Pinnacle Studio 9

I like Studio Pinnacle 8's features but not the instability. Having forked out a lot of money on a new PC, spec'd for video editing, and re-loading XP a couple of times, it still gives me grief. I recently had a great run, created a few DVDs, but now just can't get it to not crash after reloading XP and Studio 8. I had to do that because it would no longer render properly (just hangs during render). And I had not loaded any new software, changed hardware, nothing.

So my concern with 9 will be, will it work? Or will we have so many patches like v8 has (currently up to 8.10!!!)

If only I knew of a good alternative....

I've had the same issues of instability with Studio 8. I've looked at alternatives, but I keep coming back to Studio. I'm just hoping that Studio 9 will be stable on Windows XP and that I'm not throwing good money after bad by upgrading.

I also would like to "see" before I upgrade. The current patch of Studio 8 (8.10.4.0) is the most stable I have seen with my Windows ME computer. And I am happy with most features - but it would be "nice" to:

1. Have a larger editing/playback screen.
2. Reduce rendering/compiling times for a 60 minute video (just over 6 hours with a 1.2 gHz processor)
3. Use less of my 80 gB hard drive for storage of muliple projects.

Just waiting to see what they have added & fixed before upgrading !!

Norm . . .

This is for Norm...

dude!? Windows ME!?? Are you aware that that Windows OS is the WORST thing you could ever put on a computer! And not 2 mention your using that computer for sumthin serious!

Plz dude...

Well ya can't go bakc to Windows 98 cuz they dont have Tech support for that anymore...but i think it'll be a good idea to switch to 2000 prof or XP prof.

hehe...just tryin 2 help ya

mij father is using a studio 8 a long time now and used studio 7 befor that and studio dv befor that but he tryed studio 9 and this worked right away good its compiling mutch faster

I started with studio 7; have now studio 8.
I'm quite content with studio 8 mainly because there aren't many alternatives (for this price).
I use windows XP (home), 1.8 gHz processor.
Sometimes studio 8 is dangerous for one's (or my)bloodpressure because rendering /compiling takes an awful lot of time. I would also like to plead for a larger editing/playback screen.
I read about studio 9 on this site. Hope it's better.

With Studio 8, it's better to look good than to work good. Pretty box, and pretty software. love it and hate it. Love the GUI but hate the hundreds of reboots, slow rendering, and poor customer support and lost time editing. Studio 8 is actually worse than Microsoft products for stability (and that's bad!). It must be really convenient and for these large companies to save all the testing costs of their products and instead send shoddy products to consumers and with little or no customer support, and instead of being responsible, just issue a software update from time to time to remedy many obvious problems inherent in their product. I’m too spooked at Pinnacle to try Studio 9 right now, but I'd suggest to anyone to let Pinnacle use the public as a test market again (like they did with Studio 8 and like Microsoft does daily) and wait for at least the third software update to be issued, probably in July 2004. I also think Pinnacle should give owners of Studio 8 a copy of Studio 9 for inflicting technology based psychological damage due to their poor software stability.

buy a program that is actually worth the money, invest maybe 200 to 300 $, pinnacle costs about 150 $ and there plugins are extremely expensive compare to other companies. i suggest ulead media studio pro 7, i use it and i love it. The transition package is also very affordable @ 20 $

I have used a large number of Pinnacle products including Studio DC10, 7, and 8. Also tried Bungy and some other flops as well. Don't waist your money on a program that is not finnished when it shipps. They will only get the bugs out just before coming out with a new version. Look at Canopus Let's Edit. It has a lot more to work with and it works. Also Canopus has a better track record with support. Let the Fourms speek for their product, check out what the current users have to say and make up your own mind before you waist your money.

everybody try screenblast movie studio is 100 times better than studio 8 & is cheeper, I had the same problems with studio 8 , too slow,too many bugs . no doubt about it.screenblast is better.

I'm glad its not just me. My copy of Studio 8 kept crashing, audio would just quit-and all day to make one DVD. And the updates -trash central. I can't remember which one it was (maybe 8.10a) but soon after install my whole collection of captured vids just quit working. I'll wait or try something else.

I have set at my computer for days trying to get pinnacle to work. It's takes hours to reder...if you get it working. PINNACLE should give there cusotmer studio 9 FREE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

IF studio 9 works as advertised -- and that is a big "if" - it should be provided free to purchasers of Studio 8, who where saddled with one of the worst products ever to hit the software market. I take issue with calling studio 8 a "strong product." I really doubt whoever wrote that review of studio 8 used the product. Check Amazon.com reviews, Studio 8 has given its users nothing but headaches and useless results. Pinnacle's own user forums show how many many experienced users with top end machines not only invariably end up with finished products that have audio out of synch (ie useless) but pinnacle's support has failed to address this endemic problem.
Don't buy Studio! Anyone recommending it hasn't used it.

I just don't seem to have the instablility problems with Studio 8 that you guys relate here. My only complaint was running a VHS tape thru my All-In -Wonder card and comming out jittery, fixed by running the video thru my camcorder to convert to Firewire. This may have been fixed in 8.10. I am looking foreward to trying Studio 9, saw it in Comp-USA yesterday. BTW, there is a way of showing the video screen on a separate monitor it you have a second video card, I have not tried it, but I believe the info is on the Pinnacle website on the "discussion board".

Yes Gentlemen, I use studio 8 and it has played up like a 2nd Hand lawnmower. I thought it was me for the first few months. Render Crashes, Compile Crashes, Lost audio while editing, next to useless analouge input, countless hours of editing wasted as it bluntly refueses to render, critical patches that only make things worse, come back the next day rendering for 60min DVD's with chaptering, transitions that never appear, hopeless support,you name it I've experienced it.

But, I have struggled and made some bloody good videos. Listen to the user fourums, thay are the only ones that speak the truth about problem solving.

Studio 9, Yeah I'll give it a go after all you can't wait to buy types beta test it for a few months first. I reckon 9.90 should be about right. Anyone remember the 8.7 nightmares. It must have been written buy the Looney Tunes Characters. I never knew I could shotput a Computer 15 Metres until I bought Studio 8. Pretty Box shame about the rest. Anyone who reckons 8 was strong and stable is still reading off the sales brouchre. Upgrade 9 should come with a gold medal for those not in the Looney Bin yet.

Paul

I also have put up with the torment of so many wasted hours-using Studio 8. Countless hours of system reconfigurations and Scene rendering with very little to show for it. With every hour of mpeg 2 @ 6mps of capture it requires two hours to render on a P4 3.2ghz processor, 1 gb Dual DDR Ram, and dual SCSI drive system. This does not include the time it takes to edit or out-put your move and or the program crashes that wastes the whole process.
Only the Software Industries enjoys such a detachment from the responsibility of consumer product performance and reliability. I own a retail service business where product performance and service is our lifeblood if what we sell does not perform we do not get paid. Until Pinnacle offers a customer satisfaction Guarantee, I will not up grade to Studio 9. By the way I have tried a few other Capture/Edit programs and found that Sonic My DVD 5.2.2 does the job for me. It can render a one hour of mpeg 2 @ 8mps capture plus audio with menus in only 7 minutes with the best quality I have seen yet and without the crashes. With My collection of over 150 hours of home movies to archive its pretty clear that I do not have the time or patients that Studio 8 Requires.

I have tried and upgraded till the last version of Studio 8. The system keeps crashing and tech support is very poor. I am lost now, whether to upgrade to Studio 9 or wait? It is a good product if only it will work properly.

I used the version 8 LE edition at work for a few months before it quit working. Just got the USB moviebox with the full version 8. It kept locking and/or rebooting my pc. Emails to their tech support were a waste of time as they never actually fix your issues. I ended up finding a tidbit about the file that was causing the problems (via my event viewer) and found a blurb from a user about having bad RAM. I tested both my sticks of RAM and found one of them must not have been seated 100% and that was the problem. You have to completely disable antivirus software by way of the tast manager, but Pinnacle 8.10 seems to be working for me now. I've also found it renders quite fast as long as I don't change the color settings of a clip, or else it takes about five minutes to render every minute of video footage I have. I'm tempted to try version 9 though just for the surround sound features and video restoration.

Boy, does this sound like a broken record. My Studio 8 worked great until update .10 - then it would not render anymore. After many e-mails back and forth with Pinnacle - nothing.

They send me a disk with ver .8 and it works now! I love the software, I HOPE Studio 9 is the big fix. If not I will move on to another brand.

I have bought 9 with my current user discount for about $50. Since I have all the time invested to learn this good program I will give it a run.

Hi dudes...
Well... I dont know what to do... I read all these posts and i'm really scared... today i thought to buy pinnacle studio 9. but i realized that it would be extremely stupid, just because the first version of anything always come with lots and lots of bugs... i would be spending my money for a "lack-of-productivity" software.
I'm downloading the version 8.6.32 from the internet to try all these things but after i read all these posts i dont know if i'm doing the right choice.
My situation is something like this:
i bought HP home movie writer dc300 and i want to capture all my tapes to dvd. the software that came with the dvd was showbiz 2. i dont know why i dont really trust this software... all my conversions just go a bad look. you know... maybe i'm just a begginer and i'm not doing the right things... can anyone help to find out a good progrem to capture vhs and then pass it to dvd?
I need to acquire the image and then do a dvd.
this is my situation... if anyone can help me out... i would appreciatte that...
My computer i think its no problem its a pentium 4 2.8Ghz 533, a motherboard p4c533-t (rocking :D), 1Gb RIMM, a 120Gb IBM harddisk. this is the base of my computer. if anyone can help me out to find the propper program i will apreciate :D

Thanx dudes

I just purchased Studio 9 at Best Buy for $69 with a $20 dollar rebate. Figured for $49, it would be worth trying. As soon as I started to put Audio onto a track, it blew me right out of the program. Still loaded with bugs. Love the ease and power of Sony Screenblast, but the rendering output is Crap compared to Studio. Lots of Artifact jitter on High Resolution stills, even with "Best Quality" selected, and nowhere near the clarity of detail. If you can get Studio to work, the output is killer.

Purchased Pinnacle Studio 9 several weeks ago, hoping the developers at Pinnacle listened to their customers (bulletin board complaints) and actually fixed the product. Unfortunately though, they did not listen. While the look & feel is very well crafted and the list of features rivals apps costing hundreds more, the final result is something that cannot reliably produce a final product for its customer. Over the last two weeks of trial and error, I have only been successful once at actually rendering and burning a DVD.

Several observations I have made over and above discoveries by other unsatisfied customers- 1. Studio 9’s HID interface and interrupts will crash if you try to push too hard. Keep the mouse clicks to a minimum and wait once you sense it starting to slow down. 2. Even though the main video and audio tracks are supposed to be in sequence, I have actual discovered overlapping segments of an audio track buried under another track. This could easily cause an error during compiling. 3. On the other side, be careful of gaps between segments.

Even if the DVD write function crashes, you still might be able to salvage all your hard work- I’ve been told by others on several bulletin boards that you can go to an auxiliary folder created on your HDD and use the VIDEO_TS files with another authoring software.

I’ve been reading countless bulletin boards, including Pinnacle’s own, only to discover there is NO single or consistent method to correctly solve this problem of not being able to author a successful DVD.

I strongly urge that we call, write, e-mail, and post our complaints, including positive suggestions directly to Pinnacle.

Used to have 8.6 on my PC and did not encounter any problems. However, only edited clips, added sound effects and background music, then made MPEG movies. I am getting a bootleg copy of 9.0 for naught next week. I intend to make higher quality movies and make VCDs. Will test and post results soon.

My question is can you output to windows media 9 format with this pinnacle studio 9?

I was excited to purchase Studio 9 because I was so consistently frustrated with Studio 8. Like everyone else, I assumed the problem was with me and my machine. The same problems too... countless hours of work wasted when the program would suddenly crash.

Unfortunately I have been having problems with version 9 already. I'm running on Windows XP, and in two days of use, I have already restored my computer twice and reloaded version 9 three times.....

Version 9 has some great upgrade features. If they can get it to work, it will be a tremendous product. For now, my frustation level is so high, I need to find another product to use, does anyone have any suggestions?

I was excited to purchase Studio 9 because I was so consistently frustrated with Studio 8. Like everyone else, I assumed the problem was with me and my machine. The same problems too... countless hours of work wasted when the program would suddenly crash.

Unfortunately I have been having problems with version 9 already. I'm running on Windows XP, and in two days of use, I have already restored my computer twice and reloaded version 9 three times.....

Version 9 has some great upgrade features. If they can get it to work, it will be a tremendous product. For now, my frustation level is so high, I need to find another product to use, does anyone have any suggestions?

INTERVIDEO WINDVD CREATOR 2

Instead of Studio 9, test Intervideo WinDVD Creator 2:

Capture too in MPEG-2 or DV from FireWire

Same kind of time-line,

Same way for mixing Authoring and editing in a simple interface.

And many features like capture directly from camcorder to rewritable DVD, or drag and drop from HD to DVD (video or graphics files....

And the ability te re-edit VOB files from a personal or cine movie from the Hard-drive...

I am with everyone else - thought it was me and came here to find out if 9 would fix the problem (Pinnacle acknowledge the hang as a tech problem and avoid mentioning it anywhere else - like in the Studio 9 spec, sounds like 9 doesn't even try to address this major problem)!! I was going OK with Studio 8 cutting VCD, with only the odd crash - over the months it seems to have got worse, and now, I am tring to burn DVD's and so far have only managed to burn a test 30 second one - EVERY other attempt has resulted in a System Hang & reboot.
CPU temp may be an issue, however temp before and after reboot seems to be the same and no other programs are randomly hanging, have defragged disk and tried to change quality - absolutely no luck - random system hang during rendering.
I was thinking of going to 9 (hoping the problem was solved), but now thinking of going to something else - except I don't know what?

Seems to me that if Pinnacle spent as much time fixing the problem (maybe CPU throttle or save points or something) as they obviously do in marketing (My local stores don't seem to stock anything much else) they would naturally capture a big (& LOYAL) customer base

Studio 9 is one of the most disappointing upgrades I have ever seen. This may sound shocking but at least 8 does not lockup in the rendering process. I left work 1 morning attempting to burn my video and 12 hours later the stupid software was still rendering. Also the audio video sync problem still exists.

Will definitely try something else. Pinnacle should be ashame of its pratices.

I'm using the Pinnacle 8 that came bundled with the ATI AIW 9600. Using Windows 2000, the software has locked up once during a project but did not crash my system. Otherwise it works alright but the output is useless because my SVCD's audio is intermittent throughout the whole movie and my source media is fine. Also it takes forever to render, and during the lenghty time it brings the CPU to 100% continuously. I'm using an Athlon 2000XP. Using another product, Ulead Videostudio 7, i can make DVD's and SVCDs in much less time and still use my pc while it renders. I like the scene split editing feature of Pinnacle, which is why I have been trying to use it instead of Ulead. Also when i looked for patches on the Pinnacle site, after they requested all my information, address, email, phone number etc., to let me download the patch, i then get it and its a tiny regedit file that has a few weird entries. Not the patch i was expecting and i still have all the same problems.
I'm so surprised ATI included this faulty product in their bundle - the All-In-Wonder Radeo 9600. By the way I've been highly satisfied with this ATI card and all that it does, just wish the Pinnacle Video editing software worked better.

I found the right patch on Pinnacle site to update to 8.10.4c and now my audio is coming out right. Also the rendering time might be slightly faster now and interface seems to be faster when working with large files. It has not yet crashed.

Studio products are problems! They never work as advertised and version 9 is no exception. The software hangs all machines (I have 6 PCs all with different chipsets and 3 OS versions)without fail. The tech support is awful! Thank God I bought from a store that takes software returns! Bye Bye Studio!

I spent the last week trying to get Studio 9 to work, and all I can suggest is to avoid this like the plague! The features seem good, and it's easy to use (like Studio 8), but I consistently get failures after about 18 hours of rendering (this is with all of the latest patches installed). Life is too short to waste on Studio 9.

hi people...
Dont know what all the fuss is a about... i have never had anny problems with anny of the pinnacle products, including studio 9, 8 and 7

I upgraded to version 9 and in contrast to many of the complaints posted here, I have not had any problems after applying the new patch.
I have just completed editing a 1 hour DV tape and did not crash once. I could never do this with Version 8. I did follow the Pinnacle advice and upgraded my hardware a bit.
Specifically I installed a Radeon 9600 Pro graphics card and a Creative Labs Audigy Sound card.
Otherwise my PC is a 1.8 Ghz P4 with 1GB RAM and 160GB DASD.

I have had Pinnacle Studio 9 for 2 weeks, and while it is easy to use, I have found it prone to crash if pushed too hard. Upgrading to 1GB RAM and getting a 200 GB SATA HDD helped, but it will still crash if rushed.
I had no trouble cutting DVD's until I tried to do the final version of my big project last night. Tried 4 times so far. It just churns through for a few hours, and then stops before burning the disk. AAgh!

I may be ready to move on. Can anyone suggest something better that is also easy to use?

Posted a message expressing my satisfaction with Version 9. I may have spoken too soon.
Although it never crashed during the editing phase of the project, I have not been able to render the movie.
I am rendering to disk, not directly to DVD. It simply ends after a few hours with a "Render failed" message. Not much to go on.
I will remove the last scene in the project where it seems to stop and try again.
Keep you posted.

P.S. to Bret Harrison.
I gave up a long time ago on burning to DVD from Pinnacle. You should try burning to disk and then use Nero to copy the image to a DVD. That works great as long as you can get Pinnacle to complete the rendering without errors.

Thanks for the advice, all.

Update: My project rendered successfully and burnt straight to DVD last night. The secret was to remove the scene/chapter where it was stopping (actually already an MPEG) and replace it with a re-rendered version. Go figure.

The problem wasn't with the burning, it was in the rendering phase, but there was no error message in 9.04 - it would just stop in one place & churn away, or finish without finishing the job.

Earlier, I tried the 9.08.05 BETA out of desperation, and that didn't work in the same situation either, though it did give an "Error while rendering" message, which 9.04 didn't. I went back to 9.04 because 9.08.05BETA was unstable in other ways.

So, based on my (limited) experience, if you have a rendering problem, try replacing the scene.

I'm looking forward to a stable 9.08 - it had some noticeable speed improvements.

MENU PROBLEM:
Now here's a new twist. My project has a 3-page motion thumbnail menu with 13 items all up, not counting the NEXT and PREV buttons. Looks beautiful. I did a test with 1 page & 5 items & it was perfect. But in the 3 page version, the button highlighting doesn't work. You can navigate, but you can't see where you are going. It works fine in the preview!

Any ideas? I am using standard motion thumbnail buttons with linked text, and outline highlighting.

After going thru the most disgusting repiticious problems with studio 8,once again pinnicle proves me wrong with studio 9.If You Could point out 1 individual for me to adress my disgust and anger to I would pontificate in his or her face ,whoever you chose to receive the rath,a strong and to the point statement condeming them and the company.But seeing how you have no way for a person to contact this decrepped company, for the time being youve rendered yourselves Bullet Proof.

Done some reading here just to see how bad Studio 9 is, or if Pinnacle improved on it's product support. I had a lot of grief with Studio 7 over the years I had that crap. It's hopeless crap. So I thought maybe they improved on Studio 9 and I might be tempted to buy that, being stuck with Pinnacle capture card. The only thing I liked on Studio 7 is GUI apart from that little preview window and the ease of editing. But what is the point if you then can't do anything with what you after countless crashes finished, If you can't render it and get same problems with rendering, forget burning to anything!!!. No way after what I just read here and my own experience with Studios 7&8 and Pinnacle suport, I'll spend any more money on bloody Pinnacle crap. Why do we people let them get away with crap like they sell? I thought Microsoft was bad till I discovered Pinnacle.

Pinnacle appealed to me as it was easy to edit a video. I did'nt like the small screen as it was often I found a subject slightly out of focus that was not noticed in the small screen. Also a dark scene was difficult to see. I'm told that Pinnacle Studio 9 has an option to view the video in a full screen.
I'd suggest after you have done your editing in Pinnacle Studio then export it as an AVI DV file and render the AVI DV file using TMPGEnc which is free. It's faster and offers more options for better rendering.
If you have problems with authoring in Pinnacle Studio then I'd suggest buying Ulead's DVD Video Factory which does a good job of authoring a video.
So you really need more than one program as programs have their strengths and weaknesses in certain areas.

HI
The problem wasn't with the burning,in pinnacle studio 9, it was in the rendering phase at the end,with message" failed to compiling".
PLS help!

Everytime I try to capture vhs video with studio 9, my computer shuts down and reboots. I have downloaded the patch, same problem. My computer has more than enough memory and works great with all other programs. Anyone have any ideas? I think I just got taken.

I'm now on my third video capture solution using Pinnacle MovieBox USB with Pinnacle 9 and it crashes more than any other progam known to man.
I've used 8.1 and that is the same I have an OK machine that is 1.5Ghz, 128MB AGP card two 80GB hard drives and 768MB RAM.

I would not recommend Pinnacle to anyone that would be too cruel. I've wasted many hours only for it to crash. I've applied all patches and updates but that is for suckers like me who believe it may fix anything.

I will be returning my purchase ASAP and trying Cannopus. Wish me luck

Disappointing, is all I can say.

I bought Studio 8 AV/DV Deluxe last year and all it did was reboot my system as soon as I tried to capture analog video. Thinking that my Athlon 700MHz with it's 250W power supply was not good enough, I built a video editing system:

ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, Intel P4 2.8C HT/800FSB, 1GB Dual DDR PC-4000 RAM, 2 x SATA 37 GB 10,000 rpm (RAID-0) drives, 1 x ATA/133 160 GB 7,500 rpm drive, Optorite DVD +/- RW drive, Samsung DVD-ROM, GeForce 5700 Ultra 128MB video card & Windows XP Pro SP1.

I loaded v9 (latest patch) and now I can't even open their default mpeg project. My PC goes to blue screen and reboots immediately. PC works perfectly for everything else. Talk about a step back...

I wish I had read the forums before I spent another $60 to upgrade what was already a $200 boat anchor.

Extremely disappointed here... avoid this product at all cost.

Obviously I'm not alone in thinking that there are just too many problems with Studio 8.x to actually buy v.9. I have been using Studio for a number of years now and have gradually moved away from it. I now use the following: from Ulead...VideoStudio 7, DVD Workshop 2, DVD Movie Factory 3, and from Sony (or Sonic Foundry)...Vegas 4, DVD Producer 3.5, DVD Architect 1.0 and Sound Forge 7.As far as capturing, editing and rendering, I try to use the best that Studio 8, VideoStudio 7 and Vegas 4 have to offer. I find that working in .avi format for as long as possible (inspite of the size of the files) and creating .avi files less that 4 GB or 18 minutes really helps the rendering. After rendering .avi files to individual mpeg2 files, I used Movie Factory 3 to create my DVD's with or without menus. (DVD Workshop is OK too.) And they're great. Movie Factory will accept more than one mpeg2 file, whereas DVD Architect 1.0 and DVD Producer 3.5 will only accept one mpeg2 file which makes for a very long render in any video editing software while creating the possibility of crashes etc...

Having great success with Pinnacle 7 thought we'd upgrade to Pinnacle 9! After capturing, titling, adding SmartSound music and a music CD, we started adding the transitions. The procedure started to slow down - to the point where it took up to 15 seconds for each transition to be inserted. It took over 12 hours to insert 39 minutes of video. When trying then to play back the finished product, the music was jerky and we haven't even rendered it yet!! We have the Patch 9.0.8.9 that was supposed to rectify the problems. Obviously, it hasn't!! Any suggestions?

I bought Magix Movie Edit Pro 2004 last week for its extra features, but now that I have learnt more about its sometimes strange Teutonic ways, I realise how powerful it is compared to Studio 9, it's becoming my main editor. It has multiple powerful special effects, Chromakey, 16 track editing etc. etc. Wow! The Titling, DVD construction & digitising are not as good as in Studio, and it doesn't have a music maker, but that's about it.
The final biggie is that it's fast & pretty stable. It only seems to get upset when I have Studio running. :)

I've spent some time reading all the comments about Studio and I'm now going to look elsewhere. What about Adobe Premier Pro? It's probably a bear to learn but how stable is it anyway? Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Joining the club. Up till some weeks ago I was a real Pinnacle Studio fan. I used 8. something and the only problem was that sometimes the capturing stopped. I always started the rendering late at night and after a good night sleep it was finished. Then I wrote the movie back to my DV camcorder and that was it.
But then I wanted to create a DVD. To be honest, that also wasn't a big problem. I created a movie from 1 hour DV, with a menu, added music and burned a DVD without a problem. But when trying to view the DVD on a DVD player, it would show the menu but I could not select anything. I thought that maybe it was a Studio Problem and I was thinking about upgrading to 9 anyway, so I upgraded to 9. Now every time I try to burn I get a compile error. It's driving me crazy. I have been trying to create the DVD for a few days (read: sleepless nights) now and I am ready to throw the pinnacle 9 CD out the window. I downloaded the latest patch last night, but after reading this forum I think I it's better to buy another product. Any suggestions?

I bought ver. 9 and it was a waste of money. I installed it on a clean system (only WIN XP + patches), and I can still not finish a video longer than 15-20 min. I have the latest in hardware (P4, 3.2G, 1Gig RAM, ATI AIW9800PRO, 500Gig of storage, etc.). Nothing helps. Latest conversation I had with Pinnacle's TEchSupport ended in '...well, if version 8 didn't work on your system....9 will not work either. Talkin about a slap in the face.

I am currently using Magix Video Studio 2004 and Premiere Pro. NOT A SINGLE FRIKIN' problem. Everything works like clockworks. True, these programs are not as easy to use...but stability reigns supreme. Magix software also has a $20 rebate if you own a competitive program like Pinnacle, so it only cost about $70 bucks.

Cripes
Just like heaps of these poor people, I too have had the unfortunate experience in trusting in a software package that fails to deliver on most of it's glossy packaging and crap 2 liners depicting a wonderous product!!.
Pinnacle has to be the MOST unstable (and they even beat Microsoft on this) software providers I have come into contact with.
If Pinnacle were a car company, they would have been shut down by now, by consumer affairs!!!
How the bloody hell do these fwits prostitute thier inferior products to the world and get away with it!!
I have tried to contact Tech support at Pinnacle...you guessed it , went something like this. " we have extensively tested our products in an environment far more vigerous than the average user, so it would seem you have a problem with your PC setup".
For this comment, I just had to send an expleetive right back down the line!!
For the record, I have been building PC's for the last 7 years, I have a P4 2.8 intel, 1gig ram, 2 x 120 gig SATA drives RAID 0, all running on 800 fsb.
How dare Pinnacle presume the majority of us disconcerted users are inexperienced when discussing real issues with thier software!!.
My only advice to ANYONE contemplating purchasing Video capture software, is NOT to use Pinnacle, for ALL the distressing reasons posted here on this forum.
If I were the CEO of this company, I would be looking at the first possible exit, as surely it would be difficult to sleep at night given so many unhappy consumers, and a quickly spreading world wide consensus that it's product would NOT be purchased based on all the resounding failures it has produced, not to mention the crap customer service, and the blow offs from the poor technical staff.
PLEEEASSEEE someone tell me of a similar package that can do what Pinnacle SAYS it can do, but actually does it!!
If this rather venomous post helps save someone from the vast amount of wasted hours I have experienced using this software, then I have done some good, which is more than I can say for Pinnacle.....shame on you!

I agree with tall the rest. I bought Studio 8 and did one video. It crashed a lot but I got through it. I hoped Studio 9 would fix the instability. I couldn't have been more wrong. Linux apps in Beta testing are far more stable. I drag a picture and it just sits there with the CPU floored for 30 seconds. Then it crashes. For moving a freaking picture!!!

I have a 2500mhz w/ 512 pc3200, fx5600 ultra, WD Raptor and 2nd 80gb, both sata. I have more than enough power to run this, but it is the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen. They have to know about it. They had to have known about it when it shipped. I wish someone would start a class action suit.

I purchased studio 9 before seeing this message board. I'm sorry I did. However, I've got some beautiful DVD layouts. It renders successfully and also completes the burn. But the resulting DVD has digital artifacts flickering around the screen from time to time and I am totally baffled on how to fix this problem. I render it at 8000kps best video quality. My machine is a P4 2.4ghz, 1gig ram, 400gig hard drive space, Win XP, an NEC 1300 burner, a Sony DRU700A burner. I have used both burners, same result. I have dedicated a 200gig HD to containing the videos and the rendered result. All background tasks are shut down. I do not know where to turn to get rid of the digital artifacts. It looks like you are watching an old 8mm movie with dust specks on it. Any guidance is appreciated as I have many high school graduates waiting for their completed DVD of commencement. Thanks...

I had just purchased studio 9 because like a lot of you I was genuinly hoping it would be better than studio 8, I like the concept. With studio 8 it would crash 50% of the time. If it was just srait record and burn to dvd it wasnt bad, but add a few sceens and transitions and forget it crash city. I uninstalled 8 and installed 9 and did all necessary upgrades, It is just as bad if not worse than Studio 8. My system is powerfull AMD 3200 - 400 fsb, ddr, 512 megs ram, 2- raid-0, 80 gig drives, Asus 9600xt video card, pyro firewire card, Win XP sp-1 Tons of ventillation. I have no problems playing games and my system is not clogged up with crap. It seems that this software is very finikey on what it likes for hardware and software. I am not tollerant of this type of mass produced "junk" software. Pinnacle should be testing this software on a vast array of hardware and software configurations, not just their ideal lab settings. Since it doesnt work I will package it up and return it, reading the threads here it looks like contacting Pinnacles technical people will be of no use. They are probably so over inundated with people asking for help they probably just have time to shoot out generic faq answers. I have learned, I now purchase my software from a store that accepts software returns as long as it is in premo like new cond.

I have a Question. I instaled studio 9 recently and It worked great for one day. The next day the when i tried to open it you could see the studieo but the icon for studio 9 (the big box) from the intro freezes there and the studio doesnt load what should I do?

Hi,
I am new in Pinnacle Studio 9.0....I am trying to insert pictures into a video but the pictures are blur...bad quality we cant even see teh faces is it normal ? what do we have to do to get 100%quality of the image?? help me please

I just recently got a DVC 150 that came with Studio 9. I'm extremely disappointed, since the fact that I'm forced to encode into mpeg forces me to convert file types through that program. It seems to dump out of just about every kind of process I can come up with, and usually crashes out after 5-11 minutes of capture. It's still slow, despite the fact that I patched to fix this stuff. In retrospect, I'm beginning to wonder whether I should have sold off my DVC 80 with MovieStar. At least that could let me output to avi decently, so I could edit it with virtualdub. (Look it up - free, simple editor for avi, mpeg, etc. with significantly better support for compression, and at least for me, compresses 2 or 3 times faster with the same codecs and settings.)

please tell me how i can patch video studio 9

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