Pinnacle Studio 9.3.5 -- an upgrade?

[Don Tolson]

Anyone else have any experience with this upgrade? According to Pinnacle's web site, the upgrade is meant to:

Pinnacle Systems has learned that when Studio 9 is running, some users may experience sluggish system performance. The sluggishness may appear as:

1. Studio 9 takes too much time to doing just about anything.
2. Video and audio playback in the preview window stutters or is choppy.
3. The CPU load is 40 - 50% when Studio is running but the customer is not doing anything.
4. The CPU load is at 100% just when moving the cursor in Studio or doing anything

This was fixed in later versions of Studio 9.

GREAT!! (I thought) This is just what I'm experiencing on my machine. I have a 2.1 Ghz Pentium 4 processor, with a separate 160G HD for capture of video, and it was still having problems on playback within Studio. Capture was fine, output to DVD was fine, but playback within Studio was useless.

Anyway, after installing the full upgrade (almost 60mb), there's no discernable difference in playback -- it still stutters and is very jerky (It seems to be related to when Studio needs to update the visual display) and rendering times have almost tripled!

Any thoughts?[/b]

[Don Tolson]

Well, after 24 hours trying to burn a DVD from 2 hours of video, it crashed, saying the video file input was invalid!

So, I de-installed everything, re-installed the original from the CD and then overlaid a new downloaded copy of the patch.

I captured about 10 minutes of video, then tried to break it into 2 scenes, add an overlay title, and a single transistion. I found no difference in the program's performance -- sluggish at best, and playback during editing stutters and repeats on the audio, and is very choppy on video.

So, from my perspective, I can only use it for the most basic editing functions. If I need to really get into the video to remove blank spots in my sons' school presentations, I need something better.

I've left all the above info with Pinnacle support as well. It will be interesting to see what they come back with, since the first time they responded with the usual 'You should be using a separate disk for capturing and editing video/audio."

[Don Tolson]

...and furthermore, it seems that the studio software churns up about 90% of copula, even when you're not doing anything! It seems or me that this patch has introduced everything it was supposed to fix!

[backpackerx]

Have you heard yet if others have had the same problem? From the reviews I've read Studio 9 seems to come out pretty well.

[Don Tolson]

Have you heard yet if others have had the same problem? From the reviews I've read Studio 9 seems to come out pretty well.

Unfortunately, as you can see from this thread, I haven't heard anything from anyone else. Studio 9 itself worked OK (it was slow though), but I'm finding the 9.3.5.10 'patch' to be inserting problems that I didn't have before. These include 80 to 90% CPU usage even when I'm not doing anything but Studio is running, VERRRRYYYY long rendering times, and this morning, it hung trying to burn a DVD! (After 12 hours to render 1hr 40 mins of video).

[backpackerx]

Wow, that does suck. I think it would take me about 12hrs too to render almost 2 hrs of footage if it was DV footage. My machine is a little slower than yours though.

[Jason Dunn]

Ok, what the hell? I have 9.1.2 and it says there isn't an update for me...!?

[Don Tolson]

No, I guess it's considered a 'patch', not an update, since I didn't get notified either. I happened to find it as I was searching the Pinnacle site for some solution to the very slow response time. Here's the link: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/docsupport1.asp?division_id=1&langue_id=2&product_id=1501&page_id=987

Give it a whirl--let me know if it works any better for you. I've sent a lot of material, etc. to Pinnacle's Tech Support re: this, but no salient response yet.

[Don Tolson]

Well, give Pinnacle Tech Support their due -- Sammy has been very good about responding to my concerns with suggestions -- although most of them I've already tried.

We did finally get the 1hr 40 min project to burn to a DVD-R and everything looks fine. Don't ask me why it started working -- I just reinstalled the software again (4th time) and upgraded it (again) using the patch and -- using the same AVI capture files, recreated the project. This time, though, we didn't try to render and burn all in one go. Instead, I created a DVD disk image on my harddrive, then ran the 'burn' later.

I'm still seeing 85 to 90% CPU usage while Studio is 'idling' and the playback is jerky and audio stutters, even after updating to the latest versions of my graphics drivers, etc.

I bought a copy of Adobe Premier Elements today for $140 (CDN) so I'm going to give that a try and see if it performs any better.

[RWC_Zippy]

Ok, what the hell? I have 9.1.2 and it says there isn't an update for me...!?

Call me crazy but I think that 9.1.2 preformed better than 9.3.5

But I have become rather disappointed in Pinnacle's ability to burn... it doesn't want to 'talk' to my DVD burner :cry: so I had to export the file to AVi, convert to MPEG2, burn with Nero that way.... pain in the neck but it worked.

I'm going to hunt down Premiere... it sounds good. :lol:

[Don Tolson]

I've pretty well given up on Pinnacle Studio.

And I heartily recommend Premiere Elements! If you have ANY problems with the interface, give me a jingle, I'll be glad to help.

I'm starting to need a bit more flexibility in the DVD menu-authoring arena, so maybe I'll see what Premiere has above the 'Elements' version, but I don't want to get into the full-blown Premiere PRO. I don't have that kind of cash available to blow around.

[Hmmmm, emoticon idea -- How about one with wads of cash flying out of a sad (or happy!) face?]

[RWC_Zippy]

And I heartily recommend Premiere Elements! If you have ANY problems with the interface, give me a jingle, I'll be glad to help.


Thanks! I may take you up on that... :wink:

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