Pinnacle Studio 8 is the most unstable product I have ever used so I switched to Vegas and don't regret it. Vegas has a much better feature set, and it works. Pinnacle Studio 8 hangs constantly and is virtually impossible to get it to complete a job. The only way I had any success was to create a new partition on my drive and install a fresh copy of WINXP, even then, it only worked some of the time.

Is there any point getting the DVD part of Vegas 4 if one does not have a DVD burner, its hard to tell from the material shown in the advertising of the product.

At the moment I only used Vagas 3 to make vcd's and svcd's cause I only have a cd burner.

I have yet to use Vegas, but I can tell you that I will never purchase another product from Pinnacle. I purchased the DV300 some years back now and it was problematic. Alot of the problems were blamed on Win98 but Pinnacle never came out with Y2K supported drivers (that worked for me) and they left the masses who purchased their hardware waiting until Premiere 6 came out with OHCI support.

There's no point at all as DVD A doesn't burn CD's whereas Vegas does. Get it when you get a DVD burner (Highly recommended!)

If you go over to the Pinnacle forums (you can find them on www.pinnaclesys.com, you'd be amazed at the difference in atmosphere. Some people are literally cursing Studio 8 - an having tremendous problems. I have been trying to promote Vegas over there, and some interest was shown, but there is a fair price differential (I just picked up a copy of Studio 8 for 49.95 on sale at CompuUSA).

STAY AWAY FROM PINNACLE STUDIO 8... If you really want to know what it's like
just go into their forums www.pinnaclesys.com and see what people are saying.

Like I said in another thread, if you compare the Pinnacle forum to the Sonic Foundry
forum it makes the latter seem like a "love-in" forum!

Studio 8 is the most unstable product I have ever seen! As a matter of fact it
was in the Studio 8 forum that I heard of Vegas and I never looked back!

Chessmaster,
I have read a lot of negative about Studio 8 from Pinnacles but I feel I must say not all Pinnacles is negative. I have had a DV500 for a couple of years and it has worked perfectly from the first install up to now with all the driver updates. I use VV3 (soon to be four) for most of my editing but then use the DV500, Hollywood FX or Boris FX for those occasional special effects needed) and put final output through the DV500 board for the realtime features.
So, do get and use Vegas Video... the best!, but not all Pinnacles is a problem.
Barry

I would agree with everything said so far regarding Pinnacle Studio 8. It was my first purchase and a rude introduction into DV production. No support, other than, "there will be a fix published in the next few months...", and it "hangs" and generally just does not respond well to Windows XP. I started researching other DV applications on the net and found SF VV3 in December 2002 at an academic price as I am an Art Teacher. I will admit that Pinnacle is very easy to learn to use, but I never could get my 13 minute video to burn to any media. I was under a deadline and missed it by only 6 weeks because of Pinnacle.
The best part of Pinnacle 8 is the Music Loop "SmartSound" program that comes with it. I would be interested to know if there is a similar product from Sonic Foundry.
I just finished a 1hr 55min VV3 DVD and had no problems at all. I have a lot to learn as the VV3 is more of a professional application, but you will get a better product with less frustration. Pinnacle does have some good products and many people make some nice productions using it. Pinnacle 8, however, is junk!
Enjoy your VV3, but return the P8 ASAP and get your $$s back. PS, I have a P8 I will sell you if you really want one, $10 and I will pay the shipping!

Well I have not opened the software yet and thus can take it back, tonight I will check out their forum and find some online reviews of the software. If it is more trouble than it is worth, then I will get the educational version of VV4.

I have 2 copies of Studio 8 I will sell you for $10. What a fool I was! I have a NTSC version and a PAL version. What a stupid way for Pinnacle to make their software. You have to buy a different version for each colour standard! And neither of them work.

Let's see if I've got this right:
Here's a guy who first says the custom settings in the VV4 demo don't work but work fine in his registered VV3, which he bought in original shrink-wrap, and has owned for a long time, this all proving that his VV3 is fake. Then when questioned, he complained he was being judged by forum members, while saying at the same time, "buying retail is way out of my price range." Then he restated that his VV3 and MPEG registration HAD worked fine, but the ebay seller he bought it from a year ago was out of business and his emails bounced. Then he said his "original shrink-wrapped" software came without a box or guide (huh?), then said again he had downloaded the VV4 demo, but had ALSO INSTALLED A FRIEND'S VV4 to see how it worked, and yet he had NO PIRATED SOFTWARE on his computer, because he claimed taxes on his legitimate software. Never once did he say he had PURCHASED the VV4 upgrade. Then he blamed Sonic Foundry for all his problems for having downloadable software on their site, and said that someone had sent him a link to a cracker (warez?) site but he didn't use it (ever heard that one?). Then he said he wasn't going to pursue it any more because then everyone would do it and rip off SF, and he certainly wasn't blaming SF or forum members. He didn't honor SF's request to provide his serial numbers because now he knew they were bogus and besides, SF wasn't goint to do anything about it. Then he accused ebay of not giving a crap, and blasted SF by saying he had enough of this registration stuff and was going to buy Ulead. THEN he told us all he bought an ACADEMIC version of Pinnacle Studio 8 (at a retail store??) since he has kids (bet they have a bright future!), and is now still fishing for compliments on the SF forums, all over something that is really not very interesting in the first place (nonpaying users wanting registration....yawn).

I have only one thing to say: By acquiring Studio 8, you are exactly where you should (and deserve) to be. Here, let me point you in the right direction --->> http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=1&SectionID=143&lng=1

Good luck, have a blast with your new software, sorry we won't be seeing you around here any more, too bad you've been so terribly victimized, and be sure to watch that swinging door on your way out. But remember, I haven't judged.

I'm Sorry, I did not want to start a bidding war for Pinnacle 8. OK, $5 US Dollars and the buyer pays Shipping!
I was just reading Chessmaster's Forum regarding VV3 eBay experience and I am really sorry this happened... no laughing matter. I suspect that one half of all software on eBay is not valid.
Chessmaster, email me and I will give you the web site that ai got my VV3 from at the academic price. Great company and very good price.
Good luck to you.
jhubs jhubka@frii.com
Hope it is OK to give out my email, too late now.

Good luck to you too. Sonic have given me nothing, I currently have no Vegas software on my system. I have an unopened box of pinnacle which I am now deciding whether to open or take back, I have more research to do, because it seems my purchase may not have been a good one, and once I open the box, I will not be able to return it.

Your twist of my story is lacking in so many areas.

The harshest critics are usually the ones that are doing something wrong themselves. I wonder how many people in this forum are using illegal software of not only Vegas but other stuff.

I explained to SF all my details, I was at work when I sent the emails, thus no serials number simply because I did not know them off hand.

The email reply from SF said that my case basically meant that my software was illegal, my name or email was not on their file, so what is the point of sending serials ???

I could use the serial generator that I thought was legal and post endless serials numbers that would work. I even gave SF the details of the links I was sent, and have also discovered that the key-gen available, is the one that was on my disk. The thing is my key-gen does not have any hacker markings but are exact in look in many other ways.

SF know my full story, and if they want me to send them a endless list of serials that my so called registration disk can provide then I will be happy to. But what is the point, will that somehow possibly prove my copy could be a legal one???

Go abuse someone else, I have been up front with sf. More than I can say for the long list of people in the past who had the same problem with VV4, some are still posting today.

Thanks mate,

But I live in Australia, and my computer store reackons they can get it in for me if I want, so I will do it from my country and see what the best price is they can offer.

"I suspect that one half of all software on eBay is not valid."

Purely speculation. "I suspect..." is the key to that sentence. Do you have any facts to back it up?

I've purchased no less than ten programs (such as CorelDraw, MS Office, WinXP Pro, WinXP Home)off of Ebay, including VV3 which I recently upgraded to V4+DVD without a problem. With the percentages you give I should have had at least 5 pirated programs - simply not true! I haven't had even one.

DRF

Pinncle products, just like Canopus and the like, are xtremely fuzzy to setup and keep working. You have to buy the right configured system/motherboard/cpu/os just to at least be up and maybe running. I got so many grey hairs just getting the pinncacle stuff to show up on screen, let alone to work. Their tech support is a nightmare, you'll spend lots o money just trying to get a live tech. Also, just check out their forums, there are people who have taken upon themselves to establish their own tech support among themselves as the Pinnacle techs dodge the help posts. That alone tells you about pinnacle.

So now I am doing something wrong? My recounting of your tangled tale constitutes abuse? Oh yeah, that's it. Let's see, seven SoFo, two Ulead, three Roxio, two Adobe, oh and two Pinnacle, and the one Mpeg registration hangup I had with Vegas was resolved by email within two hours. Guess I just got lucky, eh?

At the risk of repetition, best of luck with your Pinnacle product! You are in elite company -- out of dozens of people who have asked me about my Studio software, you are only the second I have actually recommended it to! Cheers.

"Pinnacle Studio 8 is the most unstable product I have ever used"

I can't say that...

My demo CD (sent by Pinnacle) never get to work and more: I had to re-install my PCTV software because it stoped working too!!!!

ps.- PCTV is a Pinnacle soft/hardware...

I would say no. DVD architect is there specifically for doing wonders with a DVD.

Hi there - I too am a new convert from Pinnacle to Vegas. I bought Studio7, nursed it through the various upgrades and patches and then upgraded to Studio8 - it was all downhill from there until I discovered Vegas!

I agree that the Smartsound option is very nice and in fact I have kept Studio7 on my PC for just that reason.

You might want to check out SonicFire Pro at www.smartsound.com (any way of embedding a link in these posts?)

>>The best part of Pinnacle 8 is the Music Loop "SmartSound" program that comes with it. I would be interested to know if >>there is a similar product from Sonic Foundry.

Smartsound.com has Movie Maestro, which is a low cost (About $50) way to generate perfectly timed soundtracks. Basically all of the same smartsound features of Studio 8, however, the integration with Studio 8 was nice. The Sonic Foundry products were a little too much for me for just the occasional soundtrack music. (Video is a different story...) Smartsound is patented technology, so I don't think we'll see anything like it from anyone else for quite awhile, if ever.

Take a look at smartsound.com

>>Pinnacle Studio 8 is the most unstable product I have ever used...

Same here.

It is absolutely the worst. I have an extremely stable system and all works perfectly fine. No problem whatsoever...until I installed Studio 8.

We former Pinnacle Studio users can save you a LOT of time. It is absolutely awful.

Were it to work like it is advertised, it would be a pretty good package; nowhere near the power of Vegas+DVD, but it would be very good for the average home user. It has some very nice features and they are very easy to use. The problem is that it doesn't work like it's supposed to.

No doubt, whatever software is out there, someone is going to have problems with it. There are probably people who have trouble with calculator.exe and notepad.exe. I am not one of those people. All of my stuff always works excellent.

In Studio 8, there are many issues with menus, crashes, lockups, a very long-standing issue with out of synch audio-video capture, special effects causing your computer to lock up, failed disk burns, failed renders, etc. etc. etc. While I did manage to turn out a number of good DVDs with Studio 8, it was ridiculous what I had to do. Also, Studio 8 did something, I believe the formatting, to make it so DVD Architect would not burn a DVD+RW disk. I had to do a radical reformat of the disk to get it to work. (See my other post under this user name.) All is fine now. Every disk that ever had Studio 8 content on it would not burn using DVD-A

I had to have a dual boot system with different versions of Studio 8 in order to get most of the features working half-way properly. I would boot to one version to do thus and such, then boot to the other version to do the things not working correcftly in the first boot/version.

I finally said "enough," got Vegas+DVD and have absolutely loved it. It has been the first time I could actually concentrate on the program and content cretion instead of wondering when the next lock up or sudden program crash/exit would occur while losing my work. Vegas +DVD has been an absolute dream.

Look at the Pinnacle Studio 8 board and search for some of my posts under "kentwolf". There I posted some tests I did (I work in an ITT Research & Development Laboratory for a career), and the proof is undeniable. Pinnacle has shoddy products. Example: One bug was that you could not change the font on a menu. Normally you can highlight the text and select a new font. Not with Studio. You had to select a new font, erase the text, and type it all over again. This was eventually fixed, however, they shipped the product like this. Inexcusible. Were this the only thing, hey, maybe it was just an oversight. This, however, was not the only problem.

When I have the same issues with a stripped (but updated) Windows XP system, with multiple/different motherboards, multiple/different CPUS, multiple/different hard drives, multiple/different DVD drives, etc, etc, etc, well, there is a problem.

Special capture note: Pinnacle Studio 8 will not capture in synch on some systems, mine included, for no apparent reason. This is using Pinnacle's own hardware. I could, however, using Scenalyzer, for only $33; a program that can fit on a floppy disk, capture perfectly each and every time; again, using Pinnacle's hardware. In fact, I captured **8 hours** of the last Super Bowl (and put it on DVD) on to one of my hard drives witout a single dropped frame or out of synch issue. **It was flawless.** Studio 8 cannot capture more than about 20 minutes before going badly out of synch.

Well, that's enough of my Pinnacle rant. I could go on all night. :)

It's just that when you spent so much time and money with such buggy software, it tends to make one very, very angry. I would warn anyone to stay from Pinnacle Studio 8. I do not plan to ever get anything by Pinnacle ever again.

Thank you...