Customer Reviews

Pinnacle Studio 9 Media Suite - Video Editing Software Suite

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have used Pinnacle Video editing software professionally for several years. My experience with Pinnacle has been positive and I have produced a lot of work with their software. I think Pinnacle has really pioneered video editing for home use as well. Indeed I'm quite familiar with their versions of Studio 7, 8, 9 and 9 plus. I recently purchased their STUDIO MediaSuite for home use. It seemed like a nice package to have video, audio and photo editing all in one. Actually, I didn't need the photo editing because I use Adobe's Photoshop Elements (a really solid piece of software).

The short answer is that the video component works quite well. The interface is easy to understand and use. I'm sure most folks would be up and running in no time. Don't forget to check their web site for product updates.

The sound editing capability is another story. Pinnacle has (apparently) licensed Steinberg WaveLab Lite as the audio editor. WaveLab Lite is a home version of its more robust professional software. The first big problem I ran into using WaveLab is that it has no ability to rip CDs. None. This is quite surprising since that is one of the claims Pinnacle makes for this software on the outside of the box. So if you purchase MediaSuite you will have to purchase a separate software for ripping CDs. The second problem is that neither Pinnacle nor Steinberg will support WaveLab Lite. This makes a certain kind of business logic sense Steinberg doesn't sell it and Pinnacle doesn't own it. Yet it's an orphaned software that no one will claim as their own and will not support. So be forewarned that if you purchase MediaSuite then you are on your own if you have any problems with it.

Other than that, this seems to be a fairly good product all in all.

When I tried to install this software it got part way through the process and then briefly displayed an error box and automatically started an uninstall without waiting long enough for me to read the error. Upon completion of the uninstall I no longer had access to any of my CD or DVD drives. It appeares that it corrupted the drivers. I had to restore my hard drive to get back into full operation. Pinnacle's response was that I should uninstall all picture editing software, in particular, Roxio Media Creator. I have since upgraded to Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 and added Adobe Premiere Elements 2, neither of which have a conflict with the Roxio software.

Do not buy anything from Pinnacle. Their software deceptively leads you to believe that you need to purchase further programs to burn DVDs. I did so and got incorrect activation codes twice before requesting a refund which they have refused to give even though the product does not work and meets their advertised return policy. I have filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive trade policies and knowingly offering defective products.

This software is theoreticly a well working and "professional" one, but has way to many bugs, laggy rates, and freezes consistantly. Small scale, okay. Need something good, I reccomend something else. Plus, the customer service sucks. Absolutely sucks. Never experienced worse in my life.

Studio 9 has a wonderful user interface that, although more complex, is even better than iMovie. Complete novices will have no trouble with fundamental tasks such as capture, storyboard editing and output to DVD, even if they aren't quite sure what really is happening. For example, by simply hooking up your camcorder and hitting the record button in Studio (which is intuitively placed on a virtual camcorder), the application will automatically capture video and break it up into scenes and put them in an album. I love it and highly recomend it!

Do not, under any circumstances, buy this software! It has been a source of frustration from day one! First, this software has serious memory problems. It cannot run smoothly and froze my computer on a regular basis. The fact that I have a new Sony VIAO with all the bells and whistles, and the fact that subsequent video editing software run perfectly, has to point to an inefficient memory use by this software. Also, the videos that I tried to edit were your plain vanilla family trip clips, nothing extraordinary. Still this software couldn't handle them.

To add insult to injury, this software is full of locked features, yes even at that price! For example, if you want MPEG-4 computability, you need to purchase additional drivers ($10). If you want to use MP3 files, you need to purchase additional drivers. MP3? Isn't that an industry standard? Anyway the list of "premium" locked features goes on and on, even downloading the latest patch (9.4 at the time of this writing) doesn't help.

There are other serious flaws with this software, primarily around burning the DVD's. I can't fully report on these since unfortunately I only got to briefly sample these issues. Why you might ask? Because my computer kept on freezing before I ever got to finish editing the movie...

I bought and installed Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus years ago for a Windows 98 box, and more recently migrated it to a vanilla Windows XP dual-processor machine. That such unreliable software would be sold in a box amazes me. It consistently crashes at least once per hour on large (~hour) projects while I'm editing. I've learned to keep saving projects under new names so I can recover! Right now, I'm trying to render a 20 minute video, and it consistently hangs at one point. I've had the hanging problem in the past on another video.

The optional MPEG-4 rendering software (another $15 download) cannot generate MPEG-4 videos viewable by QuickTime. The annoying part is that Pinnacle was happy to let me pay $15 to download it, with no hint that it was no longer supported nor would work with QuickTime.

It popped up a screen tonight offering me an upgrade (for $99) to a new version, which reminded me of the adage "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I'm going to avoid the "twice" part and look elsewhere for video editing software.

It just doesn't work up to even a quarter of what you think it will do.
When it does work, it takes to to the "pinnacle" of a project, then either crashes, won't burn, or will burn with very messy results and will make you very sorry you spent money and time on this piece of garbage.

I downloaded a free trial version of this product (all 500MB worth) thinking that I could quickly install it and try using it to burn a video file to DVD. The .avi file was previously captured using MS Movie Maker which unfortunately doesn't have a Burn to DVD option. After spending about 30 minutes to install, I tried to start it up. I was immediately greeted with the product registration pages and was unsuccessful in getting past them. It repeatedly prompted for the product name and version, seemingly ignoring what I typed in... After trying about 5 times, I gave up in frustration and ended up uninstalling the whole !$#$@ package. What a piece of crap.

If you want to spend time creating videos this is not the product for you. There is a reason that they are on Version 9, 8 previous poor products and counting. Installation crashes are normal and product support people know nothing about the product. Every upgrade (you pay for) introduces new problems or takes away previous capability and applying their patches are risky at best.
Don't buy it!!!!!