Any tips on Pinnacle Studio DV?

[burned_once]

I have the LE version of this product; it came with my PC's
Firewire card. I have been using it to make movies from
digital camcorder. I like the screens and the editing, but its bugs are so nasty I can't stand it.

After only a few cycles of editing/rendering into any MPEG1/2 (VCD, SVCD, DVD), it gets to a point where it
hangs forever while rendering the output file.

Before tossing real $$ to the Pinnacle people for the "standard" upgrade, I'd like to be sure it will fix these
bugs. Does anyone out there have experience with this
product? Any advice, workarounds, tips, positive or
negative recommendations would be extremely welcome.

[jcsdmd]

Save your money and avoid Pinnacle. Their tech support is vitually non-existant unless you consider the message boards as tech support. They have consistantly failed to solve major bugs in both Studio DV and their new product Studio 7. The MPEG capabilities are awful. If you need an easy editing program for Dv and wish to avoid a whole bunch of headaches, don't look to Pinnacle.

[mem_user]

That is so far from the truth. I use Pinn. Studio 7 with no problems. They update the software frequentyly with pathes and beta patches. It by far has the most features for the money. Now, I do agree with the Mpeg capabilities, but just render in AVI and then use another program to convert to Mpeg.

[jcsdmd]

The frequent "updates" are not updates at all but rather they are patches to try to get a program to work that was released prematurely before proper testing. Sure you can output an AVI (which may not work in TMPGEnc......see the numerous posts on the Pinnacle Studio 7 webboard addressing this topic). Yes use a different program to encode MPEG1, use a different program to encode MPEG2 (but don't forget to output to your camcorder......recapture the avi......then use it.........see this thread on the Pinnacle studio 7 webboard (another workaround), rip CD's to add music to workaround that bug,spend hours installing the almost daily updates only to find they don't work out the bug you are experiencing, then post a message on the board so that the Pinnacle rep can criticize your computer setup (one that far exceeds the recommendations on the website and users manual) only to leave you to go through the many workarounds that people have devised to get a program to work that Pinnacle hasn't been able to get to work for the average user. I expect a program to work correctly out of the box. I don't expect to have to spend countless hours getting a program to work that I paid Pinnacle to work out. If you don't believe this post, look at the Pinnacle webboard and see the hundreds of posts from the average user who simply cannot get this product to work reliably. I think that should speak volumes!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jcsdmd on 2001-10-19 00:07:47 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jcsdmd on 2001-10-19 00:12:14 ]</font>

[mem_user]

Well, everyone has their problems with software. This is one package that I do not have any problems with. This and Uleads Video Studio work wonders for me. But you can go to just about any software makers website and find tons of people with problems. You CAN also find tons of messages of where people are praising the software, and there are also alot of post where others users are helping. Not all of the post there are complaints/problems. There are so many different setups out their that something as complex as these video programs are, are going to have problems. Look at Windows and all the people with problems there. And once again, I dont have problems with Windows. Go figure.

I just think you should respond that YOU have these problems and that they may or maynot be specific to you and your system. Dont just throw it out there that this program sucks.

[jcsdmd]

I never said the program sucks. I said (as many others have said on the webboard at Pinnacles website) that it doesn't work as advertised. I am not the only one who thinks it is buggy. TECH TV reviewed the software and came to the same conclusion. The original post asked if it would be worth upgrading to the full edition to improve better MPEG capability. I recommended against it. I installed version 1.26 (which was an "upgrade" as you call it..........a "patch" as I call it) over 1.05 in an effort to improve MPEG quality (as was advertised as a fix on Pinnacle's download page). In fact the quality went to hell. I agree that some can get it to work, but I for one do not wish to participate in "beta testing" a product that is sold on the market as a fully functional video editor. I agree that Studio products have the most features for the buck......the trade-off is that a lot of users never get to use the functions because they don't work for them. I have done every single thing recommended by tech support, webboard members, have reinstalled and deleted registry items til my fingers fell asleep and still cannot get a stable output. I am glad it worked for you but I think posters should be aware this program is not the video editing panacea that Pinnacle would have you believe.

[burned_once]

Thank you both for your comments, which I found very helpful. Rendering the movie into an AVI file was a great workaround, as I was then able to use TMPGenc to produce the various MPEG's for my target formats.
I was really stuck, because I was trying to edit out a fade-in I had accidentally stuck onto the opening credit,
turning all my VCD, SVCD and DVD menu thumbnails into blackness.

The only downside of this is, of course, that my 5-minute output AVI file is 1GB. No biggie, as I can recreate it from the project file. I'm going to see what Huffyuv does for that; video quality is my top priority.

Thanks also for the warnings about Pinnacle. I'll check out their fora before I shell out any dough.
As far as I can tell, the Studio 7 upgrade just adds a bunch of useless features (except maybe the color/contrast/brightness filters; I still could end up tossing away $59 to clean up after my poor camera skills).