Rating: 
Summary: Simply put, it doesn't work
Review: I am sorry, I don't know what the "spotlight reviews are" but this software, including the very latest "fix" just doesn't work as advertised. pinnacle is lucky not to get a class action suit because a simple search on the web will show you that hundreds and hundres of users, including experts in dvd authoring find that this program almost always creates movies with audio out of synch with video, even on the most cutting edge fast pc's.You will also see universal distain for the totally absent pinnacle "tech support" which will send you an identical form letter email NO MATTER what problem you have. Go ahead, go their site and send an email to support saying "I have a problem with audio and video not synched. I guarantee you you will get a response that has nothing to do with this totally fatal problem in studio eight. So if you are a masocist; if you want to make a copy of barney from a capture card and put it on a dvd; or put a home movie from your top-of-the-line digital movie camera on dvd be my guest. after hours of work, and waste of any number of dvd recordable disks, you will write tech support. they will send a response nothing to do with your question. then spend a few DAYS getting someone on the phone by calling direct and insisting. tech support will tell you the problem is your captured material is no good. right, that is why EVERY single playing program from windows media player on down plays the original material in sych. yeah right. I have been using pc's for 20 years. I have had my share of headaches and am always cautious about blaiming a software maker. but this product is a total rip-off. I don't say that lightly. LAST, if you read here that someone says they installed the lates "beta" or "fix" and their synch problems are fixed, laugh it off. fixes for this problem come out every few weeks and a scan opf pinnacles web boards and other dvd authing forums show that these problems are more often made worse!
Rating:
Summary: Not worth your time and money.
Review: First off I have a Sony Vio Digital Studio computer 2.66 ghz Pentium 4 with 512 ddr ram, so I know its not my computer or my dads pentium 4 hyper thread 3.0 ghz with 2 ghz rdram causing the problems. First off this software has tons of nice features, too bad it doesnt burn any more than 7 seconds to a disc, O.K. well I will just edit my mpeg2 file and export it and use a different burning software. Roxio 6 start burning (error) well mabe Nero 6 Ultra will work start burning (error). To sum it up too many bugs in the software dont buy unless you want to waste money. Also if you are looking for a great video editing software to edit the comercials, add sound, and transitions and many other features to your video files get honestech video editor 5 its the best editor I have ever used, its quick easy and cheap.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money!!
Review: This program is the worst program ever! It crashes more often than it works, it's very slow, and the support does not respond half the time. I wish I would've looked into it more. It is a waste of money. It doesn't even deserve 1 star! Don't buy this!
Rating:
Summary: Clearly it's my fault
Review: If I were to listen to Pinnacle's tech support, I would believe that I cannot burn a disc of my movies because my computer is inadequate. That's interesting as my computer conforms to all of the specifications listed in their manual. It's not my computer; it's their program. It has never successfully burned a disc, generally crashing as it reaches the end of the "rendering" portion of the process. I have uninstalled/reinstalled many times and, after upgrading from Pinnacle's website, the program won't even open.
Rating:
Summary: Do not buy!
Review: I have had some real problems with this software. And the customer service at Pinnacle is terrible! The always tell you the same thing, "Uninstall and re-install".
When I would burn my finished product onto VCD, deleted scenes or something would blink in and throw my movie off sync. Talk about annoying! I am sure there is software better than this out there. I am going to try Adobe Premier now and I hope I get the results from it that I need.
*Mac users praise the computer gods for giving you Imovie!
Rating:
Summary: Looks good but VERY unstable
Review: This product is packed full of features--transitions, effects, titles etc. I wish it worked, but it is VERY unstable. The title editor and the DVD menu editor make the entire program crash whenever I opened them up. The program would also just close sporadically. I paid over $100 for this and Hollywood FX and I can't use either. Customer support doesn't offer much in the way of solutions either--I have contacted them 4 times now and I'm still stuck with a very buggy program. Check out Roxio Movie Creator for a basic,easy video editing program. For a program that offers you more control, Video Explosion is awesome and packed full of features just like Studio 8--plus its very stable.
Rating:
Summary: I'd give it negative stars if I could
Review: Don't buy it. My kids will probably all gratuate from college before I can get a DVD project completed with this software. It is a lemon. It has awesome features, which makes the experience all the more bitter. You think you've created a masterpiece, and then some software bug corrupts your project and makes a DVD unproducable. It'll fail you when you most need it. If Pinnacle ever gets their act together, I'll revise this review. But for now, I'd give it negative stars if I could.
Rating: 
Summary: Patience is a virtue and you will need alot of it.
Review: The program works fine for simple projects if you tolerate the occasional crash. The more complex the project the more problems you will run into. Support is worthless. For each of the problems I reported I was told to reload the software. Then I was told to reload the operating system. After my own investigation I found out that Studio 8 has a conflict with another Pinnacle program. Once I uninstalled the other Pinnacle program the problem disappeared. I spent weeks on one project when I encountered a problem and all support could tell me was that the project was corrupted and I would have to start over. The layout of Pinnacle's support web site gives an indication of how poor support is. The 'NEW' section lists the latest fixes from 2002! Even now when you select the latest update for XP you get an error that the page can't be found. I spent many many dollars on Pinnacle software and for the most part the software is slow (even on a 3.2GH system), has occasional crashes and has many bugs. I also purchased the Edition upgrade from version 4.5 to 5.0 in July. A 5.1 fix upgrade was posted on the web site in August and now Edition is listed as Legacy with the upgrade being a $399 upgrade to Liquid Edition! If you enjoy spending lots of money to upgrade Pinnacle software to try and fix the bugs in Pinnacle software then Pinnacle is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Abysmal technical support.
Review: I love the ease of use of this program. It is full featured and produces amazing results in a huge variety of formats (DVD, SVCD, etc.). However, I originally purchased its predecessor, Studio DV which came with a firewire PCI card which has given me no end of grief, despite upgrading and eventually replacing my system to a much faster one. Their tech support frequently takes over a week to respond to emails (if at all), and seems to be delaying the whole exchange process to a ridiculous degree. They have a telephone option for support which is $14.95 per incident with a 40 minute wait time on hold. If you are daring enough to buy from this company count on NO WARRANTY coverage, as practically that is what I have received so far.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent program for a Patient user
Review: I must say that you have to be really, and I mean really really patient to use this program. I worked with a 30 minute video project that I burned to a DVD and didn't have a bit of problem except off course slowness. I use a Dell 1.6GHz with 640MB Ram and 80GB drive. It never crashed for me although I have read a lot of reviews stating that program is very unstable. This is not the case for me. I finished entire project in one day. I did a lot of editing with over 100 transition effects and background music. Rendering took over 8 hours but I let it run overnight and the dvd was burned in the morning without any flaws. The only bad part about it is that when I was adding tranitions it made me wait a long time to add each transition effect. Over all I am satisfied with the program. It produced excellent results for me.
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