Pinnacle Studio 8

[Greg12]

Should I buy this program?

I'm fed up with downloading fake copies of it that are missing a readme file or a libary or r just huge fakes.

Is it worth the money?

[rallytbk]

IMHO Yes.

I have seen this program in action and the price is not that bad... But if you want to get your money's worth get the software with the capture card either the AV or the DV version.

I spoke to people at Pinnacle and they say that Studio 8AV and 8DV is the same software. Just that the hardware that is included with the package is obviously different.

Good Luck

[kathleenbilly]

Well l use pinnacle studio version 7 dv and l have no problems and was new to video editing and found it very user-friendly, l'm sure version 8 would only be a improvement on this.

[curritch]

No, not yet. At at least not without qualifications.
Studio8 seems to work well enough in going from avi to DVD using its internal CBR mpg2 encoder. But it's full of bugs when attempting to import externally encoded files, such as from TMPGEnc.
There is a patch imminent and I would suggest waiting until the patch results are known. That will likely let the price come down some too, since I saw a $50 rebate deal over the weekend with the version that comes bundled with a firewire card.

[Anonymous65]

How does Studio 8 handle long captures and audio sync? Does it drop frames to stay in sync with the audio, or does it just go out of sync after an hour or so of capturing? Also, does it allow multisegment captures on FAT32 drives? How does the internal mpeg encoder compare to Tmpenc as far as video quality goes?

[Ticiano]

I'm using Studio 8 and it't just fine... it was less expensive that you can supose... hehehehe contact me and we can talk about

my UIN is 5791108

I'm trying to add some DC10+ users to my ICQ list. Lets share information and things

[Starfire]

I've had alot of problems with Studio 8. Everything from freezing during rendering to crashing when it's compiling the files for DVD. Does anyone have a status on the patch if one is coming out soon. I've wasted about a month on a wedding video I've been working on for a friend and it's really starting to piss me off. I finally got it to finish rendering an MPEG2 so I can at least use another program to create/burn my DVD. My system is plenty fast enough (AMD 1800+, 768 ram, 18 gigs free HD). I didn't have this much trouble with Studio 7 so I didn't think I would have any problems with Studio 8. Stupid me. Finished creating my movie a month ago and still haven't been able to get it burned to DVD yet. Aaarrrgggg!!

[curritch]

skittel. I have been using Studio7 for quite some time and Studio8 for the last month. I haven't made long captures with S8 but have done many with S7 with absolutely no problem. I would expect S8 to be similar since that part of S8 should be simply a replica of S7. S7 does not allow multi-segment captures from FAT32 so I don't believe that S8 will either.
I saw Ticiano's comment but beware. If you want to import TMPGEnc files into S8 it simply will not work in its present form.
PS. Starfire's input came while I was responding. His is more typical of what you will see on the S8 forum.

[presto]

Go to the Pinacle forum and see what others are saying and talking about. http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=1

For me Pinacle would be perfect if encoding quality was better and if I didn't keep running into bugs that completely ruin a project. I keep having to start over. I think it will be much improved when they release the next patch. I would keep lurking on the forum until then and see if the general feeling is that they fixed things.

I have succesfully made many SVCD's where the video quality was not important (instuctional videos). I just bought a DVD player and so far the video quality is dissapointing. You would do better just sticking with VHS tapes as far as video quality.

Let me point out that my interest is in preserving older movies. People who are starting with perfect sources may have a higher opinion of Studio 8.

[Ticiano]

frame drops will happen if you capture from a bad VHS. i can't understand the cause of this, but when i'm capturing from old VHS with some bad clipes, so i get a higher number of frame drops, but this isn't causing loss of sync with audio.

I'm newbie with Pinnacle. I'm using my new DC10+ for less than a week. With the tip that i get in this Forum about the Sharpness setting my image quality is just wonderfull! I'm in love with this card! I just capturing my , 1989, 1990, 1991 VHS and making nice SVCDs to play in my Philco DV-P2100.

Now i'll read about X-SVCD and make some tests.

[curritch]

Skittle. I didn't reply to your last question about mpg2 quality.
There has been much discussion about that on the S8 forum. I think the bottom line is that it is "almost" as good as TMPGEnc under similar conditions. My personal experience is limited to some short clips that I did for comparison. I quite frankly couldn't tell the difference.
But I don't think that that is the end to the mpg2 story. TMPGEnc will likely continue to improve whereas Pinnacle, now that it has an acceptible encoder, will likely focus its resources elsewhere.
So I believe that the ability to import mpg2 files is very important if one wants to get the very best final product. And that's where S8 simply doesn't work.

[Anonymous65]

I have been looking for a single product that can capture, trim, convert to VCD and SVCD and burn to disk, all in one application. Studio 8 seems to come pretty close to this.

But a single issue like a 4 gig capture barrier makes it all come to a grinding halt unless you use a NTFS partition. Why would they not allow multi segment captures for internal use? You should be able to capture 2 hours of video in 640x480 mode, edit it and encode it to VCD.

[curritch]

Skittel. I hear you but I have used Ulead VideoStudio, which does allow for multi-segment capture with FAT32, and found that feature to be of marginal value.
If you are going back to miniDV tape under FAT32 then you still have to create your segments to conform to the 4GB limit. So the capture advantage kind of gets lost in the noise.
I'm sure you have been told this but the solution here is WinXP and NTFS.
One correction here. Studio7, and I assume Studio8, does provide the capabilty to go back to tape without regard to the 4GB limit. Some other apps, which require complete avi rendering before return to tape, don't.
But, to forever be free of the 4GB problem, WinXP is the answer.

[vidnewbie]

Glad to find pinnacle users here.

I use to edit my raw material but - i can only save the final work as avi, mpeg..etc.

Now, if i would like to burn my videos on a vcd and not suffer from bad quality, how do i go about it? what is the best format to save it in?

[Ticiano]

Glad to find pinnacle users here.

I use to edit my raw material but - i can only save the final work as avi, mpeg..etc.

Now, if i would like to burn my videos on a vcd and not suffer from bad quality, how do i go about it? what is the best format to save it in?

If your standalone DVD player can play SVCD, is better you make your disks in this format! The quality is realy superior!

[Donna Stefani]

I'm newbie with Pinnacle. I'm using my new DC10+ for less than a week. With the tip that i get in this Forum about the Sharpness setting my image quality is just wonderfull! I'm in love with this card! I just capturing my , 1989, 1990, 1991 VHS and making nice SVCDs to play in my Philco DV-P2100.

Now i'll read about X-SVCD and make some tests.

Can someone clue me in to the tip about the sharpness setting?

I just purchased the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe 8 & have been reading about the scenalyzer & scenalyzerLive. However, I can't figure out what the Scenalyzer does & if I'm understanding this correctly, the scenalyzerlive doesn't work for analog?
Can someone assist me on this?

[Redd]

Can someone clue me in to the tip about the sharpness setting?

I just purchased the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe 8 & have been reading about the scenalyzer & scenalyzerLive. However, I can't figure out what the Scenalyzer does & if I'm understanding this correctly, the scenalyzerlive doesn't work for analog?
Can someone assist me on this?

Check out page 39 in your user manual under the "Video" paragraph Re: Sharpness.