating: 
Summary: Avoid This
Review: User interface is great. Everything else is horrible. It crashes, hangs, burps, and everything else software shouldn't do. I never got it to write a DVD, ever. It will render successfully, and thats when I switch over to my Sony software that was bundled with my DVD, which always works, and burn the DVD with that. Only problem is the DVD menus with the Sony software are very basic. I can't complain too much about this junk, because I paid $79 and got a $50 rebate. My daughter in college used Imovie, which comes with the operating system on a MacIntosh and produced a really great movie. I plan to uninstall this garbage, and get Vegas+DVD (by Sony), or Adobe Premier, I haven't decided yet.
Rating:
Summary: I wonder why this company still can do business
Review: I, along two other friends have the same experience as it has been reported in other reviews. This software makes your computer useless, UPON INSTALLATION. Please DON NOT INSTALL THIS Software on your computer. Otherwise, you will end up with CD Device not working, Hard Disk failure and SCSII cards failure. I say this out of actual experience.
Rating:
Summary: Glad it was free...
Review: I received this software through a Canon rebate and was excited to create some DVDs of family gatherings, new child, etc. Nothing extraordinary here. My computer is less than a year old, has 512RAM but with this software functioned like it was 10 years old. I never did get this software to work how I wanted. Each time I tried to accomplish something, it ran so slow that my patience quickly evaporated and turned to mad frustation. Not only this, but it completely jacked up my machine. Everything seemed to run slow. So last night I backed up all my files, wiped my drive, re-installed XP and all my programs except this...amazingly, my computer works great again. DO NOT INSTALL THIS SOFTWARE!
Rating:
Summary: Problems with Studio 8
Review: Except for a very long rendering time, Studio 8 ran fine until I upgraded from 8.10 to 8.12. When I clicked on the "Make Movie" tab the computer consistently crashed with a Windows Protection Error or just hung up the computer necessitating a cold boot.
The Pinnacle Tech support came up with all sorts of fixes which none worked.
The program obviously was released and not tested prior to release.
It is junk and I would not recommend it to anyone.
I am using Windows ME but others using XP are having similar problems.
Rating:
Summary: Program is VERY Buggy!!!
Review: I got Pinnacle Studio 8 free with my Camcorder purchase. This program looks great but doesn't work. Thank goodness I never paid for it because it's the worst program I have ever used in my WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE!! I cannot comprehend why a company would put a product out that doesn't work. It goes against every moral principle I know. I could not compile anything for burning. Spent hours editing DV movies only to have program stall during compilation and burning. I did however get it to burn an 8 minute segment of a VCD. But it did so because I just simply spliced a few segments together and then ripped it. It took me hours to figure this out. Basically, if you add the effects, such as fading and animation, the program will not compile properly. Isn't that the whole point of the software, to be able to burn cd's and DVD's of home movies? Folks, save your money and don't buy this version. It is truly a ripoff.
Rating:
Summary: This product may damage your PC at great cost to you.
Review: I bought a new PC with video editing in mind. I'm a professional documentary cameraman and wanted to be able to work on showreels at home. Sudio 8 sounded just the business at minimal cost. Loaded Studio 8 on. No problems capturing video, but several crashes during editing and rendering. Pinnacle Support (who take 2-5 days to answer emails) recommended upgrades. No improvement. Then they recommended deleting/reinstalling. No improvement. Then they recommended deleting, cleaning registry using their downloadable tool "Regdelete" then reinstalling. No improvement in Studio which I more or less gave up using because of the rendering issues but meanwhile crashes started occurring during all programmes, especially Outlook. These got worse and worse. Microsoft's online analysis would blame the crash on an unknown device driver. So I started trying to roll back (system restore) Windows, unable to. Ended up with crashes occurring on start-up. An engineer came and was unable to repair Windows so installed a second copy on my C drive. Recovered most of my data apart from Outlook (ie. emails and addresses, very frustrating). Re-installed a programme a day to try and work out which software had caused the problems. PC stable as a rock until the day I installed Studio 8. Crashes occuring again. Meanwhile Studio doing everything it promised except unable to burn SVCDs (it would burn VCDs and mpgs). This using just their "Photoshoot" files that come with programme. Contacted Pinnacle tech support again, again (several days later) they recommended deleting S8, running regdelete, and reloading. And guess what ? PC totally unstable again, rollback facility/system restore doesn't cure the problem, emails lost again, more money to be spent on an engineer. This £40 piece of garbage has probably cost me £ 100 in fixes and 2 or 3 hundred hours of frustration. I'm really surprised that Microsoft haven't closed Pinnacle down. This product clearly damages Windows XP in such a serious way that only a total re-installation will recover your PC. Beware. PS. If you do insist on trying it out (even after reading all these appalling reviews !!) then 2 things. Firstly use the Photoshoot mpgs supplied to edit, render and burn some test discs. If it all works and your PC remains stable, then try using your own footage. Maybe it will work for you. If it fails at any of these operations, give up now, return it for a refund. And secondly, do not under any circumsatnces use their regdelete tool. This I believe is what scrambles XP irrecoverably. Don't be tempted as I and many others were, to spend hours editing your own footage only to find out there are rendering problems which make all your efforts wasted. And if there are any Pinnacle staff out there reading this... I hope one day somebody screws you over as badly as you've screwed all your customers. Shame on you.
Rating:
Summary: Studio 8 is a disaster!
Review: Stay away from Studio 8! Its a terrible product! I "run" it on an XP PC, 2.4 ghz processor, 1 gb ram. It constantly freezes. When rendering, when it completes, it will include only the last 2 or 3 minutes of the video. Don't even consider this terrible product! View other users experiences
Rating:
Summary: I design software for a living
Review: ....and this is PURE TRASH. This garbage should have never went out the door. Thier support organization is utterly deplorable. I'd FIRE the whole lot, dev team, support team, ect..... and start from scratch. I've also filled a formal complaint with my state better business bureau and encourage others to do the same. There have been users that have had a lot of problems with this app screwing up their OS as well. This is JUST PLAIN WRONG folks!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY Studio 8 or 9
Review: ...unless you want hours of frustration. Worst software purchase decision ever made. Incredibly unstable and buggy. Won't install due to "error reading license information" bug which require you to download from their website all sorts of register keys, patches and updates. Also, don't expect any product support, Pinnacle only supports users via email which adds another whole level of frustration. See CNET ratings (I wish I did). Over 70% gave it a thumbs down. Switched to Sony Screenblast Movie 3.0 and it has work fine so far.
Rating: 
Summary: Intuitive Video Editing, Dismal DVD Burning
Review: I have used Studio-8, Ulead Video Studio and Sony Vegas 4+DVD. Studio-8 is by far the easiest program to edit video. I could use it straight out of the box. The problem was getting my project out of the computer and onto a DVD. My equipment is a HP 2.4 GHz P4 with 1 meg RAM, an nVidia GeForce2 MX400 video card, separate 80 GB 7500 RPM HD for video capture only and a new Pioneer A-07U DVD burner. But I had no luck burning to a DVD. Either the computer would try to grind for hours burning to disk or it would just freeze. Pinnacle tech support is a mirage designed to torture us.
I am now using Vegas 4+DVD. Compared to Studio-8, it has a steep learning curve, its expensive and it's really over kill for editing home videos, but unlike the Pinnacle Product, it's stable and it works.
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