Pinnacle 10 rocks

[Wonderwill]

I have pinnacle studio ten and it rocks! In my opinion, it beats 9 by a mile with the built in video overlays and chroma key, along with all the extra fx.
My friend has 9 and it looked about the same, apart from the higher powered effects I wanted for my home movie.

 

[Darth_Indy]

Too bad Pinnacle video editing software is a rat infested dung hole of bugs. Take a look at Amazon or other sites that solicit user feedback and you'll see a huge trend... a trend that says. Great features, great user interface, HUGELY UNSTABLE (followed by cursing).

Glad it's working for you though!

 

[Wonderwill]

Too bad Pinnacle video editing software is a rat infested dung hole of bugs. Take a look at Amazon or other sites that solicit user feedback and you'll see a huge trend... a trend that says. Great features, great user interface, HUGELY UNSTABLE (followed by cursing).

Glad it's working for you though!

Well I've had it since it first came out and boy did it crash on me a lot! Now, after patch 10.7, Avid seems to have cleared up all the issues I have had problems with. Since I downloaded the latest patch I haven't had a single problem!

 

[Darth_Indy]

Like I said... I'm glad it's working for you.

However, based on the huge numbers of frustrated and very angry customers I think that Pinnacle has firmly established themselves as a very poor software supplier.

- If they tested this hairball of a product effectively THEY would have found and fixed the problems before release (which they didn't)
- If they tested it and just didn't fix the problems it shows they have no problem releasing crap to unsuspecting customers
- If they cared about quality, you'd think that the next time they released a product they would do a much better job (say from v9 to v10). They didn't, V10 initial release was, if anything, even worse than V9.
- If customers complain bitterly (and believe me they did) you'd think they would fix problems quickly (they didn't, although I think I saw a lot of marketing stuff pushing this SW).

Honestly, there just isn't any excuse for this crap. The bottom line for me is that there are competitive products that are equivalent in price, have manufacturers that care about their customers and they release tested, working products every time. It's too bad... it COULD have been a great product. But I, and a lot of other people just don't trust Pinnacle any more.

I'm sorry for the rant, really. This is not directed at you, I'm glad you like and are enthusiastic about this product. I hope it works for you perfectly. But, based on their track record (over several releases), take my advice, DON'T SCREW WITH ANYTHING!

Good luck!

 

[Wonderwill]

Yeah, I'm sure they could have done a lot better... Do you think it's a safe bet for my next upgrade to be Avid Liquid or Express? They look pretty nice and have good reviews, but same company.

 

[Darth_Indy]

I'm a big believer looking at knowledgeable reviews, finding information on the web, or examining forums like this one. The best thing is to find the user communities dedicated to the tools I'm evaluating... I get warm fuzzy feelings about the quality of a product when I see these. It's great to know there is a community you can join if you have questions or want to give someone else a helping hand. (read their FAQ, if a product has problem you'll see it here).

As for which product to buy... well I 'try' to be more pragmatic in this area. You're the one that will spend the hours using the tool, find a quality product that does what you need or you see yourself going and buy that one. I like the idea of buying into a dual product line where there is a pro and home version of the same product (by that I mean that the basic UI and how you build movies is nearly identical). Some companies offer 30-day free trials, when you narrow the selection down try this (but don't rush into it, it can take a lot of time to really dig-in to a tool.

Go on a forum site for one product and ask about another. For example, go a forum for product y, introduce yourself very politely and say I"'m thinking of buying product x or product y but I haven't made up my mind" can you give me some practical reasons why I shouldn't buy product x? I've had really good success with this technique and I always get some very thoughtful answers.

Good luck.

 

[cattbert]

Well, if Pinnacle 10 is working for you, then that is all that counts.

I just wanted to chime in to say that if you ever have any desire to check out any of the competitors I would highly recommend Adobe Premiere Elements. The first program I used was ULead Video Studio 6, then version 8 and finally 9. I tried Pinnacle Studio 9 (because it was free or nearly free after rebate ... I cannot recall which now) and it crashed constantly. I also got Pinnacle Studio Plus 10 at the end of November because it was free after rebate ... even after patching it, it was crashing a lot and when it did work it was much slower than Adobe (even on my new build).

Okay, I admit that I am being extremely long winded, but I wanted to make the point that I have tried the other consumer programs and my experience is that Adobe Premeire Elements is much more stable and runs significantly faster than the other programs. I can't speak to the more expensive programs, but based on my experience I would have no qualms with buying Adobe Premiere.

 

[Wonderwill]

Yeah I use Premiere Pro 2.0 at my school and it is very powerful and stable, but I don't think the interface is as innovative or easy to use. My big league software will probably be from Avid.