Customer Reviews

Pinnacle Studio Version 12 [OLD VERSION]

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

 

 

The product is easy to install and use. Simply by experimenting with it, I put together 3 short movie stories using the same pictures we took on a recent trip. We were laughing and had a lot fun, because the edited movies telling complete different stories, involve mystery, intrigue, exotic land, which is very different than the real uneventful pictures. My computer is Gateway F541s with NVIDIA® GeForce 8600GT 512MB DDR3 Graphics w/ 2xDVI. I do not have a separate sound card, but Studio 12 works fine without it. I had tried version 8 before with my emachine, it was a pain to use it with that version and a less powerful machine.

I really like it. It is much easier to use than I expected (I don't typically read instructions). I had a reasonably edited video in less than 30 minutes my first time using it.

I would certainly recommend this product.

I bought this versin (12) of Pinnacle (owned by Avid) due to the many problems I have had with upgrades. I started with version 9 and got periodic upgrades afterwards, including version 12. I had called Pinnacle prior to the purchase to see if I could get a deal on 12 since I had been a loyal customer for years. I was promised a 10 percent discount and free shipping. I hesitated for a few months, then finally decided to get it. It was the only program I could use to capture live TV and VCR input. I called Pinnacle back. I was shocked to find out that they had moved their sales department to the far east. The people there would not honor the discount or free shiping as promised. I then decided to try Amazon. What a find. I got version 12 for just $25.00. It was selling for $129. in retail stores. So I bought it. So far, it is working well. I also found Sony Vegas editing software. I tried their trial version and I liked it, although the learning curve is a bit steep. I bought some tutorials and they helped me. I am now editing a movie in Sony without the frustration of Pinnacle. I use Pinnacle just to capture video from my TV and VCR. You should know that Pinnacle uses far east personnel to trouble shoot software issues (and I have had my fair share of issues). My experience with Pinncale support has been frustrating at best. Bottom line...I do not recomend any Pinnacle products. They are as unreliable as their tech support. I find that the Sony program runs smoother, faster and has less glitches. I have not used their suppport. The Sony program has been running fine. If at all possible, stay away from Pinnacle,unless you are into hair pulling aggrevation. You'll be glad that you did.

I have just a Core 2 Duo with 4 Gigs of RAM, with Vista. Watched the tutorial, fooled around for about 15 minutes and I was off and running. No problems, no hassles, no system gags. Done with a video/photo project with imported sound tracks in about an half an hour. Uploaded easily to YouTube. Done. I like it. Nuff said.

This product will not work, customer support was not very helpful, a total waste of $49.00

I installed v12.1 on a Dell PC meeting the product requirements, in order to easily add music to projects. However both my imported pictures and their tutorial movie project looked blurry. My pictures look sharp with anything else. Their customer support is, basically, NON-EXISTENT. I managed to return the product for a store credit. I assume that my video card (nvidia ge force fx500), not the latest and greatest, although meeting their requirements, was not a good fit for this product. Beware...

This product is total junk. It takes up so much system resources that when you're running it your computer is likely to freeze up continually. The developers have probably been off-shored somewhere. Aside from that, if you want a DVD menu for your DVD you can't get it here. It only allows for one menu page and demands that you upgrade for more. So if you have a main menu the only option will be "Play Movie" and if you choose to only have a submenu you can only get 4 scenes on it since you can't have prev and next pages. This is an incomplete product as far as I'm concerned. This product is total junk even for a minimalist.

I have *literally* never used any software, video editing or otherwise, as bad and horrendous and Pinnacle Studio 12. It crashes everytime I use it. I've had this for three months now, because I bought the Dazzle to capture videos for YouTube. I thought it might've been my computer as I'm not THAT tech savvy, even though I know th ebasics. However, I had everything upgraded JUST to use new software like this, and I have 2 GB of ram installed. So amongst other things, I at least know it's not my computer's fault trying to handle what may be too much processing work for it. With that said, this program works fine, when it actually works. However, that is very rare. It crashes like I said, ALL the time. Literally every one out of three times I use it, it crashes. Just adding effects like speed changes or anything will only increase these odds.

The program is simple to use, but a LOT of it's features, maybe half of all of them, have to be "unlocked" online. Overall, it's not a bad program to use WHEN or IF it actually works. The problem is, it almost never works fine, ever! Rendering movies are also a huge problem, and not only does it take a long while to do so (up to two hours to make a 10-15 minute long Mpeg4), but because the software itself is so shoody, it can crash WHILE rendering, causing you to just waste time and lose a possible project. This software is literally a waste of time AND money! It's so bad, you will often have it crash while trying to SAVE projects! Yes, trying to save projects can ironically cause you to lose your work! At least when it crashes, it has an auto-save feature that restores the work you did. But just trying to straight save the work can cause it to crash, while also losing it, entirely. It's actually much safer to just let it crash then actually trying to save anything! The easier thing would be to save before you start, as saving something new, naming it and all, is 'too much work' for the software to handle.

I won't even get into how bad Pinnacle's customer support is. I'm sure everyone who's dealt with them has a story for that, probably far more frustrating than even mine. Either they just hire people off the street or their products and software are so shoddy, that everyone there must hate their jobs so much, they don't even pretend to try anymore.

Bottom line, this product is literally a waste of time and money. Literally. I got it coupled with the Dazzle video capture device and I still want a refund. This kind of buggy software is just the worst thing ever.

After difficulty ordering Studio 12 directly from Pinnacle, Amazon's ease of service and speed of shipment were very good. The software made the use of Dazzle hardware's unsupported software possible with Vista operating system.

If you enjoy spending hours and hours trying to make a software program work without getting any results... then buy this product. I have had studio 9, 10, 10.7, 10.8 all of which were a hassle to produce a project. Stupid me! I thought that with version 12 they would get it right.. wrong. It still doesn't work. Don't buy this product.