Rating: 
Summary: So far so good
Review: As War02Orc said, a higher end computer would work better for the Pinnacle Studio 8. The more RAM your computer has the better. The more hard drive space the better. The more speed the better. Currently I work with a computer that has 1.8 gigahertz speed, 1 gigabite of RAM, 100 gigabites of hard drive space,and I use an external hard drive with 120 gigabites of space. And both hard drives are formatted to NTFS instead of FAT32.
( Note:You can capture more video with NTFS than with FAT32.)I also make sure that I defragment my hard drives frequently, and when I log on to my computer, I look at my tool bar and check for other programs that are running and exit out of them before editing. From time to time Studio has its quirks, but I have not had any problems with it so far.
Rating: 
Summary: Not easy to learn, and runs very slowly
Review: I bought the Pinnacle Studio 8 software for the purpose of copying my library of VHS tapes to DVDs. It took me a while to figure out how to accomplish this, but now I have it running. However the program runs VERY slowly. I am using a 1.8 gHz Pentium4 with 256mb RAM so I expect the computer is powerful enough. But I am finding that it is taking 12 (twelve) hours of computer time to read, render, and write out one 90-minute VHS movie. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe I am, but I can't figure out from the help file what I need to fix or change, so I am kind of stuck. Pinnacle's user support seems to be non-existent. This is not working the way I expected and I am disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor Pinnacle
Review: This program has the basics of something great...but was never finished. It is extremely buggy and slow with an unimpressive final product. Pinnacles technical service is equally unimpressive.
It is the only program i ever purchased that i felt compelled to return.
Rating:
Summary: Oh I wish I would have read these reviews first!
Review: I bought my full version of Studio 8 today after playing with and enjoying the downloadable trial. Unfortunately, it won't even install (on a 24 hour old P4 2.6 ghz HP computer with XP). Apparently Pinnacle produced God knows how many install CDs with bad serial numbers. So now I get to wait to have Staples overnight me a new CD ... who knows if that will have the same problem or not. The good thing is that I didn't buy direct through Pinnacle after seeing how bad their support is.That said, I thorougly enjoyed the Trial Version and thought they had a great program until I experienced difficulties right out of the box.
Rating:
Summary: What a mess this is
Review: I have never run into an apllication that just will not work before. It won't install properly and it won't uninstall at all. Save your money and find some other application to create your movies. This one is nothing but trouble and a waste of your time and your money. It doesn't work out of the box and it won't work after the long upgrade that you have to download and install.
Rating:
Summary: IT DOES NOT WORK AT ALL!!!
Review: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY. I bought it bundled with a DVD burner and I'm going to return the whole thing all together, because it will cost more to just buy another stand alone program if you add the price of the burner to it. It has nice features but THEY DON'T WORK!!!! I already wasted 3 DVD-R's. Too bad I'm not allowed to shovel it back into the "mouths" of the people that wrote this software.
Rating:
Summary: Do not buy this program!
Review: This is, quite possibly, the worst piece of software I have ever owned. Not only is it full of bugs, tonight it started DELETING other programs on my hard drive. The other reviews are right on -- it has great potential, but it's not worth the hassle. To quote Monty Python, "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!" from Pinnacle Studio 8 as fast as you can.
Rating:
Summary: Frustration Defined
Review: I have never written a review on Amazon before,
but I felt compelled to warn you as to how my
experience has gone with the Pinnacle 8 software. In March, I bought a high end Dell computer with
the works. I did it specifically to do video-editing projects. The most important project was and still is (since I am
working through all the crashes this software causes) a video
with my grandmother singing various songs. I wanted to
finish it before her 90th birthday. That didn't happen.
I tend to be a very patient person, but after a month
of problems and one night when I lost the entire video
I had been putting together (I suddenly got error messages
when I tried to open the grandma file), I wanted to cry! Here's what did and does happen.
- Pinnacle 8 closes down on me no less than 20 times
a session. It just exits on its own and I have to
restart it all over again, yet I still carry on, because I'm
patient...or stupid.
- Pinnacle 8, at least mine, when you're preparing it to
burn on a DVD, it first renders the footage. This takes
a while and then you come back and with me, it crashes the
system. So I wait hours only to have it somehow hang on one
part, then crash.
- Pinnacle 8, after I tried to find a workaround solution,
rendered the footage, then proceeded to burn only
the first 15 seconds of my video. There were no error messages,
the DVD pops out, and you think you've finally succeeded until
you play it back again and see the title page followed by
nothing.
- Pinnacle 8 has given me many lovely, rather expensive, DVD
coasters. I place my orange juice on top. If you've already bought the software, here's what has helped
for me.
- Prozac.
- Just kidding. What you can do is to half your project. I've
cut Grandma's video down to 18 minutes each and have found
that it does render it in its entirety and burn it. In
order for this to work though, I've also had to lower the
quality of the video transfer unfortunately. I have it at 67
percent quality.
- Defragment your computer EVERYTIME before you
start the Make the DVD part. If you work on your video even
for a little bit, when it finally comes time to put it onto
a DVD, defragment. It helps with the rendering I think. This
takes a long time, then there's the rendering, then the
burning, expect to spend an entire day on it. So yes, after a month, by trying all these different ways to
approach my video project, I have made an 18-minute DVD. Now, if you want to be a modern blood, sweat, and tears artist, Pinnacle Studio 8 is the program for you. If not, then do not get this software and keep your sanity.
Rating:
Summary: Heh Heh Heh....Good Luck
Review: To begin with, I absolutely love this program....if it would only work for what I want to do. It captures my video/audio from an analog source quite well for analog. After editing I was able to output back to tape with outstanding quality. I agree it is slow, but if you have a newer computer (over 2 Ghz) it doesn't run that bad. BUT if you want to create DVD's, I would not recommend this program. I like all the options you get with the menus, you can basically create them any way you want along with rearanging the buttons to anywhere on the screen (a feature I cannot find in any other program), but somewhere during the rendering process the audio falls about 30 seconds behind the video, leaving you with a bad DVD. I have tried maybe 10 programs now, none of which work the way I want, so maybe its just a problem I'm having but its a brand new computer so I don't think so. Technical Support is a little slow over e-mail, but they do help you out. Everything they suggested didn't work and I noticed that after my last response my case got marked "Unresolved" and I never got a response. My guess - they don't know either. If you want to give this program a try - go ahead, but be aware it may not work.
Rating:
Summary: Buyer Beware!
Review: 2 words: Run away!
I really regret buying this. In theory, it's a great program... but in reality this program suffers horribly from an extreme amount of bugs. Customer service is equally bad (or should I say non-existant?). This has been my experience and many others. If you don't believe me, check out the forum at Pinnacle. You can see what the latest bugs are (And they're not minor either). Here's the link: http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=1&SectionID=143&lng=1&ProductID=454&SubDocTypesID=181
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