What package to replace a bugy Pinnacle Studio 10?

[Balliol]

I am currently using Pinnacle Studio 10 and am finding problem after problem and bug after bug. It may well be me but I wonder if others find it like this.

I know that there must be a hundred answers to the following question but what recomendations would you make for a not over complex package?

[MJPollard]

For video editing, Sony Vegas Movie Studio. If you're looking for DVD authoring, there are several low-cost solutions, ranging from TMPGEnc DVD Author to DVDLab to Sony DVD Architect Studio. (There are free solutions, too, if you're willing to put in a bit of extra learning time.)

[Balliol]

Pinnacle Studio 10 allows one to create a slide show using the Edit function. One then moves in to the Make Movie function to render it prior to burning when its working that is. I hope that I have used to correct terminology.
Im not sure what you mean by, DVD authoring? Is that equivelent to where one renders the project in Pinnacle Studio 10 using the Make Movie function prior to burning.
Are you saying that Sony Vegas Movie Studio is just an editing suite and does not have a rendering function because in the search for simpicity I would like one piece of software to do the editing and rendering.
Sorry to be so thick but many thanks.

[MJPollard]

That's correct. Pinnacle Studio combines the editing and authoring ("make movie") functions into one program... one of the reasons why I'm not keen on it, the other being the unbelievably buggy nature of that program. (I used Studio 8 for a while, until the bugs and the limitations drove me away.)

If you're looking for all-in-one software, I'm afraid I'm not the best person to ask; I'm mostly familiar with the "separate tools for separate tasks" school of thought. Perhaps someone else will chime in with other recommendations...

[ranchhand]

Hi Ballio,

I use Studio 10 regularly to Edit, Author and burn DVDs from pre-captured mpeg2 files ( I use the Hauppauge 250 card for that, never could get Pinnacle to see my camcorder). While you are searching for another product(s), I might mention a couple of things that I discovered.

Pinnacle drove me nuts until I found out that it does not take kindly to resource competition. I learned to shut down my internet access (Comcast cable) and PCcillin Antivirus. I then enter Task Manager and End Task on my video card overclocker utility, Lightscribe detection utility, several D Link wireless network entrys, and basically everything else that is not essential processes for running XP. Then I boot up Studio. Suddenly all my problems stopped and S10 ran beautifully with no hiccups or glitches. It still has a couple of irritating behaviors but they are minor and can be relegated to "needs improvement in engineering" dept.

Another thing I do regularly, although I don't really know if this has anything to do with it or not, is to use Hijack This to prune-out BHOs, useless browser toolbars and any other startups that I don't need that are loading on start.

I am not defending Studio 10, but this may be helpful while you peruse other products. Just a thought....

[Balliol]

I've cracked it. Having spent a number of days attempting to get the "Make Movie" section of Pinnacle Studio 10 to work, get the music to play as it did last week when I installed track from a CD and of course solve the DVD popping in and out problem I decided to look in the FAQs where they suggested re-installing Pinnacle Studio 10 which I did and now its actually working so it does pay to read the manuals and FAQs sometimes. Your right about shutting other applications down and I'll have to work out how to do it.

[on30trainman]

I used various flavors of Pinnacle Studio over many years with mixed results. Didn't have as many problems as many on the Pinnacle forums did, but did find I had to turn off almost every other process I was running to get it to work without sometimes crashing or just stopping. Searched various forums and found that Sony Movie Studio seemed to work for many. I made the switch and have been very pleased - no more having to kill other programs to get the editing/rendering programs to work. Also, Pinnacle was always posting fixes (many times fixing one problem and generating others to be fixed in another revision) or coming up with new versions yearly - it was getting expensive, and time consuming, to keep up to the latest version. One version I had to actually install it in Safe Mode for it to work - many others had the same problem.
Sony Movie Studio is actually two programs in one package - In Movie Studio you do all your editing, fades and such and then import your output into DVD Architect to make menus, add chapters and such and then render to DVD output. Actually I think you can download an evaluation version to check it out - need to check that out again. Try it - you may like it as I have.