Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8931 in Software
• Brand: Pinnacle Systems
• Model: 210100182
• Released on: 2002-10-21
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows NT
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.50 pounds

Customer Reviews

Ask Yourself "Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, P_NK?"
In a nutshell, this program will (probably) work fabulously if your needs are modest. You can (probably) capture video from digital or VHS sources, and edit with ease. The editing features are impressive (if everything goes well for you).

POSITIVES:
Very intuitive editing functions
Many file formats supported
Burning DVD, VCS, SVCD supported
Creates nice menus

Having said this, the few positive reviews I've read here must be from people with (a) amazing luck, or (b) amazing patience and low expectations from commercial software. These reviewers are saints! In my opinion, they should be given flowers and chocolates by each Pinnacle Systems executive, and warm embraces should not be ruled out by the next Board of Directors meeting.
(See, I could have said something mean but I didn't)

NEGATIVES:
(1) IT'S SLOW - The time the program spends hanging is legendary. There should be an award for the most time a program spends churning and thrashing for absolutely no apparent reason. Planning on opening an existing project that's more than 10 minutes in duration? Better plan your day around it. Seriously. Waiting for this program will induce hysterical hallucinations and / or cause you to find religion.

My day proceeds like this, and no I'm not exaggerating:
* Launch Studio 8 and wait while Studio accesses the last captured video, as is its default modus operandi.
* Shave, take a show, get dressed, have breakfast, check to see if Studio 8 is still hanging.
* Has it opened the last video? Great, it must have only been that short 10 minute clip of last Thanksgiving's bore fest, horrific gravy mishap included (in slow-mo).
* However if it STILL HASN'T opened the video, read next chapter of current good book.
* Finally, it finished. Don't get all giddy like a schoolgirl; all we did was start the program. (apologies to those who are, or aspire to become, schoolgirls)
* The default project it opened upon launching is a brand new 'Untitled' project (remember, all that opening time was just for a captured video that you MIGHT want to add to some project). Tragically, I need to work on an existing project. I know what's coming next, so I wipe a tear from my cheek and select my desired project from the menu. I've found that you can tolerate this anticipatory pain by either clenching your teeth or biting down on something hard to keep you from swallowing your tongue.
*OK, now I've really made it mad. My existing project is not only long (> 30 minutes of clips) but it also includes clips from more than one captured source (e.g. clips from my niece's christening, and from the public domain documentary "Exorcisms Gone Bad"). This is an affront to the Pinnacle gods. They punish my hubris by cranking up my hard drive to "ludicrous" speed, and keeping it there for a good half hour or more of senseless reads and writes. I think it's writing megabytes and megabytes of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", but I have no conclusive evidence. Norton Utilities should make a tool specifically for this purpose. Meanwhile my computer has seized and is unavailable to do anything else, like update the clock, repaint the screen or acknowledge my frantic attempts to apologize and take it all back. This paralysis is the computer equivalent of eyes wide open, pupils fixed and dilated, jaw gaping and trickle of drool slowly creeping towards the floor without any attempt to wipe it away. Nurse! Get the defibrillator, stat!

Waiting out this state of inactivity is deceptively debilitating. You want to leave since you know nothing will budge for about 30 minutes. But you still retain this irrational expectation that maybe, just maybe, everything will unlock the minute you leave. In my experience, this is about as likely as an Elvis sighting in Kabul, Afghanistan. Instead, you stare at the blank, unpainted screen for far too long as your mind begins playing tricks, as if you're in a sensory deprivation tank.

There are similar criminally long delays in most editing attempts, like adding a clip to a project.

Given this glacial pace, I plan on finishing my video projects in the following way:
(1) start a religion,
(2) train the converts in the mysterious yet glorious ways of Pinnacle Studio editing so they work on my projects faithfully each and every Sunday for the rest of their natural lives,
(3) instruct my righteous flock to pass on these rites to their children, their children's children, and yea onto all those they beget,
(4) while the faithful await "the Great Rendering" when the project is completed and burned to disc. Alleluia!

Actually, this religion would be a great marketing angle for Pinnacle Systems, Inc., and would fit in well with their proclaimed "long term outlook". Certainly, a product that forces you to think in terms of geological eras instead of mere hours fits this long-term corporate vision.

(2) (oh, yes, all the above was just #1) DOESN�T BURN WELL - sometimes it doesn�t recognize my CD burner. Now I might be convinced that some devices are unrecognizable. However, mine is on the official 'approved' list, and it is often recognized, but sometimes isn't. This is analogous to occasionally forgetting how to chew your food.

(3) CRASHES - not every day, but too often.

Its more like an alpha software - significant bugs
Ok - so my computer has plenty of HDD space (100 GB), 256 MB of RAM, a 1.7GHz P4 CPU, a newer VIA chipset and runs win2K with the latest service pack and so on. Radeon Graphics for video and Turtle Beach Sound. I can't remember when an installed software crashed on it - that is - till I installed Studio 8. You'd think the latest bug fix (updating it to 8.5) would have fixed the problems? Read on....
Now the problems - where do I begin?
1) Installing the MP10+ analog capture card was a nightmare - till I swapped PCI slots - a day wasted.
2)When rendering, the software sometimes simply quits. Thats it. No message - Nothing. And rendering is not a breeze - so you can imagine the frustration.
3) For my second project, the software rendered partway and then stops (does not matter which codec I am using). And this is a long continuing struggle. Since rendering is such a time consuming process, any experimentation takes a while. Deleting a couple of scenes in the beginning for example allows rendering to cross the point where it normally gets hung up - and then it continues on to the very end.
4) If I try to do Divx encoding of the videos, then the software does not work if I try to encode the audio in mp3. It has to be kept in PCM format. While it gives you the mp3 option, there seems to be no way of specifying bit rates for example.
5) I am not sure that audio and video sync properly - because I can hear audio for a second or two after the video has ended.
6) Many of the buttons don't have baloon help associated with them.
7) The interface is not standard windows interface - This means you will have to relearn buttons and icons. This is a very stupid thing to do - makes the learning curve steeper. Many times, the buttons are all over the place, instead of being bunched up in one place.

The software sort of works, its relatively inexpensive, and includes a bunch of neat special effects transitions for free, I give it two stars. Else, I would have given it one.

Great Features But Unreliable
Pinnacle Studio 8 is a good program with hints of greatness. There are a lot of nice features and its ease of use is currently unmatched. However, the program is not without its programming flaws.

Studio 8 is easy to install. Basically, put in the requested disks, wait and you are done. Some systems may need to reboot afterwards but after that, you are ready to roll.

Capturing, editing and rendering are all simple to do and you can have a lot of fun doing so. Making cuts and edits were surprisingly simple and the effects that you can add are truly impressive. Rendering, while easy, is very slow, even on the fastest systems. An hour of video rendered for DVD took nearly 7 hours to render. That may be kind of slow compared to higher end systems but if you have the time, it is worth it. The end product, while sometimes showing SOME red bleed, looks very nice.

On a major down point, this program is quite temperamental. You pretty much have to make sure it is the ONLY program you run after a reboot. If you run other programs before going into Studio 8, chances of a crash are high. When scrolling text, I will often get these unknown TITLEDEKO errors that Pinnacle has yet to offer suggestions or fixes about. It has a sometimes-nasty habit of simply 'resetting' your PC and causes it to reboot.

I capture with Pinnacles' AV/DV PCI card. It does a good job but I sometimes have audio sync issues and I have yet to find out if it is the card or the software.

Pinnacle's support is fair but featues a great, mostly user supported, webboard. However, you may be scared from purchasing this software because of all of the issues people have.

This is a great program with a lot of good features and special effects. You will need to make sure you turn off all of those "cute" programs like screen savers, mouse enhancements, backgrounds and other memory resident programs to make sure you do not crash. It will work for you if you follow these directions but let's hope 9.0 will be more stable.