PC World Reviews Pinnacle Studio 10

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1873434,00.asp?kc=PCRSS02129TX1K0000530' target='_blank'>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1873434,00.asp?kc=PCRSS02129TX1K0000530</a><br /><br /></div><i>"With excellent usability and compelling core features, Pinnacle Studio is a very good video-editing program for the majority of home users. Unfortunately, two of our three testers had trouble installing and running 10.0 and 10.1 builds on typical real-world machines, which tempers our enthusiasm. That said, Pinnacle reports that have not seen our installation in their labs, nor have they had feedback about it being an issue from customers so far. If you're unsure, Pinnacle is offering a trial version you can download and try before you buy."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/pinnacle-studio-10.jpg" /><br /><br />The above text illustrates the real problem with Pinnacle Studio: awesome interface, lots of great features, easy to use, but wait, <i>why the hell isn't it working...whoa...why did it just crash? Why does clicking this menu take 10 seconds before anything happens?</i> I've been a Pinnacle Studio for a few years, and it's one of the most user-friendly programs there is. But there are so many complaints from all sorts of users about mysterious crashes, hangs, bugs, and generally bad application behaviour. The real problem with Pinnacle Studio 10? The developers who wrote it. They just can't seem to code a fast, stable application. I was a big champion of Pinnacle Studio for a few years, because I never had problems with it and thought all those "other" people who were complaining about stability problems were the same type of people who used their CD drive tray as cup holders. :lol:<br /><br />I tried using Pinnacle Studio 9 the other day, fully patched (9.4 I believe), and it was a nightmare. For whatever reason, Pinnacle didn't like the DV-AVI files I was feeding it. It would lock up randomly and stop responding. I'd click on a DVD menu to get a preview and my laptop would lock up for 20 seconds. It's a real shame, because there's so much to like about Pinnacle Studio, but I've sworn off it and am training myself to use the utterly hostile Premiere Elements 1.0. I might upgrade to 2.0 out of a blind hope that Adobe changed it so that it doesn't take 45 seconds to load and has a better interface. Gee, I'm feeling pretty ramble-prone today. :lol:

[kiwi]

I agree with you on all you say about the crashes.

I just put together a slideshow video for a ski club last weekend. Used Sudio 9.x - it was okay. Only 1 crash. Version 7 used to crash on me all the time.

I was thinking of Premiere Elements 2.0 for future work.. anyone care to say thats better in the real world than this product for home use?

B

[jeffd]

I still have a bad taste from years ago when I owned their dc10+, it had studio 6.4 I think. The program wasn't really all that special back then, now im sure its improved feature wise, but it also had it's share if crashes and unexplainable behavior. Most notably, the preview window wich sometimes would not update or it would be a distorted image. It was also fairly low resolution considering the captured data was 640x480.

The biggest slap in the face was the 6.x software was windows 9x only. At first they didn't plan to create a driver for 2k/xp. After a year they finally did, but the kicker was it was for studio 7.x only, and so we had to buy studio 7. I havn't considered another product of theirs since.

[Crocuta]

I've used Studio since version 7 and a couple of versions of Premiere (but never Elements). Whenever I use Premiere, I long for the simplicity and logic of the Studio interface. Whenever I use Studio, I long for the stability of Premiere. My general rule is to use Studio for quick and easy tasks (since there's no such thing as quick and easy in Premiere) and to use Premiere for more complicated projects. Luckily, I'm currently on a computer that Studio gets along with, and I've not had any really complex projects lately, so I've tended to work with Studio (v9).

And I still think Studio is the best program out there for new video editors. Studio has hands-down the easiest, most intuitive interface of any video editing program. That's what makes it so frustrating that the developers don't seem to be able to make it stable on all computers. However, I"m convinced that the program isn't inherently unstable, but that it is unusually sensitive to certain hardware and drivers that it doesn't get along with. One thing I've learned over the years is that, while you cannot predict whether it will work on your computer, if it does, then it will probably keep working and you'll really enjoy the experience. I think the article makes an excellent suggestion along those lines. Download the trial and see if it works for you. If it does, it will probably continue to do so. If you have problems and lockups and such, then it's never really going to get along with your system, so ditch it and go with something less user-friendly.

[randalllewis]

Gosh this is good to see: not that everyone is having trouble with Pinnacle Studio, but that it isn't just me! :D I've used Studio since version 7 came with my last PC and I wish I could agree with Jason that if Studio works on your computer, it will continuet to do so. I had version 9 which worked fine for me, I upgraded to Plus and the 9.4 patch. The program started crashing three and four times a session for no apparent reason- always in the editing mode.

Because I agree that the program is easy to use and because Pinnacle claims it rewrote Studio version 10 from ground up, I purchased it. It crashed the first time I used it, again in the editing mode. It has since crashed once more and both times I let it send an error report to Pinnacle (which is a new feature in version 10). I was interested in the comment in the article that they haven't heard of problems from users. They've gotten those two error reports from me. Don't they read them?