Pinnacle Studio: SE vs. Full

[billfromflop]

Can someone tell me what the basic differences are between Studio v.9 SE & v.9 Full Version?

[Marvingj]

Differences is they unlock some special effect keys etc. SE is still pretty good if you can deal with the lock ups. Upgrade if you can. The best is Vegas.

[DaveS]

studio 9 you get all the bugs and studio LE you only get some of the bugs .... (only half kidding) ... seriously you should download a demo if they have one and run it to see if it runs without problems for you...

[MJPollard]

Fair warning: Pinnacle's Studio products have a nasty reputation of being extremely problematic. Some people experience problems using some (or many) of its features, while others simply can't get it to work at all. Version 7, from all reports, was pretty good; version 8 started its downhill slide, and version 9, from what I've seen, isn't any better.

IMHO, a better all-in-one video editing/DVD solution would be Sony's new Vegas Movie Studio+DVD, which is a $99 stripped-down version of their $799 professional Vegas+DVD Production Suite. Vegas has a good reputation for being reliable (and nowhere near as finicky as Studio), and while DVD Architect isn't as feature-packed as some of the more expensive authoring apps (i.e. Ulead DVD Workshop or Sonic Scenarist), it's got enough features to make some damn good DVDs.

(I should point out that I own and use both Studio 8 and Vegas+DVD. Studio's problems make it nearly impossible for me to use it for anything other than the simplest projects, while I have yet to encounter any issues with Vegas+DVD, even for complex projects. Thus, I feel I'm speaking from experience.)

I know you asked about Pinnacle Studio, and I apologize for going off-track into another product, but IMHO you might be better off spending your $99 on Sony's product instead of Pinnacle's. Using Studio is like playing Russian roulette: you never know if/when it's going to crash and blow your brains out.

[billfromflop]

No need to apologize for getting off subject - I was going to include "what other programs are recommended" but decided I should keep the original question succinct and that maybe I shouldn't open that pandora's box just yet .
Very interesting that two of the follow-ups recommend the Sony product as my PC is a Sony and I'm currently using the included software which I'm pretty sure is in fact, Sony-developed. The program is called "Click To DVD". It works very nicely but seems to offer the absolute bare essentials for editting: dividing and combining clips, and some basic titles (no transitions or special FX as far as I've been able to see so far). In any case, it seems fair to reason that the Sony software (Vegas) would feel right at home on my Sony system. Then again, we all know what happens when you "ASSUME"...

Incidentally, the system also included a stripped down version of Adobe Premiere. But since I'm a complete newbie to all this DV stuff, I thought it might be a good idea to get the hang of a more consumer oriented program (like Studio) before trying to tackle that program.