Pinnacle Says Studio 10.5 Crashes Less

Pinnacle should be more thorough with what they put out there as you need to pay an extra fee for every feature that comes with it. I dislike it generally.

I purchased Pinnacle 10 version over the thanks giving long week end. I have not been able to upload my video from my Sony Micro IP55 camcorder. By default it seems to be looking for a Firewire port which my Dell computer does not have. I sent a mail and received an automated response which does not make sense to me at all.
By far this is worst service I have come across. I am not sure if their new versions would do any little to my problem.
I am not sure if I would ever buy a Pinnacle Product in future.

Being a long time user of Pinnacle, starting from many versions back, I can say, it's the best and the worst I've seen. After my first install, it crashed. When it works, it works well, but when it doesn't, it can take down your system. I've even had it crash and delete my project at the same time. Probably what gets me the most, is after working on a long project, I try to render it to a DVD and what does it do??? It stops after an hour with an error message with no clue where the error originated. Should I even bother anymore with it?

BTW, I have a very updated system, 3.4 ghz, 2 gb ram, 80 gb raid 0...

Like I said, when it works, it works well. I've created some very nice projects, just wish it was without all the hassle.

You were generous to give Pinnacle a 7.9 in that review. It was a awful of them to put this software in the retail market when it was not debugged. Some people can't afford to throw away $79. On the other hand, to forgive is divine, so let's hope 10.5 works and we'll all go on about our business. Happy again.

I too am a long time Studio user. Sold all my DV stuff, Sony 900 camcorder and a 900 DV tape deck and bought the Sony HC1.
Great HD camera and now I can use S10+ for HDV2 editing and burn the video as a file to DVD as HDWMV or HDV2.
For $ 60 that is a bargain for HD editing.
Gene

Pinnacle Studio 10.5 might fix many of the bugs that should never have been in a tested released version, BUT has turned the preview screen into slow motion!!! Preview totally useless as audio and video out of sync with very choppy video. What a JOKE! Program load time is not much faster, just eliminates the hang up around 60%.
Windows XP pro
Dual Processor Athlon XP2400
Ram 2gig DDR Dual Channel
NVIDIA GeForce 256Meg Direct X 9
660 gig SATA drives

Version plus 9 - won't install - even though its been installed before - Pinnacle offer a Reg Edit - to no avail -I've also got Pinnacle 9 and it wont load either

I have just downloaded Studio 10.5. Nothing works. I can capture video but when I go to Edit it refuses to open the .avi file. In fact any file. You can make a title but you can not put it on the time lime. Nor transitions or music. In fact it is useless. I have worked with Studio 10.1.2 quite successfully but now this! What is Pinnacle thinking? There is nothing wrong with my system.

Well, I tend to agree with others. Studio 10.5 fixed some things and broke others. My version 9.4 worked very well but after installing 10.1 it trashed my 9.4 version, made it dog slow. 10.5 fixed the speed but broke video preview. These bugs should not be allowed out into the public during major releases and interim bug fixes. We're beta testing the software, reporting bugs, and not getting paid for it. Pinnacle is what I would call trashware now. Move it over to the CD software rack you can get for $5.99 in the back corner of Walmart. Being bought out by AVID was disastrous for the Pinnacle Name. Buyer beware.

How do I hate thee (Pinnacle 10.5)? Let me count the ways:

1. Riduclously slow start-up time

2. Inexplicable freezing or crashing of the program.

3. Video rendering that fails to start (just hangs endlessly).

4. Video rendering that crashes during the middle of the night.

5. Nagware-oriented software (extra features require unlocking).

6. Doesn't play nice with others (it killed my Roxio 8 installation).

7. Tech support responses that don't even relate to the problem described.

8. And so on, and so on, and so on.

Bottom Line: Do NOT purchase this software. There are a lot of copies of version 9.x available. It's got its own problems but overall is a better product and can be obtained for less than $20.

Well, where do I start. I have been a studeo user for about 2 years. Have done some major projects, both professional and not. Ask me if I have gotten any sleep. Well, lets just say that over the years I have crashed and lost time equaling about one half year. Panic and deadlines have kept me up through the night trying to recreate lost work. But Studio 10 was by far the worst, for everything except saving work. It saves after crashing but took forever to restart. I have a pretty good computer. An ATA All in One 256 meggraphing Card, 1 gig Ram, 3.06 GHZ Dedicated computer. Now I just downloaded 10.5 and I must say I was pleasantly surprized. pretty much the fixes they list it did fix. i'm still holding my breath. I have been on such an emotional yo yo with this priduct I dont want to speak to soon. If this continues, I may put off getting a G5 Power Mac and Final Cut Pro Studio. Lets all cross our fingers. When it's good it's OH SO GOOD!!! and when it's bad, there's nothing worse.

i purchaced and used studio 8 with av/dv card some years ago and it was great so i then bought studio 9 still great but when i advanced to studio 10 plus it would not find my vhs analog so i bought a dazzle v90 usb now it drops more frames than it captures and with my camcorder it was rendering for seven days and i had to cancel so with patch to 10.5 things have not improved much i get so many problems is it worth bothering with and i dont think i will go pinnacle again so what system can i use, help?

I have to agree with all the others.
I started with version 7 than went to 8 with all its updates. Version 9 then had problems here and there. Redering sucks and stops in the middle. DVD output is horrible quality. I am not using it anymore. I am refusing to go to version 10.
Another 99 Dollars out the window.
The Sony Vegas Studio 'line' is awesome and works all the time. For the same money you get something that acctually works

So really, does *anyone* like Studio?

Studio 9 Plus has worked great for us. We have three people in our house who use it regularly for work, school projects, and fun -- and we've used every version since Studio 7 came out. We experienced the annoying bugs along the way, but Studio 9 Plus has been a solid system and since the last couple of Studio 9 patches, I can't remember a crash. Capturing (analog and digital), editing and exporting to file or DVD have all been a smooth, consistent and crash-free experience. The 'fun' projects use a LOT of the capabilities - multiple effects, music from various sources, layering, zoom, etc. - all seamlessly. Thanks for the info on Studio 10, it appears we'll be holding on to Studio 9 for a while yet.

I have a deadline of a week from now to produce a corporate video with lots of still pics (probably will total around 500 clips). Have a new computer - a "media" version, installed Studio Plus 10.1; then upgraded to 10.5 a couple days ago just as I was beginning this project. A long time and a couple computers ago I used Pinnacle Studio version that came with an analog capture card. This one has been nothing but trouble. I was able to make a nice sample video about 1 minute long just to see how it would work after adding audio. Since then, the clips in the timeline disappear inexplicably and then it freezes - "CTRL-ALT-DEL." I can start it again - a very long process - and my work is still there, but the whole episode repeats after I make one or two changes. I still don't have all the still clips on the timeine...not to mention trimming all the clips to the length I want them...and then I have to add music. Sorry I bought it - thought it was a good deal. Don't know if I'll be able to finish with this or will have to run out and get something more reliable.

Adobe Premiere Elements is light years better, and costs about the same.

WOW! I have Pinnacle Studio 9.4 and experience a lot of system crashes. Pinnacle tech support is nothing short of a nightmare. I spent hours upon hours (days upon days) trying to make this trash software work and I am now giving up. I will switch this w/e to Adobe Premiere Elements. Whether personal or professional use, consumers need a product that performs. I don't have the kind of time (40+ hours a week) to devote to helping Pinnacle find and attempt to fix their bugs. It's the worst software program I've ever bought. AND whenever I contacted them, they rouked me into "buying the upgraded versions." There should be laws to protect the consumer from this type of software rip-off! I've spent several hundreds of dollars since the original purchase of Pinnacle's Movie Box DV and Studio -- top notch junk!

My 10.5 on a Dell 9300 with 7200 rpm drive & 2 gigs ram won't even open a media file,no matter what kind. I de-installed & reinstalled on my 8300 desktop and it will occasionally open a media file, but won't render any transitions, crashes repeatedly, won't show preview windows if you trim a clip , (the clip trimmer won't show previews at all), and half the time the transition icons won't even show up. Adobe, here I come.

Thank You all! I have decided not to purchase this upgrade/product. I have Studio 9.4. and will not upgrade or buy another Pinnacle program again. There is nothing good about this software... Also, some other major mags that say it's great, well... We know who's taking you out for dinnner!

v.9 Worked great for awhile. Used it a month ago, now getting Application error. Send the usless error report message". Thinking positive, I bought 10. Well the new crash message changed. It was well worth the $49.00 upgrade to see the new Icon and crash under different message. You my as well not look under Pinnacle Forum. Tried their repeated fix. Uninstall-reinstall. B.S. I try to keep 2500 pc's working on the job. We should take a class action suit for selling a junk and useless product without support.

I am using v9.4.3 and rendering a movie to DVD. On the screen it looks pretty fine and synced, but the at final DVD version some tansitions just don?t work. It alson happens with pictures/text at the Overlay track. It looks like a bug to me.

S10 plus. with lates patch and my PC (CPU fan)
make noise like a hurrycane.
I bought this upgrade witch is a disaster like all you above talks about. I got a S9 SE with my pc for 1 year ago. There is sometime crashes but it works to 95%. When I installed S10+ it works for 20%. When I installed the patch 10.5.1 it almost cosumed 80-90 % of the CPU like. I been so gald i find this forum, now I?m leaving this product ( 60 $ wasted )

I have been reading in many forums since studio plus came on the scene. My hope and faith in this company has faded. I have an old analog version which I have enjoyed using...except for the crashes. But, I am convinced that it is time to move on. I will NEVER recommend Studio again. Those I know who use Mac's imovie or final cut never complain about crashes, are very HAPPY, and always create professional project work. I'm making the jump.
ADIOS PINNACLE!!

Almost bought studio 10 stumble on this web site by mistake I would just like to thank each and everyone of you for saving me a 100 dollars .

I belive the words of Pinnacle Says it all, Studio 10.5 Crashes LESS. There reputation preceds them as non user friendly software designer.
aimed at selling up grades which even then fail.
belive me when I say that any one who say that they have had a great expierance with any thing past 7.0, is sniffing glue and lost in la la land.

After 2-months and 3-days of communicating with Pinnacle Support, I still do not have my (Analog) "Capture Card Not Recognized" problem resolved in 10.0 and now, even in 10.5. Two weeks ago I backed-up all of my data and restored my computer to it's original state as it was when I bought it May 30, 2004.

Thankfully, my capture card began working again so I reinstalled Stuido 9 and the subsequent patches. I was back in business, but had lost the premium services that I previously had unlocked. I've been trying to get my money back for Studio 10 but instead Support insisted that I try it again with the 10.5 patch. Call me stupid...

Thinking I was smart, I set a RESTORE POINT in Windows XP Media Edition. I reinstalled 10, downloaded the 10.5 patch and guess what!?!? It doesn't recognize my analog capture card. Pinnacle told me it was okay to install 10 over 9, so with 9 still in, I opened it and it didn't recognize my analog capture card anymore either! So I restored back to my saved restore point (Prior to installing Studio 10).

Nothing (but a day) lost, right? WRONG, my computer lost all knowledge that it even has a capture card installed. It's an integrated card that came with my Medion M3 Director 5000, 1G RAM, 160G HD, 3.0 GHz, NVIDIA GE Force FX5200 w/128MB. Not a bad system, but here I go again with a Data Backup followed by a complete SYSTEM RESTORE.

Thankfully, I found this web site to let off some steam. When all is said and done, I'll go back to Studio 9 and limp along until I find something better.

I like the idea of a Class Action Suit - Please keep me posted at UselessStudio10@aol.com.

I was suckered into buying version 9 and 9 plus. It worked some times. Editing the videos were fine, but it would take 6-7 business days just to render the damn movies I edited. And it would even crash sometimes in preview mode and take another 2 -3 business days to re-boot etc, etc. Not to mention when I actually ordered the versions, I bought them in the E store on the pinnacle site. They took a month just to send me my Chroma key screen, and the customer service stunk worse than that dead skunk I keep ruinning over on the side of the road.

I'm just happy I read all these posts before I hit the "send Payment" button on version 10.5 I was just about to buy... I think I will use that $99.00 on some new tires for my white 92 Dodge Spirit. Thanks Pinnacle!

I had Studio 8 which worked fine except I could not burn to a DVD ("DVD Failure occurred"). I upgraded to 10.0 then got the "patch" fo 10.5. When trying to create a DVD it stops and reboots my system. It will render but not create the DVD. I took the DVD RW to get checked and even bought a new DVD-RW. This sucks!!

I bought Studio 10.1. It crashed all the time. I mean all the time. I updated to 10.2. It crashed most of the time. I've now gone to 10.5. It also crashes most of the time. This is the worst professional software I've ever seen in my life. Pinnacle should really think about testing this stuff before it hits the market. I give up...

Well I was going to download 10.5 and see how it went but after reading the above comments about how it sucks .......forget it. Ya know THAT'S really bad when someone doesn't even bother to download it for free huh? LMAO

This was my last letter to "tech support"
Your customer service really sucks!!! I have been on the phone with you guys three times and have received absolutely NO help. Here is where I am at. I am about to throw this product out the window and us someone else?s, (I wonder if you could recommend some other product from one of your competitors that might actually work?) if you cannot help me. I have had to install and uninstall and reinstall (studio 10.1.01.125) now 3 times to try to get the update (patch 10.5) to install, I have downloaded it now three times and see no problem with the download. The link says that it is supposed to be a 79mb file but when you click on it and it takes you to the download site it says that it is only 77.5mb. After the down load I try to install the update and it crashes with this message ?Feature transfer error Feature: wise patch Component: File: Error: catastrophic Failure? Then it corrupts the studio 10 and I have to uninstall it and reinstall, or just run the software. This should be a simple installation and it has turned into a three day job, with three long distance phone calls (at my expense). You have now had me jump through all of the hoops that I am willing to jump through and I am not doing anymore tricks. I want someone to give me some REAL ?CUSTOMER SERVICE? I have been a registered user of your products for about 5 yrs. And will not waste another 5 minuets talking to some operator or clerk that dose not have a clue as to how to help. I bought this product on the internet and have about 25 days left before I can?t return it. If I do not get some real help it is going back and I?m going to start a campaign to tell other about what a joke this product is and what a scam your ?technical support? is. Scott, Jerry and some lady who doesn?t speak english very well need to find another line of work.

Hey, it's not Scott and Jerry's fault. They're working with crap software. Get a reufund.

I am a pinnacle user of many years and many versions.I installed Version 10.1 on a very high spec Pent4 machine. Upgraded to 10.5. this is one shockingly bad program.
How could AVID, whoever they are, payout a company and then destroy the software. I'm outa their products, reverting to Vers9 for now and looking for something better. As I have Liquid 6 maybe this is the time to really get to grips with that. But then I have all sorts of tempting offers to upgrade to the AVID version of that. I don't think so team.

Wow!
I like many of you / have been looking at this product / thinking that it is just what I need to actualy start video editing by getting an upgrade for the V. 8 that I have. My god, this blog needs to be printed in PC magazine so people get a clue about what software companys are getting away with. Thank each and every one of you for saving me my mariage, since for the most part I have my wife do my truble shooting for me, and she does not want me to upgrade. I almost asked for V.10 for Christmas. I think I'm happy that I got the fruitcake instead.

I just purchased Studio 10. Have not installed it on my computer yet. Reading through these reviews makes me sorry that I purchased this product. I am now wondering if I can get a refund! Any ideas on how I can do this??

If you haven't opened the shrinkwrap, you can usually take it back within a certain (short) amount of time. Depends on the store. If you have opened it, then you're probalby out of luck.

Well thank god I didn't purchase this software.

A family member interstate purcahsed v9 only to report its regular crashing.

I downloaded it illegally to test it, I tried every version from 9 to 9.4 then gave up.

I have now stumbled upon v10, decided bugger that I'm not buying a piece of software with its current track record. So.. I downloaded it illegally.
Installed, v10 took way way to long to load.

Went to capture some video to find it was sluggy and would return zero byte files.

Updated to v10.5 only to find it too was having issues capturing video.

By all means if this v10 was going to work I would most definitely purchase the software.

I really like the overall look and ease of use compared to others on the market.

Get your bugs fixed and I will purcahse the damn thing. Until then its being uninstalled from my computer, the little video capture I will do will be done by an illegal v9.4 that even then still doesn't 100% work.

Idiots. Pick your game up, your giving us IT people a very very bad name.

I have had the same problems described by everyone else. I bought Studio 10 for my Dell computer (6 months old). Video freeze when trying to capture the video off of a VCR. System Locks up and have to either reboot or re-install. I downloaded 10.5 patch and now I can get any video into my computer.

I bought the USB version with software for $179 at best Buy. Looks like that money is gone, because I'll bet only 6 days after I had bought it, they won't give me a refund or exchange. And to think my computer might have had something wrong with it. This is criminal; I have never had this many and type problems in my life with software (10 years owning real PCs).

So stay with Pinnacle 9.3 plus and you will be OK. I have used Pinnacle Studio Plus 9.3 for a while and I'm happy with it until I updated to Pinnacle Studio Plus 10.0. After a lot of crashes, I uninstalled v10.0 and backed to v9.3.
In case you don't want to use Pinnacle, you can buy Adobe Premier 2.0, Adobe Encore DVD, or Ulead Media Studio 8.0 or SonyVegas Studio 6.0. They have the same functions like Pinnacle has and are more stable.

I just purchased version 10 and upgraded to 10.5. What a disappointment. I've used 9.3 with much success. I was expecting bigger and better things. What I got was bigger problems. How long can pinnacle/avid put out such software and sleep at night. It's a shame the software can't be returned for a refund. Pinnacle will have to really tempt me with assurances and free stuff to make me feel good about their software again because, now, I'm looking to the competitors to help me get my editing projects done.

the cable company fried my ati all in wonder so i bought a new aiw 2006 with guess what...... pinnacle bundled with it. so i install it and realize i dont have that many years of life to live and lay out another 99 for 10+. well 10+ doesnt run on 2000 so i go buy xp pro. 10 plus does everything mentioned above. so i buy a gig of ddr400 ram and a 300 gb drive. i can now crash about 3 times as much a day. so i buy a dvd vhs combo and record shows and gave up editing out commercials. pinnacle 10 - 99.00, xp pro 199.00 gig of ram 130.00 300 gb drive 179.00, ati card 129.99 9with rebate) all of thsi crap not working....PRICELESS!!!!

I was getting good results with pinnacle 9 until I applied the last patch that was published for it. Now it barely works at all. A simple project which should have taken 5 hours, took me 55 hours. The helpless desk at pinnacle was useless, as I see it was for many of you. I was really hoping that version 10 would take care of all the issues, however thanks to everyone's comments, I know it is not worth my time or effort to upgrade. I never want to experience the level of frustration again that I felt on that last project. Since I use this software as part of my business, I need to depend on set timeframes to get work done without my system crashing every 5 minutes. I did purchase liquid 6 about a year ago, but have not really worked with it because it is not as intuitive. Does anyone know if it has the same or similar issues? Also, I would appreciate any feedback regarding other good video editing packages out there and if you have any success with them.

I thought it was just me!! Many all-nighters fighting a bug in Studio 9.4 with DVD chapter editing captions ? they disappear! So what if they fixed this bug in 10 when they have so many other issues. Are there refunds on time? Video editing is already a time warp hobby.

Can anyone help me select another product (Adobe Premier 2.0, Adobe Encore DVD, or Ulead Media Studio 8.0 or SonyVegas Studio 6.0) that is known to edit VOB files with out the dreaded audio delay? I have about 30 DVDs of home video that were made with a DVR. Studio 9.4 could import VOB but the audio synch was unacceptable. I then converted VOB to AVI with Pinnacle?s free TRex utility. The video and audio quality is excellent but the file size is too large. The VOB/MPEG2 video quality is good enough fro my home videos but I need a product that can keep the audio in synch.

Hey, Russ. Adobe Premiere Elements imports VOB files. It's slow, but it works.

I've been using studio ten for a while now. Most of the crashes I've seen in studio have been related with my ATI video cards drivers. Whist it may appear studio is the culprit it's not always, it's just the fall guy. I have experience of this myself as I'm a developer, I spend most of my time working around qwerks in video drivers. With each version of the video drivers comes a new set of qwerks to work around and when they release them fortnightly what are we supposed to do!
I updated to the Catalyst 6.3 driver for my ATI 9800 Pro 128Mb AGP card and I've not had any problems since (I'm running the 10.5 patch).
Before wacking Pinnacle look closely at your own computer, these super advanced boxes are hurting badly at the moment. Al the new hardware acceleration and progammability we now have in the video cards is very immature and is getting there, just slowly!

i dont dare steer this discussion away from what a piece of junk studio is... but dont even go there with upgrading ati software. google "get rid of tv on demand ati" if you want to see another chapter in agony.

I am blessed with a powerful and stable PC running XP home. Pinnacle Studio 9 worked just fine.
Upgraded to Studio 10 + the ridiculously oversized 70 meg download 'fix' upgrading it to 10.5 and it crashes like there was no tomorrow. I feel cheated by Pinnacle. I cannot recommend this software.

I'm a Pinnacle Studio 9.4.3 Plus user that has been being cautious about upgrading to 10.X. Does anyone know if your plug-ins for 9.4.3 will be "upgraded" when you upgrade to 10.5, or do you have to pay fees to unlock all these features again in 10.5? I'm considering buying another 9.4.3 upgrade, but if it can't be upgraded to 10.5.x (I'm waiting until there's an version after 10.5) I might not buy the new plug-in for 9.4.3 now. Any feedback on the upgrade costs of plug-ins would be really helpful. Thanks!

I was just checking to see if I should upgrade to 10.5. This forum was very good for me to read. Adios Pinnacle!

Still have Studio 9.4, but the rendering keeps hanging, among other crashes. Pinnacle suggestions did NOTHING to fix this.
Am looking into Sony Vegas Studio or Adobe premiere Elements, because what Pinnacle brings to market is a shame - this company should not be in business period.

I had few problems with 7, 8, or 9 Plus. Any issues that came up were system-related. I've captured 100s of hours. I've authored dozens of DVDs using just about every trick in the application. I have found conflicting operations - features that don't go well together but I work around. Go to Videoguys site and get the gospel - video editing apps are resource hogs & don't coexist well in a multi-tasking environment. Configuration: h/w & OS, are absolutely key. Capturing & rendering are resource hogs. Vital to have a dedicated 7200 RPM second drive for all captures & renders. Best interface is via firewire. USB 1.1/2.0 are not reliable. I've captured & rendered to external drive via USB 2.0 but it is slower. Editing is a hog too. If you have problems - go to minimal boot systray, explore. Disconnet network, shutdown virus protection, etc. Minmum means minimum. Don't have Studio 10 but as for 7-9.4 my advice is fix your system and OS configs before you blame Studio for problems. I'll admit it's not easy to get a working config but this isn't your wordprocessor or game you are dealing with. This is just about the most demanding it can get for a system. The shame is video editing apps are mass marketed to consumers who don't want to deal with all the tailoring or may not know how. Many professionals spend 1,000s on turn-key systems for this reason. If I have any critique it is this issue - it is not a very good out of box solution for every house-hold and user. I have customized my H/W, drivers, OS settings to get the performance & reliablity I have attained. It took much time and some frustration. I didn't mind as much since I understood fully what I'm dealing with. Don't just flex about having 3.4 GHz hyperthreading processors, GBs of RAM, & terabytes of HD, it takes much tweaking and tailoring. I agree that's not fair to most consumers & they don't advertise this. That's the shame of it. But it is possible to get a good config up and going that this product will work with. End of my sermon. Take shots at my points here as you wish but my system's reliability seems to prove me right as far as I see it. PS - I had similar issues with Adobe pro - lots of tweaks before things were good. They're pretty much all that way so "out of box" - faggidaboutit.

Hi,

I freind loaned me a copy of Studio 10 - it trashed my system and is totally unreliable. Bad video preview and crashing frequently.( I had to rebuild my software completely) and it trashed my 300Gig drive too. I was very happy with ver 9 , and had a satisfactory setup. it's a shame as good stuff can be done , I am holding on to my cash before buying the full Studio 10 version.

I downloaded studio 10 plus and what a piece of shit it was.. i say studio 9 is better but all pinnacle software just sucks so badly. You cant use any other music type other than .mp3 and .wav and the video plugins suck. You cant even use video files like VOB or WMV. Whats up with this? I cant even use mp3 music now cause it just wont let me drag music onto the damn timeline. I now have to rip my music o a cd and open it up with the cd feature of capturing it onto the timeline. What a peice of junk! I just deleted studio 10 plus off my computer cause it sucks so much crap its not even funny. You guys should just stop makeing crappy products that dont even work well. You either stop now or make a product called "Pinnacle Dream" where you can actualy use all type of music and video extensions and also fix the bugs completely! and such and such etc. etc. etc. and so on.. good luck pshhh...

Damn, I just ordered this software for 99.00 from their website today. Looks like I'm in for a world of hurt.

One things I noticed about Pinnacle 10.5. - It likes the latest drivers on your PC, and if you have choppy preview window, it's time for a new 256k video card. I have been using since studio 7, and could never get anything to work with any satisfaction. I purchased 10 early dec. installed it and download 10.1, I had choppy video, I purchased a new card & downloaded the latest drivers, and all works well. I captured video from vhs-c, created a menu, and burned a dual layer DVD with success - this is the first release I could get to really work. I use the Dazzle dvc-150 to capture analog.
yes, it does take a really long time to load (at least they have the %loaded value displayed, so I know how long to go. once it's up & running, it is acceptable. at least the voice/video matches up on this release when I burn a DVD!!

D's reply is correct, & I couldn't have said it better. You guys just can't expect this to work out of the box. you need to understand your system, and hardware. and have a little patience. It's worth the wait.

I'm sorry, but whoa. How many people use software on a totally clean system? And how many people, after paying $100 for an application, think it's acceptable for that software to require the purchase of a $300-$400 video card? And how many other applications do you own that run just fine no matter what else you have loaded on it--out of the box or five months after you install it? Would you be so charitable to Microsoft OFfice? I really doubt it.

I have been using the product for about 3 weeks so granted I don't have a lot of history to report. Running 10.5. I had zero problems until I started using some LARGE image / photos. It just did not like that. Once I scaled the images to a reasonable size it started behaving. I have captured about 30 hours of version video and all of it was flawless.

So far I have been pleased with the product

Check out my March 5th Blog (scroll way up). 83 Days after opening a "case" with service, the case is still unresolved. Yesterday was a glorious day. I finally got my money back from Pinnacle. I guess I'm out when the Class Action finally comes around. I'm keeping my special email address if anyone wants to chat about it. UselessStudio10@aol.com

I couldn't even install Pinnacle 10, it was looking for some file that was not on my system. Turns out I had to totally nuke my temporary file directory on a brand new clean install of Windows. It got through 2 of 3 disks, and refuses to install the bonus DVD content.

I haven't gotten started on any real work yet but now I'm a bit worried about the whole thing...

yep pretty much the same with all other complaints, good luck triing to get help from them you send them an email of the problem if your lucky 4 days later they will send you a reply not awnsering the question and at the same time forgetting what you asked them from 4 days ago. I think they need to look more at customer service before pinnacle becomes a thing of the past

Hi All! I have to say that, in experience and reading your posts, there is a problem, but i do not think it is entirely in pinnacles' corner. my previous setup, a amdxp2700/1gig dualchan ram, 2x raid 0 arrays, ati x800 agp winxp sp2 ran both 9.4 and 10.5 flawlessly (with all programs shut except pinnacle of course). i did have installation problems but persistance paid off.
Now....i thought i'd build a 64 bit system, from the ground up and figured that pinnacle would run speedily and flawlessly, perhaps even while using other programs! Well, that is not exactly the case......
new system: asus A8n sli deluxe, AMD 64x2 4600, 2x raid0's with raptor 150's, bfg 7800gtx pci-e oc, xfi sound, 4 gigs (two matched sets ocz titanium) ram, win xp 32 sp1-i'll explain below. and i ended up with many of the same problems mentioned above. and thats not all, after many key programs blew up, and i rewiped and reinstalled everything, oh...7 times so far, i read EVERY forum on these and the other issues i came across i came to some interesting well, at this point impasses till i experiment with win x64. i heard of an issue with AMD's dual cpu chips involving a timing issue in dividing instructions between them (32 bit opsys's), a hardware driver irq allocation issue with nvidia gfx pci-e cards, and nvid4 chipsets (go figure lol...same producer made and cant get along) and various program "blow-ups" sometimes fragging the whole opsys (hence the 7 times wipe-and-reload. And when i investigated these on forums, i found that many....many, not all have these things in common, a 64bit processor, both amd and intell, however, though i like amd and am stubborn in this, most of the problems were with amd proc's. theer were also nv4 chipset and nvid gfx similarities. your forum helped me with a strategy to get at least 9.4 going to finish contracted work. THANK YOU!!! :) I am trunning it while i am typing this!
now in my own opinion, guys..... i think this is either a hardware issue and (REALLY THE CULPRIT...) a windows code (mis handling 64 bit resources in a 32 bit ...mabe even 64 bit opsys environment. I have seeemingly got a sort of stable environment only upgradeing xp 32 to sp1 and NO norton products, however....i still have some hiccups and or bsod's...the funniest was when after each bsod my printshop 21 wiped itself off my hard drive lol.
i sicerely hope thi stuff will be resolved with win x64....any one using this out there? i dont worry about the usb movie box because the vid card has vivo, and pinnacle see's it already as an input source i also have fire wire.
thanks for you time all, i know i was long winded...hope it helps a bit tho.
George.

I must say this software sucks.... I've never seen so many bad reviews of software... it has rendered my Dazzle unit worthless...

Only in America can you sell a POS and do it with a smile...

Who wants to start the class action law suit to get our money back?

I ordered this software last week and then started reading the awful reviews. Needless to say, I was hesitant to install the software Saturday night. However, when I went to the Pinnacle site for the patch, I noticed that there was a newly released patch from March 31st. I installed this patch right away as well and so far, besides minor installation problems, have had no major issues or crashes. I enjoy the pan and zoom feature and can't wait to give the green screen a try.

Just make sure that if you purchase this software you download and install all of the patches BEFORE YOU EVEN OPEN THE PROGRAM. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the performance stays good.

I too am going to have to un-install studio ver 10.5 - did the patch to 10.5.2, system just wasted six hours of my time. Will not burn DVDs (export failure), Pinnacle fixes didn't work, would not even let me save to file - it just hangs. wastung all of my capture and editing time invested. I've decided to un-install 10.5.2 completely, and re-install 9. At least it works.

studio ruined my life.........

kill me

Upgraded to 10 then installed 10.5 before trying anything. Works "OK." Always crashes when making DVDs but I just save to file fist then use Roxio to burn. Also crashes saving a project if I don't do it pretty often. Then crashes at other random times but I have been able to return to current project without losing data. Startup time is around 30 seconds but the crash data collection utility is pain. Maybe they should offer a lower priced version if they want you to be beta checkers. In the middle of a project now so I'm holding off on the 10.5.2 update. I feel fortunate to have a "reasonably" stable load right now. By reasonably stable i mean starting up after crash about 3 times per hour.

Oh dear - me too i'm afraid. Current position 10 worked ok, 10.5 took out (pci) video capture

What a peice of crap been a user for 3 years this has been a nightmare to get going had all up and finally working then the auto update grabbed 10.5 and now nothing works on my 3.o gigahertz AMD 64, The kids had just shot a hillarious western for there grandmothers birthday now she'll have to settle for house shoes...I am changing brands and not looking back!

I went out spent $500 on a camcorder JVC Digital (yeah right) then I bought the capture device ($100) to make it digital $84 worth of wrecked DVD+R DVD-R DVD+R and DVD-R again. All I want to do is watch a f#$*ing DVD of my video. Can't do it!!! Thanks Pinnacle why don't you guy's try a little trick in product research plug it the hell in and see if it works. Get a clue we should sue!! JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK. They used us as product guinee pigs without even testing this junk and we need to fight back this is bull@#$$

For those who are going or have moved to a better editing program in the PC world -- what is most successful and how is it doing?

Ulead Media Studio 8.0? SonyVegas Studio 6.0?

I have never been so disgusted with a piece of software. Anyone here who posts anything like a decent review has got to be an anomaly.
I also bought this program thinking it would perform. I have spent 4 months now cruising forums, including Pinnacle's, reading about how AWFUL this piece of software is.
No help from tech, no suggestions, and every forum I read is the same....99% hate this. I am now trying to buy a program that can deliver what Pinnacle promises.
I have spent four months trying to find out why the $79 sotware (and $30 upgrade to Pro...what an idiot I am) won't make movies, when I should have spent the last four months making movies!
Pinnacle: DIE

I sure wish I read this before I bought Pinnacle Studio MediaSuite 10. Installed it at 9 AM today and now at 9:30 PM, I am searching for an answer to why I get a ?Export Error (render failure)? when I try to burn a DVD. I tried every patch and upgrade on the Pinnacle site. I will give up now that I read all of these posts and know it is not me. So where do I go from here. What other product to I need to buy to make video and burn them to a DVD? What works?

I started way back with version 7. They all had their problems but was alwasy able to work 'em out... troublesome but i did get it to work. Version 10 was a bad decision. Over 3 weeks of headaches that got me & wife arguing it just isn't worth it. We're gonna try going back to 9 and research to something else. We will not go back to Pinnacle even if they guaranteed it. Sorry, but you just gotta trust the masses... Almost everybody, even the techs hate it. I'm uninstalling as we speak... I hope you all do the same...

Am about to upgrade to Studio Plus 10... brave step considering some of the things said of it here! Using 9.4 Plus I was having multi difficulties til now every time I start up Studio, I open Task Manager, click on Processes, right click on Studio and set priority to real-time. Far less problems for me. Hope it works for Studio 10 as well.
GODSPEED

Having said that ie: see previous entry: I also found that getting "trigger happy" in Studio is not wise. I found this out finally when using Timeline View instead of Storyboard.... you can actually see a progress line as it renews each step you add. Wait each time til the line is all yellow again! Green means it's still busy....I hope this helps someone.
GODSPEED

WOW. There’s a great little FREE program that I believe ALL STUDIO USERS NEED, FreeRam from bysoft.com. Open task Manager as well when you free up RAM and watch Studio's memory usage ability get a real boost. GO GET IT.!
I also found that getting "trigger happy" in Studio is not wise. I found this out finally when using Timeline View instead of Storyboard View.... you can actually see a progress line as it renews each step you add. Wait each time til the line is all yellow again! Green means it's still busy....I hope this helps someone.
Cheer.
GODSPEED

How can I get the rendering process started again once it hangs? Do I have to start over. It made one pass ok then hung up half way through the second pass. Please e mail directly if you have any suggestions. kd6ajg@yahoo.com

Thanks.

Tony

This Program is a piece of @#$% - It studders simple effects during playback after a DVD is created and the audio loses sync from the picture after a cut or small dissolve. A waste of $99. I am using a HP Media Center Computer 2.0 gig w/250gig HD, brand new computer. Does anyone know if a 2nd Hard Drive will fix this? Or cause more problems?

My guess is that clips should be 15 min or less, use a slave video drive and defrag your system completely before burning DVD for better rendering / response. Anyone agree? Disagree? Lemmeknow. Mike

I tried to load Studio 10 but could not. I was told to unload 9.4 which works and has partial projects. It took a year to get Studio 9 to work properly. It still crashes regularly but I save at every step and I was recently able to do a 15 minute movie with pictures, video and CD music. Previously, I had to split a 20 minute movie to get it to be properly rendered. I then used Creator by Roxio to put the two segments together and burn a DVD. My last project I was able to burn a DVD through Studio 9.4 but it is better to use Roxio to burn a DVD. In summary, Studio 9.4 is very easy to learn and use, but it is the most unreliable program due to frequent crashes. Pinnacle apparently uses their consumers to find and report the glitches instead of getting rid of them before they sell their program. I am about to switch to Apple's program because of the reliability factor.

Studio 10.5 Plus is in my opionion no better product then any of the other Pinnacle Products. It does have some cool features. If I could get my money back I would and I would have just stayed with Pinnacle 9. I have to agree with another comment on this board that they should have never realesed it to retail. Thats my 2 cents.

Does anyone using this program get a drift in audio? After some simple effects, my audio loses sync with the video and the picture drifts away from the sound. HELP!

this program is a POS, especially when your on a limted budget. i bought to some videos for my son and it sucks. thanks pinnacle for stealing 100 of my hard earned dollars.

this program is a POS, especially when your on a limited budget. i bought it to do some videos for my son and it sucks. thanks pinnacle for stealing 100 of my hard earned dollars.

I have been a Pinnacle Studio user since version 7 came out. I kept saying I will never
go to the upgrades since the ones they have out don't work.
You can look at all the blood letting in the user groups.

I too have built up a very fast computer with name brand parts which includes
3 WD Raptor hard drives for speed, and 2 gigs of ram, beleive me the rendering time in
Pinnacle 9 and 10 needs it be speed up. My Pinnacle 9plus takes 5 hours to render a 1 hour
video to DVD.

It reminds me if Pinnacle had a resturant. You go in and buy the hamburger (Pinnacle 10), it made
you sick. The waiter tells you that you need to buy the 12 oz steak for $ 40. If they can't get the
hamburger right do you think I should spend more money on a product?

I have Pinnacle 9 Plus on my old slow 2.5 amd computer and 10 plus on the fast 64 bit computer.
Pinnacle 10.5xxx will not open a project. I can right click on the task bar and get the error
that the program has stopped responding, I then have to manually close it.
I get the crash screen up and tell it not to send anything.
I will again click the Pinnacle Icon and it will ask if want to open the project I was working on or
choose another. I choose 'the one I was working on', it opens it now.

At the present time I am working with one of their software engineers doing core dumps and
other things to make my copy work. I have had my copy since November 2005. I paid over $300.00
for mine which included some add-on's.

If I can't get my money back I am going to turn this and all the paperwork over to the Texas Attorney
General and let them put it under deceptive advertising and fraud. I can get tripple my money back
according to Texas Law.

I would jump at another program that would work like Avid. The problem there is the learning curve.
To me Avid is an overkill for the home user.
I hope Avid will roll some heads at Pinnacle, fire some people and get some resonsible people in that
can write code and get it out in working order.

All I ask is a product that works. So do thousands of other customers and X-Customers.

d Hansel
Houston, Texas

I agree that Pinnace is selling us scrap. I have bought studio 10. I couldn't use the smartsound. I have tried to uninstall and resinstall. It seems there is no preview. I am going in circle. They now that this editing software is not woring perfectly, and yet, they are selling it out.

My kid blew his hard earned money on pinnacle 10.0. They have absolutely NO credibility with me. I make it a point to tell EVERYONE not to purchase the BugInfested Pinnacle products. They are rushing out their "Pinnacle Mobile Media Converter and Pinnacle Mobile Media Organizer" product and I hope all the poor customer relations and bad blood they have created by not standing behind their products BITES them in the BEHIND!!! We are treated like disposable customers. Tell everyone you meet not to waste their money!!!

I wish I would have read this Blog ealier! I bought this program a few days ago and upgraded my memory...Just in case..I am done with this! What a waste of time and money! I tried calling support and was put on hold for over an hour. I registered thier product and tried emailing them. I can't seem to get logged in with the password they gave me. Round and Round we go. I will be getting ahold of a consumer watchdog if I can't get ahold of these people. They have already lost me as a customer for life and I have also lost 2 hours of raw footage. This product is the biggest waste of 4 disks I have ever seem. i will be switching to Adobe soon....just got to replenish my wallet now..... Buyer beware

YOU GUYS MUST BE THE 30 OUT OF A MILLION CUSTOMERS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT PINNACLE STUDIO! I AM QUITE HAPPY WITH THE PRODUCT AND HAVE HAD NO PROBLEMS FOR A FULL YEAR NOW! UPGRADE YOUR HARDWARE. 1024 MEG RAM WORKS FINE, PENTIUM4 80 GIG HDD ECT, YOU'LL HAVE NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT. tHIS SOFTWARE IS FOR THE GUYS WHO KEEP THEIR SYSTEMS UP TO DATE, LIKE THE STUDIO SOFTWARE IS KEPT UP TO DATE!!

Rocky, you must be a complete and utter idiot! This software is a piece of Sh*t! I have used v9.4 pretty well and then decided to try 10. After It crashed I went back to v9.4. I have tried installing 10 again with the 10.5 patch, the software still SUCKS! And for your info, I think my P4 3.0ghz 1gig ram, 160 SATA hdd should be more than enough for this application to run. I'm glad that you have it working on yours, but you are one of the rare cases. I think all of our problems outweigh your 1 working machine. In other words, Pinnalce needs to get their heads out of the a**es and do some real programming to fix the damn bugs!

Amen, brother B

Same here, tend to agree with Rocky. Mine works fine.

Not nice to get personal because Rocky's works. The forum is not meant for that. My software also works well.

Wonder if u really have the PC that you say you do??????? I also have no crashes with 10.5. Happy!!!

Think you're sour because Rocky is content. I reckon that you should apologise as working software cannot possibly make an utter idiot out of anyone. I too have no problems.

Thanks guys, there are always two types of idiots, the happy ones and the begrudged ones. Needless to say what category I reside under. Hope that your life becomes less miserable B, regards. Really, no apology required. I'm rather thick skinned when little people are unhappy.

Wel ek moet ook se dat myne werk perfek. Ek kan nie kla nie, "no problem". Ek dink ook dat hy moerse ongeskik is. Hansie Slim, Suid Afrika.

Ich liebe dich Hansie!

Hmm. I bought studio 10 and installed the upgrade right off the bat and i have to say it sucks. I have a 3.0G, 1024Mb, ati 256MB (dual 400mhz), raid 0 and have never been more pissed off at how unstable a program is. i make it about a half hour, maybe a little more, til the next crash.

Those of you who are getting along just fine, are you using the full extent of the program? Or, can u share the secret to success with studio? I crash every time i try to activate somthin in studio, and at random when opening menus or starting and stopping playback... >:|

First time I buy a product without reviewing it thinking that Pinnacle has a name and couldn't be very bad. Man was I wrong, this product sucks, i've been fighting for months now to get the project I created on DVD every time something is missing/disappeared is corrupted and didnt come on the DVD, or it crashes or it just give you an error here or there. Just installed 10.5.2 but to be honest I dont think any update will fix this product. Bad design ..... new motto "Pinnacle ... never again"

FOR ALL STUDIO 10 USERS EXPERENCING PROBLEMS - OK - HERE'S WHAT I LEARNED THROUGH MANY HRS OF EXPERIMENTATION - STUFF NOT IN THE BOOK - - YOU MUST EDIT ONLY .AVI IN THE TIMELINE - NOT MPEG OR ANYTHING ELSE - BEFORE ANYTHING, YOU MUST CONVERT ALL VIDEO AND PICTURES TO .AVI AND THEN EDIT - BURN TO DVD AS MPEG OR WHATEVER ELSE - BUT - ONLY USE .AVI IN THE TIMELINE. ALSO - LOAD THE PINNACLE SOFTWARE TO THE EXTRA VIDEO DRIVE FOR MUCH SMOOTHER OPERATION & LESS CRASHES - THEN UNLOAD STUDIO OFF THE C DRIVE AS IT WILL COMPETE WITH WINDOWS. MY SYSTEM WORKS F L A W L E S S L Y NOW

Thanks for that. I did this last nite and its working like a dream so far. I sat for six hours with not a problem. Thanks for the avice Mike. You're a star!

Thank you all for the reviews.

I have used several Pinnacle products. Used Studio 8 DV for several years. My experience has been that the code is buggy and it has taken many updates to make it reasonably reliable. Yesterday, the capture card that came with the package died. I've been looking for a chance to upgrade both the hardware and the software and stumbled upon this site.

I'd have to say that I will avoid Pinnacle because my experience in the past makes the complaints about the present software very credible.

Thanks for the suggestions for alternatives. I like what I've seen of the alternatives. I'm trying Magix, VideoReDo, PresentAVID, BlazeMP, Scenanalyzer, Avisynth, VirtualDub.

10.5 crashes less?? The biggest bullshit i've ever heard

What annoys me as much as anything are the "System Requirements" for Studio programs. They are totally unrealistic and are doubtless the cause of much user unhappiness -- incuding mine. I have upgraded my whole system and still can't get a fairly large file to render. Studio has some great features, but all things considered, I'll take Adobe Premiere Elements any day. The program works and they actually have a tech support that listens. Thanks to all for removing my temptation to upgrade Studio to 10.5.

Went out and purchased Studio Plus version 10.5 yesterday. The reason I went with without reviewing it was I saw Microsoft & Pinnacle were partners in Microsoft Digital Image Suite. I assumed Microsfot wouldn't attach their name to a bad program (you Mac lovers keep your comments at bay). It took over three hours to install it and two installs as I got a Service Access Code error. Finally after installing it, I put together a clip quickly. I then saved it to disk in WMV format on the lowest setting. After another hour it still wasn't done rendering. I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, the program had crashed and I lost what ever work I had done on the project. I tried again. This time I saved on the lowest setting in MPG format. After 1 1/2 hours it completed. Keep in mind this was a 5 minute clip that was only 3.5 megs and I only saved to disk - I did not burn it. My computer meets more than the recommended requirements.

I've used PowerDirector Express and wasn't satisifed with its limited features. However, I can save a 30-minute project in high quality format to disk in about 45 minutes. That's half the time it takes with Pinnacle with a project 6 times longer.

I am extremely disappointed in this software. I have no recourse as I have already opened the project. Best Buy won't take it back. I highly doubt there is anything tech support can do from the sound of this forum. I will waste hours of my time trying to give Pinnacle a chance to fix this problem. If I can't get a fix and no money back, I will try to file a claim in Small Claims court. But, this has already proven to be a waste of my time and money.

These software companies hide behind these anti-piracy laws and you have no recourse to return the product once it is open. When the retailers are not involved, they don't know to stop ordering a crappy product. See when you return items to the retailers, they keep track of it. If they are refunding a product more than others they will stop carrying it. When they stop carrying it, the manufacturer loses money. That is why you see so many products with notices asking you not return it to the retail store but to deal with them directly.

I am game for a lawsuit for you all are. We'll see where this goes on my end. I live in California and they are not exactly corporate friendly. I'll keep in contact if I decided to go the route a larger lawsuit. The issue here is software companies don't have to stand by their products with anti-piracy laws. Meanwhile they make money off of consumers because they rush out crappy products.

Thank you for all the warnings. I almost loaded 10.5. I currently have 9 plus and have loved it. Ok ... it crashes but now I have learned to render and convert smaller portions to avi files. That takes the anxiety out of losing hours of work. Then I take all those smaller avi files and render the whole thing together. Perhaps I will move on to Adobe Premire Elements. Does anyone know if you can get as creative with adobe as you can with pinnical?

sure babe!

Ascreative as you like sugar!

I have version 9.4 plus. I was told when I bought it that it was on the leading edge of video editing. Ever since I bought it and started using it, I have suffered with system crashes, having to totally uninstall my pinnacle program and once I had to totally reformat my harddrive and start from scratch again. I have a 3.0 gig processor, 1 gig of ssdram, 6600 GE Force Graphics card, 400 gig harddrive, just to state the basics. Yet this system can't function properly for any given length of time.

I am very disappointed in this. I bought and downloaded the mpeg 4 so I could produce better definition videos for my church but since I done that it burns a format on the DVD that the computer doesn't recognize, the DVD player doesn't recognize it adn now I guess I am going to have to uninstall it again just to get back to where I can basically use it again.

I know this sounds crude but this stinks!! I have lost several recordings but fortunately I had them on camcorder 8 mm tape and was able to redo. But everytime you have to redo, yu are talking about eating a bunch of time.

Pinnacle should have fixed this before it was marketed. I won't buy pinnacle again!

Pinnacle is CRAP! I blew $100 bucks on this pile of dung at Best Buy last week! It hangs up, freezes and makes me want to pull hair out of the cat! Sony Vegas Studio is WAY BETTER! No problems!

I blew it I just purchased Pinnacle 10.5 and it
doesn't sound good for me. I only wish that I
had read your reviews sooner.Thanks for the
reviews.
Neil

FOR ALL STUDIO 10 USERS EXPERENCING PROBLEMS - OK - HERE'S WHAT I LEARNED THROUGH MANY HRS OF EXPERIMENTATION - STUFF NOT IN THE BOOK - - YOU MUST EDIT ONLY .AVI IN THE TIMELINE - NOT MPEG OR ANYTHING ELSE - BEFORE ANYTHING, YOU MUST CONVERT ALL VIDEO AND PICTURES TO .AVI AND THEN EDIT - BURN TO DVD AS MPEG OR WHATEVER ELSE - BUT - ONLY USE .AVI IN THE TIMELINE. ALSO - LOAD THE PINNACLE SOFTWARE TO THE EXTRA VIDEO DRIVE FOR MUCH SMOOTHER OPERATION & LESS CRASHES - THEN UNLOAD STUDIO OFF THE C DRIVE AS IT WILL COMPETE WITH WINDOWS. MY SYSTEM WORKS F L A W L E S S L Y NOW

You must have a 2nd hard drive with pinnacle loaded to the 2nd hard drive. Mike

Posted by paul on Sunday, June 04, 2006, 09:03 PM (PST
Went out and purchased Studio Plus version 10.5 yesterday. The reason I went with without reviewing it was I saw Microsoft & Pinnacle were partners in Microsoft Digital Image Suite

Like paul i shafted on this deal

Purchased Pinnacle Studio Plus 10. I wasted 12 hours attempting to burn a dvd. It would not work. Complained to Best Buy Geeks about the problem, they visited me twice attempting to install the software. They returned a third time with Pinnacle studio plus 10.5. They installed the software but I still can not burn a dvd. This lastest version crashes the computer on a whim. When the program reboots Microsoft windows cus. ser. will ask what I was doing at the moment the program crashed. I responded twice explaining the task I was involved in at the time of crash. The third time I simply explained," whenever it feels like it." I am tossing this one in the trash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been using Pinnacle Studio 10.5 Titanium for 3 weeks now (was an old v. 9 user) and have not had a problem running the program. USing a Dell 9400 (1gb ram) and the software runs seamlessly. Have spent ~30 hours on the thing so far and it hasn't crashed once - mostly saving mpg files but have also saved in avi. Love the ipod compatibiltiy.

You think you get a free upgrade (9.0 to 9.4.3) you get a downtrade. Sound is disapEARing and the talk about mp4 exporting. HAHA. 176x120 pixels; that's just enough to say FUCK YOU PINNACLE.

I uninstalled Studio 10.5 because of crashing all the time..I still have 9.x but when I tried to use it I found all the transitions and backgrounds were locked. I reinstalled 10.5 and now 9x works. I am going to uninstall 10.5 and 9 and reinstall 9 to see what happens. Frustrating but Pinnacle is all I have ever used.

Mike,
Thanks for an actual potential solution to the problems i'm having too. I've spent a huge amount of time editing and sorting out one project in particular and of course it's all in MPEG format. Do you know if i can convert the files back to AVI format and use them in this same project without having to go through the whole editing process again?

Cheers.

I'm an idiot for purchasing Pinnacle Studio Plus and will NOT be purchasing any upgrade product until the reviews are consistently stellar. The 10.5 version is not getting consistently stellar reviews so this is not the product I will buy.

I was using Studio 9 with the Dazzle DVC90 and it absolutely refused to work, period, so I returned it and got the Studio 500-USB which includes Pinnacle Studio version 10. It claimed that it was absolutely guaranteed to work because both the hardware and the software were made by the same people. Makes sense that a company would be able to write software that works with it's own products. Anyway, so I run Studio 10 which informs me that I should upgrade to 10.5, which I promptly do. Now when I run Studio 10.5, the damn thing crashes right away, disappears completely from my screen before it even finishes loading up. I can't even run the program, let alone experience any of the lovely other bugs that crop up once you get working with it. ARGH!!

Wish I had read this before I spoke to the sales guy at Circuit City. This product is worthless.

I bought 10.5 last Thanksgiving and am glad I haven't yet installed it. Just waiting for the comments to go positive on 10.5.whatever. I have found 9.4.3 to work flawlessly. I can even burn dvds on a burner that Tech Support said was incompatable on an earlier 9. I'm looking forward to using the features in 10. Once I am finished with works in progress, I may try the advice of Mike on May 29.

I've gotten to the point where I just make up humorous things for someone to read (or not read) when I get the "I was..." prompt when 10.5 crashes, which is at least every 15 to 30 minutes. I've told them everything from "Performing brain surgery on myself" to "training with Master Yoda on Dagobah" in my messages. I figure that, if I'm going to waste my time answering questions regarding a product that Pinnacle no has intention of fixing, I might as well amuse myself in the process.

I'm really sorry I paid good money for this program. I'm happy for those of you it works for. I really am. Enjoy it, because you're in a vast majority.

I've been a Studio user since version 5. 10 has great features, and I like the ease of use- I just wish I could actually use it. I've tried everything from reinstalling to updating all of my device drivers. Even on a brand-new 3.3 Ghz system with 1 GB of memory, it stops responding and crashes ten-thousand times more than any program I've ever used. For those of you that are experiencing no problems, I'm actually jealous. I really want this program to work, however it's just not obviously ready for 98 percent of the market.

I, too, have contacted Pinnacle, and have never received a response. Their tech support is non-existant. It's almost like they're finally realizing they rushed this product to market.

The frustration you'll undergo is not worth the price. Avoid Studio 10. (No, I didn't say Avid Studio 10, I said AVOID Studio 10.) While it is easy to use, and it is packed with features, it's just not ready for the mass market. Until these stability issues are solved, much less addressed, Pinnacle needs to pull this product from the market.

And remember: Keep your sanity by completing your "I was..." box with strange and offbeat answers.

I have Pinnacle Studio 9.4

Considering all the issue still today in making full length DVD's under Studio 9 that they still have not fixed why would anyone go to 10.x. Without seeing them support their current customers I don't think I would Buy or Upgrade Studio.

I switched from 9.4 directly to 10.52 after so many crashed renderings, absolute inability to burn DVDs, etc. 10.52 has been fabulous. No crashes yet 1:1 rendering time (I've got a faster computer), burns perfectly, etc. I was ready to throw in the towel and get the popular Adobe Elements 2 but found out it is not intuitive and really has a long learning curve. 10.52 worked on the last 5 DVDs which included color balance, correction and other spot changes for live concerts (symphonies and concerts, indoors and out), w/titles, chapters, etc. These were 97 to 112 minute concerts. Amazingly fast rendering when not using many special effects, then add 50% 1.5:1 rendering time. Twice as fast as my 3.4 Mghz desktop and no crashes.

My dedicated video equipment is an HP notebook dv8000t w/2.0 duo core processor, 2 gig ram, 7200 rpm 100 gig HD (w/360 gig 7200 rpm external for saving the AVIs), Nivida 7600 256meg video card

I bought Multimedia Suite 10 at Best Buy this year. It crashed over and over. So I got on their website. Gee, GOBS of updates!! I then saw that I was to download 10.5 at no charge. GREAT! Should work now. OK, lots of the previously installed modules now don't work. Dazzle is dumbfounded from the start, as I bought it to go with my software. Tried the website again. Gee, GOBS of updates!! I downloaded those. Boy, it should work great now! More crashes, freezes....... To top it off, it collects all the data for the crash report, THEN asks if you want to send one. That alone should tell you a little about the company. So, what the heck. I got on the website only to find THEY NO LONGER MAKE MY PRODUCT. Really. The Multimedia Suite ($129 at Best Buy) is no longer made. And so now there is a new one.

They other thing (among dozens) that gripes me is that I bought the best version I could find of it, the newest too. And very few of the transitions work. Almost all are extra cost.

Yes pinnacle studios 10.5 is the worst computer software I have ever used. I have lost so many hours of work it's not funny, I thought I was the only one to have such problems but it I appears I'm not alone. I had problems from the begining, from just even trying to import my video files to just plain crashing and losing my whole film when I'm almost finished. It's just unacceptable, my computer far exceeds the minimum requirements, so that is not the issue, I've downloaded the patches and the program still crashes. An annyoing thing that also happens is that when I''m editing, I'll put a section of film into the time-line and when I play it back it will change to a different part of the film....AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so pissed I payed for this crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Alan Stafford,
I can not believe you have anything good to say about Pinnacle Studio 10.5 software. However, I am happy to see you have allowed all of the unhappy Pinnacle Customers to post their reviews along side your article. Had I read the many Posts, I would have never purchased this lump of sheiot. I wish I could meet the CEO of Pinnacle at the Pool Hall I hang out at,,, cause I would shove a Cue straight up his ass!

Hello,
Was just seeing how Pinnacle was doing after leaving it 6 months ago and i see it's still a peice of crap. Last year i bought a Studio 500-USB which included Pinnacle Studio version 10.
First it installed fine and when it loaded, it found a update so i go thourgh that. Now with working with it was a complete joke. During Capturing the video and audio was out of sync. During editing there was nice features, but was anoying seeing pad locks on some and was very unstable having to try and do to things at once as a repeat of save and crash. On top of it all the RENDERING was the worst i have every seen as it took hours to make a one hour movie.
Im running 6 month old PC that i built with AMD 64 3200 Dual core on 1 GB Dual Channel and ATI Radeon 512MB DDR2 with Creative SB HD
Took both there hardware and software and thourgh it in the trash, didn't want see someone else go thourgh this.
Got a Dazzle and Ner_ 7 and have never looked back. I will NEVER RECOMMEND Pinnacle

I bought this software 5 weeks ago and have been struggling with system crashes and installation problems. I should not have to deal with these kind of problems. I paid good money for this software. It should work!!!!!!!

After two weeks of work on a 3 hour movie, I burned it to DVD to preview. The voices are all screwed up and are not synced properly.

Pinnacle support is completely useless and they take 3-4 days to respond to my issues. I requested a refund from the company and they denied my request because I had the software for 35 days. Apparently their refund deadline is 30 days and I just missed it. I've heard it mentioned on here but, does anyone actually know how to go about starting a class action lawsuit?

I am so upset with Pinnacle and their approach to customer satisfaction. I have the trial version of Premier Elements and it is great. No problems at all. I have nearly completed a full project, in half the time, Probably because it doesn't crash on me.