Pinnacle Studio 8.0

There are three main parts to the Studio 8 display. First there's the album, which can show video clips, transitions, sound clips or DVD menu screens. To the right of this is a preview panel that can run your video at any stage during the editing process. Below both of these is the storyboard, where you drag-and-drop the various elements that make up your finished video. This display can be switched to show a timeline or a file list in case you prefer working with either of these aids. As you call up other functions of the program, such as sound facilities or titling, the appropriate editing windows slide up or zoom out as needed.

Video capture calls up a separate display, where you can control your video camera from within the software and pull in just the scenes you want to add to your edit. At the other end of the process you can burn your completed video to a CD or DVD, again from within the program. --Simon Williams

I am running a 2.6GHz Intel Celeron with 1gb of memory and two 80gb hard drives. O/S is Windows XP Home edition, Service Pack 1. Except when I'm running Pinnacle Studio 8 it is a fast machine. To date, attempting to load a 39-minute Studio 8 project is the only thing that has ever forced me to hard-boot this computer. I've tried defragmenting the hard drives and other tuning to no avail. It looks like the only way I will be able to complete my current project is to break it into smaller chunks and attempt to merge them when rendering to tape. (Assuming I can load the project to break it up - I may have to start over entirely.)

Pinnacle has many pages of "online help" but most of it seems to be questions about compatibility (a subject upon which there is, apparently, a large number of questions), simple usage hints, and pitches to upgrade to other Pinnacle software. I have yet to find anything remotely addressing my problem.

Pinnacle's "user support" allows you to submit e-mail questions and average 48 hours to respond, exclusive of weekends. Submit a question after business hours on Friday and you will be lucky to get an answer before the following Wednesday. They will respond with automatically generated form letters pointing you to their online help but none of them even came close to addressing the questions I posted. If there is a phone number for human support they must be keeping it secret.

There are other video editing software titles available and you would be well advised to consider them before wasting money on anything from Pinnacle. I only have experience with Studio 8 but, based on that, I am not inclined to purchase anything else from Pinnacle systems. Please avoid my mistake! Do some research and talk to people that have actually used the software you are considering for similar projects on a machine similar to yours.

When it comes to Pinnacle Systems, let the buyer beware!


A thorn between many roses   February 12, 2004
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

If you have bought this product, then let me tell you how sorry I am. I bought this Product to improve my orriginal version 7 which came with the DC10 Plus Capture, as it supported the full video resolution, unlike one of its lesser priced models.

Version 7 was a nightmare, so I upgraded to Version 8. Well, for the most part its all sunshine and roses, but, Updates are a must! If you don't have access to your own internet connection, take the software back. I like the subtle way it hangs for about 2-3 minutes and dies. I also like the way it takes an age to render video. I use a top spec machine, which unfortunately I had to install the card and software. I had tried the Pinnacle DV500...what a shambles that was. Support is less than brilliant, in fact its a waste of money and effort to even consider picking up the phone.

The features are not bad, easy to use, if only to start again after its crashed. DVD menu facility is good, limited, but good. After all, its not the most expensive package on the market, but it would be nice to use other software for the DC10 capture card, as Adobe wont see it neither will Vegas.

If you are thinking of buying this software then think again and do your homework, there are plenty of other options for you to choose from


Crashes every time!   February 7, 2004
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I bought Pinnacle 8 because it is THE only editing software (apart from the stuff Sony send out) that supports Sony MicroMV cameras. I have a top of the range Sony Vaio desktop so, my hardware is ok, this flipping bit of software crashes everytime I try to copy to DVD or CD. As others have noted, the Pinnacle support is useless... they don't want to know after you have paid your money! I now use this software to get the stuff off my camera, save it and then edit it with movie maker for XP and put it on discs with Sony software, 3 bits of software to do ONE job! not very good Pinnacle is it? A waste of cash! DO NOT buy it!


Easy to use software, ice features, but buggy   February 4, 2004
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Before purchasing this software, I was already using Studio 7.15 SE which worked perfectly but lacked the functionality of version 8 (inc. ability to create disk menus, and DVD burning).
My first 15 minute DVD video clip worked a treat. I was however a little disappointed when I seriously got going using this software because it crashed when rendering a more meaty 53 minute project, consisiting of five video clips with a few transitions and main menu. Even applying the latest patch from Pinnacle website (to update to version 8.10) didn't appear to help. I eventually found I had to re-do the main menu on the project (which had been initially created in Studio before the patch was actually applied). I didn't find this out from Pinnacle support website (which wasn't that helpful I thought) but by my own trial and error! Rendering of the working project took about 9 hours (yes, NINE hours - granted I've only a 600Mhz PC!) but the resulting quality DVD seem good. Slight glitches when presenting the menu, but I'm going to try and fine tune this. From past experience I do like this line of Pinnacle software, but I am a little disappointed with this Studio version because of its apparent initial instability (I'd already tried twiddling with the system settings such as the virtual memory allocation on my PC before I got the project to work - and this was most probably unnecessary as the fault seemed to lie completely with the Studio menu as described above). Anyway, I'm going to persevere with Studio 8. And pray for no more crashes!

It's a good intro to video editing. I may try the Ulead software equivalent if Studio 8 proves too unstable. But for now, I'm giving it a 4 star rating for ease of use, good feature list, and nice user interface.