Thinking about buying Pinnacle Studio 8

[neuz]

This is my first post. What a wonderful site. I have bookmarked it and visit several times a day trying to learn more. I enjoy every part of the site. I really like the Glossary.
I have yet to purchase anything. I want to do research and gather opinions before I do spend the money.
I am wanting to capture video from my VCR and from my Sony Handycam CCD-TRV25. I do not have S-Video on either my camcorder or my VCR so everything being captured will be analog( I think). I have not purchased a capturing card. I saw that Pinnacle had a package for $139 that comes with a capturing card and Pinnacle Studio 8. What do you think about this? Does this have everything I need to capture-edit-and burn to DVD. I am very new to this process so please bear with me in my questions.
I have read dozens and dozens of posts from this forum. I have also read the product review on Pinnacle Studio 8. It looks and sounds like it would have everything I need but after reading all these posts you guys talk about all this sofware that it confuses the newbie in me.

Please don't flame me for this post. Everyone was a beginner in this at one time or another. You can't learn if you don't read and ask questions.

Thanks,
Rob

[bertmartin]

You need to give some details of your PC system. Also I would advise against anything Pinnacle, especially Studio 8. I know some people here use it but I had nothing but trouble with it. If you check the Pinnacle forum you will see all the trouble people have. I have Ulead Video Studio which is good. Also I think (not sure) that your camera has a firewire link which you would use to transfer video from your camera to PC. For VHS transfer you will need an analog to digital converter like the Canopus ADVC-100 or equivalent. Its a box the converts analog to digital and outputs via firewire to the PC. Keep reading. This site will give you all the info you need.
Bert

[Will Hay]

Pinnacle Studio 8 is awesome, I doubt I'll ever use anything else but that's for (Mini) DV capture.
The time I tried it for anaologue capture it was horrendous, and that was with a reliable source.
Sound and video totally out of sync.
There was supposedly a patch but I never tried it for analogue again.
However, saying that...
...I can not fault it for editing.
I love it's simple interface, it's easy to learn and produces professional results every time.
As I say I use it for all my DV needs but for anaolgue use it in conjunction with Virtualdub (free utility for capturing) and TMPGEnc (encoder, I love this programme).
I could use Studio for authoring and burning but I don't, again I have my favourites.
I suppose I wouldn't recommend it for your anaolgue needs.
On a seperate note, whilst the suggestion for the ADVC-100 certainly is correct, it all depends on your budget.
I have the ADVC-100 but prior to that had a perfectly good ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo which i picked up for £35.00
The ADVC-100 is circa. £200.00 and a lot to spend initially (although you won't be disapointed).
I can't recommend the Pinnacle cards as I've never used one, but if you're on a budget look for an ATI ViVo, maybe an AIW otherwise spend away, get the ADVC-100
Also, check if your camcorder does have firewire.
If it does then definetely get Studio, it's flawless for DV capture.
Does your camcorder have pass-through?
If so you can run the feed through it from a VCR and 'capture' as DV.
Again, flawless.
If you go the ATI route check out www.lordsmurf.com, he has some info on VHS capture with an ATI card.
Will

[neuz]

Thanks,
Sorry I meant to give computer specs:
Gateway 310XL
P4 2.6mhz
768MB of RAM
40GIG HD
Sound and video are integrated.
DVD+-RW/CD-RW

My Camcorder does not have firewire. I can connectt it to my TV through an analogue video out and audio out cable.
I thought that a program like Pinnacle Studio 8 would convert analogue to digital. Does it not?

See, that's where I get confused. Let me understand this:

1.I need a card that will allow me to connect my analogue cable into it. (IE a TV tuner card)
2. I need capturing software. (IE Virtualdub or Pinnacle Studio 8)
3. An encodec software( what does this do?? And does Pinnacle Studio 8 have this built into it?)
4. Software to burn to DVD (would the Pinnacle Studio 8 provide this as well?) My computer came with Nero V6. some posts that I have read seem to say Nero 5.5 works best.
5. A blank DVD - and the DONE

[qlizard]

Before you do much of anything you will need a much bigger hard drive. at least 120 GB and 7200 rpm. You should probably get two of them if you seriously plan to get into this.

[Bob W]

After messing with capturing and getting frustated I bought a DVD recorder which does a fine job of transfering. They are getting pretty cheap these days like this one for $335. http://store.4onlinefavorites.com/madvdremd.html

[DaBarrister]

Studio 8 is far and away one of the easiest and most intuitive video editors out there. The scene capture is almost worth the price of the full system. My daughter was creating her own videos with wipes, dissolves and fades when she was 10.

I have only three caveats to recommending such a purchase:

1) Studio 9 is allegedly on the horizon, so you do NOT want to pay full price for 8 unless you'll get the upgrade for free. I've seen prices as low as $29.99 on the Pinnaclesys website for the full version 8 upgrade from SE, but such prices seem to come and go.

2) There are known stability problems on most systems. I finally moved to Vegas to gain some needed stability.

3) DVD authoriing is rather primitive, but you get what you pay for.

It is a good buy compared to others in its class.

[JohnWestbury]

I don't think Studio 8 and Ulead Video Studio are in the same class. I believe that Studio 8 allows compositing whereas Video studio is strictly and A/B kind of set up. For ulead, Media Studio pro would make a better comparison. Between studio 8 and media studio pro, I would go with, Media studio pro.

[JohnWestbury]

If you just want to make DVD's of home movies (not editing or compositing) why not go with Dazzle DVD complete???. I do not know much about it, but I think it satisfies your requirements better than your other options. Also, I think you will get hardware based MPEG compression, but I could wrong about this as well.

[bertmartin]

I second the bigger hard drive. 40G is bare minimum. Also do you have a firewire input? If not you may want to add a firewire card. They are cheap. Newer cameras have both firewire and usb interface. Since you are primarily analog you will need some type of analog to digital conversion capability. Look at the Canopus products. Another choice would be to replace your Video Card with one that captures analog. The problem with some of these Video cards is they sometimes loose sync between video and audio. As far as editors go I still recommend Ulead Video Studio for a beginer. I also have Ulead Media Studio. Video Studio has an encoder that is fairly good for compression to MPEG from the AVI format. I also have TMPGEnc as a stand alone encoder. Each of us has a set of tools that work for us as you can see.

What you need:
An analog to digital conversion capability (mainly hardware)
A capture program (software)
An editor (software)
An encoder (compression software)
A burner program (software - may have come with DVD drive)

Video Studio 7 can capture from a digital source, edit, compress, and burn. Studio 8 can do most of this also I think.
Bert

[docfly]

There is no reason to not to believe that Studio 9 won't be out within a month from now(if not less) at retail outlets. So if you go the Studio route wait for 9 to be released. I have 8 and will be upgrading to 9. I like the app. Its not perfect but I haven't encountered any video editing program that is. Studio is definitely the easiest to use. You can get the bundle that includes the program and an analog capture or the bundle that has the software and a combo digital(firewire)/analog capture card if you see yourself upgrading to a DV camcorder in the future. Check out this link....http://www.pinnaclesys.com/docloader_n.asp?doclink=/studio9/S9IntroMainPage_asia.asp&t...7&langue_id=10

Also Pinnacle owns Dazzle now so you can get some info on that at Pinnacle's site too

[northcat_8]

I will 3rd the Hard drive. But I suggest you get one or 2 more and leave your OS on your 40 GB. AND format them to the NTFS file system to get around the 4 GB limit of the FAT32 system.

I have studio 8 and I have the AV/DV (analog video / digital video) capture card which came with studio 8.

A few things about pinnacle before you buy anything. First you need a board like this one to solve your issues because Pinnacles tech support is...well it would have to improve to be pathetic. Here, wait, I have the solution for any problem you have...."uninstall, reg delete, re-install"....

you should also know that several people have had major issues with the studio program. Me included. I still can't get it to create a DVD. But just as many people have it and love it. So that from that what you will.

Now I do use it to capture, edit and to convert. I build my entire project in studio 8 and then I make the DVD with something like Ulead's DVD Workshop. Ulead's Media Studio Pro is very nice and I like it better than Studio 8 but I have to capture using S8 so I just haven't bothered to buy Ulead's MSP.

Studio 8 is easy to use and for 90% of home editors it will do most of what you want.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it is the greatest, I think Adobe Premiere is about 1000 times better, but Premiere is also about 1000 times harder to learn and costs about 5 times as much. And when you add in all the programs like After Effects and Photoshop that work perfectly with premiere it's not much of a contest.

Now with the Instant Copy program, which I use and like very much. For me it gives better quality than I get with DVDshrink or DVD2ONE. I would not suggest buying Instant Copy 8 though, my friend has it and I have used it quite a few times and if you ask me it's a down grade from Instant Copy 7. Too many un-necessary settings to play with and screw up.

Just my 2 cents...and I had to borrow one of them.

[justjoe]

I have studio 8 and several other pinnacle products. They are all really buggy. They crash they hang. If the software worked it would be great but you can waste hours rebooting and rebooting.

[Will Hay]

I have studio 8 and several other pinnacle products. They are all really buggy. They crash they hang. If the software worked it would be great but you can waste hours rebooting and rebooting.

What kind of idiot buys Pinnacle after Pinnacle product if he/she doesn't like them?
Please, tell me.
Will Hay

[rcguy]

Wait for Studio 9. It will be available in stores February 3, 2004, or visit Pinnacle online and order Studio 9 for $99.99. I have been using Studio 8 for over a year with few problems. But I don't mess with analog. I go directly from my Sony mini dv camera to Studio 8. I recently upgraded to Pinnacle's Liquid Edition 5.5 and there is a steep learning curve that I hope in the long run will be worth while. Digital editing is fun and I personally, along with family and friends, receive a great deal of enjoyment from my finished projects. I sure you will too.

[falberni]

I think I saw Studio 8 software on sale on outpost.com for $29.99 after rebates. That was a couple of days ago. You might want to buy this version and play with it until they fix the bugs in Studio 9. If you go with Studio 8, don't forget to download the latest revision, I think it's 8.10.4 from Pinnacle web site. Pinnacle also has a good forum for its users.

[snafu099]

As a beginner I don't think your choice should be made dependant on bundled software. The most important aspect for your needs is the proper capture devicee itself. Good quality capture with audio sync for me is more important- read critical. I do not want to spend my time trying to learn how to correct something that if done correctly to start, does not need to be fixed.

Look for a device that does hardware, realtime encoding to mpg. Captures the audio/vidio in a "locked" state (perfect sync). Avoid anything that captures audio via connection through your sound card.

Three devices I would recommed to meet your needs:
ADS usb DvdExpress $99
ADS usb InstantDvd-2 $150 (avoid earlier IDVD-1, sud via sound card)
Ads usb INstantDvd +dv $200
Bunled with Ulead software which I am quite happy with
http://www.adstech.com

My brother just got the Pinacle usb Movie box which appears to be about the same hardware setup, but he has not done anything with it yet for feedback

Have seen some others listed (usb) which also include tv-tuner/pvr but have not seen any review or found how/where to purchase, $250 range

[aero]

Studio 8 is widely viewed as one of the worst products to ever hit the software market. If you look at amazon.com ratings something like 99% of the reviews are negative.

Studio 8's own user forums tell a similar story with users who have a lot of knowledge and very advanced systems. The main problem is "OOS" or audio "out of synch."

This, contrary to some of the explainations, has very often nothing to do with capture but with sudio 8's own creation method.

I tuned my althon to work with studio 8. this after no help from pinnacle's brain dead support. But our clean 3.24 pent 4 gives out of synch with pinnacle studio 8. this includes mpegs that play in perfect synch before studio 8 mangles them.

[aero]

I have studio 8 and several other pinnacle products. They are all really buggy. They crash they hang. If the software worked it would be great but you can waste hours rebooting and rebooting.

What kind of idiot buys Pinnacle after Pinnacle product if he/she doesn't like them?
Please, tell me.
Will Hay

what kind of idiot would make such a statement when Pinnacle is bundled with many products?

[sheppy124]

another suggestion is, if you have xp, get yourself a cheap capture card and have a fiddle around with movie maker, its not brilliant but will keep you entertained till the new pinnacle,

[gavmiester]

I fifth/sixth etc the hard drive lines....and I'd suggest 2, the bigger the better...I filled 200 gig in under a week, plus kind of nice having 3 hard drives to access, or more if you are lucky.....also

"What kind of idiot buys Pinnacle after Pinnacle product if he/she doesn't like them?
Please, tell me. "
Will Hay

I didnt see any mention of the word "buys" in his post either.

[jwedge]

I used S7 and currently S8. Yes they have many shortfalls but very easy to use. I'm planning to upgrade so I'd recommend until S9 is out in a couple of weeks.

I posted a question a few days ago asking why Vegas 4.0 is so expensive compared to S8 or Ulead producst. Maybe I'm not supposed to ask that as onlyu one person replied.

[donpedro]

I am planing to update to Pinnacle Studio version 9 too. Let's hope it will work as it should

[DaBarrister]

I used S7 and currently S8. Yes they have many shortfalls but very easy to use. I'm planning to upgrade so I'd recommend until S9 is out in a couple of weeks.

I posted a question a few days ago asking why Vegas 4.0 is so expensive compared to S8 or Ulead producst. Maybe I'm not supposed to ask that as onlyu one person replied.

Vegas 4 is stable, no OOS problems, no crashes, DVD Architect has far more capabilities, unlimited audio tracks (useful for cut n paste and other operations). In short, V4 is closer to a professional-level editor, and, after a short but steep learning curve, is ultimately easier to use.

[MJPollard]

what kind of idiot would make such a statement when Pinnacle is bundled with many products?

Windows is bundled with every computer, too. Seriously, being bundled isn't a barometer of quality; it simply means that Company X was able to get a more favorable discount for Product A than it could for Product B.

Pinnacle Studio 8 is notorious for being an all-or-nothing product. When it works, it works very well. When it doesn't, it's a nightmare. IMHO, Pinnacle bit off way more than they could chew with Studio 8, and it's cost them in both reputation and sales. Studio 9 had better be one step below God if Pinnacle wants to get them back.

[Will Hay]

What amazes me most is that the people that constantly bitch about Pinnacle are the ones that continue to use them, whether they buy them, get them free with hardware or download them.
The premise is simple, if you don't like them, don't use them.
If you don't like them, install them anyway and they **** your machine then congratulations, your life must be so simple and care-free!
I had trouble with Nero and guess what, I now concentrate on RecordNowMax for my current and future burning needs.
Pretty simple to me, but I don't consider myself an idiot.
I once cut myself when I dropped a glass milk bottle, I learnt from that.
Will Hay

[presto]

What amazes me most is that the people that constantly bitch about Pinnacle are the ones that continue to use them, whether they buy them, get them free with hardware or download them.
The premise is simple, if you don't like them, don't use them.
If you don't like them, install them anyway and they **** your machine then congratulations, your life must be so simple and care-free!
I had trouble with Nero and guess what, I now concentrate on RecordNowMax for my current and future burning needs.
Pretty simple to me, but I don't consider myself an idiot.
I once cut myself when I dropped a glass milk bottle, I learnt from that.
Will Hay

Aren't you a ray of sunshine. No one knows if they like product untill they try it. They don't quit the first time they have trouble, they keep trying and at some point get frustrated. They ask for help and they vent. That's human, and normal. Yes your probably smarter than some of us and not as smart as others. No one cares. So you haven't used a glass bottle since you were 12 because you dropped one once and that's supposed to be our template for living right? Thanks!

[Will Hay]

that's supposed to be our template for living right? Thanks-

Don't mention it, and thanks for missing my point.
WH.

[kupton]

neuz - as you can see Pinnacle 8 stirs up quite a bit of emotion from it's users. Some get it to work and love it, many others don't. I use it but it was a frustrating process to get it to work correctly. System crashes, hangs and general program bugs. The updates have taken care of many problems so make sure to update if you do buy the program.

I don't recommend Studio 8 because of the problems I've had but you might be one of the lucky ones who don't have any problems. Hopefully Studio 9 will be better but I feel like I've been burned once so I won't be upgrading. Have fun with what ever you decide!

[presto]

Don't mention it, and thanks for missing my point.
WH.

Ok, I'l call your bluff. What point?

I read it several times and all I can come up with is "I'm smarter than everyone else because when something doesn't work for me I don't complain I just move on".