Help Pinnacle 10+ am I fighting a lost cause!

[splatty]

Followed some great advices form you guys about buying my Cannon Dv for the charity I work for, i spoilt it by getting Pinnacle 10+ for editing.

My XP Pro.PC is at the recommended level for running this software and is stable with all other software.

However I have never seen a program crash so often or freeze.
When I finally did edit the 8 min test video it has refused to covert it to a movie and burn it to DVD. It just sit there pretending to go through the motions for as many hours as I care to leave it. (7 hours was the best I tolerate) and other then a few approx 10% indicted done it has never done a thing and only ever taken up 12% of my CPU’s power.

I have downloaded over 120Mb of patches from pinnacle “which tells you something about how ready it was to reach the shop shelves” but none of it makes any difference.

Any thoughts? Do I wait to see if they fix it because it all seems very good on paper
Or do I try to get my money back and go for something new.

I need to be able to edit my DV for the kids projects I do, they like it to look fun with plenty of wiz bangs!
I need to be able to get my very tired old brain around it and not have to spend days trying to edit. (I could use sticky tape and scissors quicker than this)
Seems to be a few bugs on Ulead products from the forums I look at but Sony’s stuff seems to be well liked?
Help.
splatty

[philipb]

Studio is very buggy.

I'm using Premiere Elements 2 and its very good.

[splatty]

thanks Phil is it easy to use? and how much did it cost
splatt

[senu]

Read this thread and maybe this as well
Pinnacle Studio works very well when it does and is very unreliable when it doesnt.
Dont try to get it working !

Sony Vegas Studio is also very nice to use and reliable.

Both programs (APE2 and Sony Vegas Studio) are "easy to use" once you get past the peculiarities of thier ( very different ) interfaces. Both are well featured and have a bit of a learning curve if you want to do more than just cut and paste editing ( as I expect you will!)
Thankfully there is a lot of help out there to make sure you dont get stuck

Pinnacle Studio would have been a great product in that its layout is fantastic but buggy code and consistent instability issues have dogged the last 3 releases ( 7 and 8 were unusable: 9 and 10 ok for some people)
Read more about that here
There is the much liked ( in these forums) Ulead VideoStudio 9 but I feel the Adobe and Sony products are better .
HTH
Senu

[philipb]

Agree with Senu.

APE does take some learning, but for about £50 you get virtually all of the important bits of AP itself.

[cliveg]

Hi...I feel I ought to defend Pinnacle Studio a bit here...

I have used Pinnacle Studio 7, 8 and now on 9 without any problems at all...i reckon it's a great piece of software...

Whenever I have gone to the next version, I always uninstall the previous version first...I don't go for the upgrade versions...always buy the full product. Whether this has anything to do with it, I don't know.

I have also installed the patches from Pinnacle's website as soon as they're available...again with no problems.

Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones, but I reckon this software is great. I do quite a bit of timeline editing, adding transitions, music, voice-overs etc, and I find it so easy to use.

I have heard that a lot of people have had problems with this software, so as I said earlier, I must be one of the lucky ones.

One other point...I do keep my PC pretty much up together as far as patches, virus software etc is concerned, so that may help. ( I work in IT so I know a little about computers... )

Cheers,

Clive

[Paul Cooksley]

Clive

I think you probably are one of the "lucky ones" to some degree - certainly seems that way after reading reports on here and other web forums - as well as my own experience of Pinnacle.

I have Pinnacle Version 8.4 - basically this came free with my PC three years ago. I do use it a fair bit - and I have to say - I do very much like Pinnacle- but - my version is very "buggy" - that is to say it quite often freezes and crashes. At first I thought it was down to my pc, but no - seems to be a common problem.

As I do want to continue using Pinnacle, I really want to update to version Studio 10 Plus - but again, I am put off by reading all the negative comments about it. Shame. I think it's a brilliantly thought out and designed easy to use piece of software - it's just such a pity it seems to crash so often.

Regards

Paul

[DigiStuff]

Hi All,

As others have stated that Studio products do work on some systems. The best advice I can give is that build the best spec PC you can and then fit a removeable hard drive caddie. Have 2 x C: Drives effectively ! (2 Boot drives. Using one at a time) One just for video editing and keep it that way. Use the other boot drive for all other work. Hope this makes sense.

I have been using PC based video editing software for around 10 years now and still haven't found the perfect product!! Things change to much all the time. I wish the software makers would stop adding new features and just get the product to work in the first place !!!

Well that's my pennies worth anyway!!

Cheers

DigiStuff

[senu]

Sorry to disagree guys .
I have Studio 10+ in addition to Liquid Edition 6.1 and now Avid Liquid 7.
On another partition I have Adobe Premiere Elements 2 ( xmas present) and Sony Vegas 6 + DVD ( complimentary gift for testing).

The systems are a p4 3.0 , 1gig ram, 420g sata HDD and a Geforce fx 6200 256m ram graphics( AGP) and Amd 64 3800, 1.5g ram,300g sata and ATI Radeon 9800 ultra 256 ( both systems have dedicated video drives and Im almost obsessive in keeping them in tip top shape) ie Optimising windows with updates , defragmenting HDD etc

I have found Studio 9+ rather stable and 7 & 8 atrociously unusable.

I got Studio 7 as a "gift " ( from Pinnacle) a few years ago when I bought several Systems with the then Pinnacle Pro one card ( with Premiere 6.5)
As such , I dont have more than say 5-6 years experience with video editing stuff: Adobe Premiere 5 had given me the shivers!!
My current problem with 10+ is that it is slows the PC down and is itself slow when the project is more than 1hr long and then it doesnt seem to offer much functionality over 9+. Otherwise it is stable and easy to use
In comparison, both LE 6.1 and Avid Liquid 7 are very nippy ( on the same machines) as is Adobe Premiere Elements2. Similarly Sony Vegas 6 seems rather unfussed.
The PCs have a multi boot(3) Win Xp ( SP2) configuration and some partitions ( 2/3)are just for editing video with no antivirus etc. So they have "clean" installs of the software.
I honestly feel the good GUI and layout of Studio has won many converts to Video editing.
Sadly a very significant minority have never been able to get it to work ( properly or at all) regardlesss of PC spec. Pinnacle support is quite polite and prompt but ( to say the least) functionally clueless.
As such Studio has equally put off a large no of people from video editing for a long time ( some for ever) which is a shame. This is more annoying because they feel its thier fault as they cannot get it to work. It is of course not thier fault but that of a flaky product.
When Avid took it( Pinnacle) over and promised to use the mature Edition ( now Liquid) engine in studio I was hopeful.( Still am )

They have now posted 2 major patches ( 60 meg each) to fix it in 2 months and still not everybody is happy.
I dont think its fair to blame the end user here regarding PC specs and housekeeping : Studio is very unreliable and can be undependable and will perform well or badly regardless of PC spec. It cannot be relied on when deadlines are looming!
That said, I agree no NLE software is perfect but feel sad that Studio seems to be a lost opportunity to be a great all round NLE as its notorious reputation is unfortunately justified !
I own and use it with perhaps less grieve than many but refuse to give it an endorsment until they tidy it up.

[splatty]

Thanks guys
Makes me feel better to know I am not just a passed it 44 year old trying to keep up my old video habit in the 21st century. 2ok maybe i am"
Just for the record my system is.
AMD XP 2600. 1Gb Ram. Radeon 9200,128Mb. HD x2 60Gb & 160Gb.
I run the Movie files from the 160Gb which has no software on it.
XP Pro fully updated as are all the drivers.
System Defragged, and every thing else runs fine.

It may sound like Mr goody goody, but I work bloody hard in the community with young people, this sort of crap software just seems to make the long hours and extra work you do at home very frustrating.

Guess unless anyone knows a way around the refusal to convert to movie and burn a DVD I will have to get a new and more stable platform to edit with.
Having spent 18hours of a weekend editing a project I did for Princes Trust the old fashioned way “lots of cables, mixers and good old VHS” you can see why I am losing the will to live.

“Frustrated” Me!......... “you bet”
“Still” I don’t get to finish work till after 11pm tomorrow night, so maybe that will give someone time to spot this sad little plea and have a “cunning plan to solve it”
Thanks again for your input guys.
splatty
ps. yes i do shut down the other software when i use 10+/ oh! it was also only an 8min test edit to see how it worked. "or not"

[ChrisG46]

It's a pain when you have problems with any software, and Pinnacle seems to have more than it's share of probs. I've used v8 and v9 for about 3 years, and am happy with it, but suspect it is purely a matter of luck and machine configuration!
Like many people who seem to have the least problems, my editing system is based on a machine with very little other stuff onboard, and no internet connection at all. It has an 80GB operating disc, 160Gb video storage disc, and 160Gb and 250Gb USB drives plugged in. I use this system for two or three hours virtually every day.
I've recently installed a system call Visual Communicator, which also works well.
If I ever have the dosh, probably unlikely, I'll upgrade to Avid Express or something like it - whatever Pinnacle do they seem to make money with, but users seem to have a consistently less than satisfactory time.

[shoehorn]

Hmm... another "fan" of Pinnacle here.
I'm on v9.4.3 and have had no problems with it at all.
Athlon 2800 with 120 C drive and 160 F drive (data only) - installed on C captured to F.

[senu]

Originally Posted by shoehorn

Hmm... another "fan" of Pinnacle here.
.

You Sir, are a rare breed! ( endangered species???)
I did say significant minority in my post.
And BTW it works for me too just that that "fan club" ( pun intended) you refer to seems to be small and shrinking

[laser]

I use both Pinnacle Studio 10 and Pinnacle Liquid 6.1

Studio 10 does crash and will make you machine sluggish whereas Liquid 6.1 is very nimble and quite quick and very rarely crashes which is somewhat strange when Liquid is a far more complex piece of software.

However....A friend recently bought a new PC which was bundled with Studio 10. After many calls complaining about performance and constant system crashes I decided to take a look at the system, which incidently is an AMD 2800+, 256MB graphics, 200GB SATA HDD and 512MB RAM (nothing cutting edge).

By carrying out a few tweaks and offering some advice the crashes have mostly ceased and the guy is now very happy with Studio 10.

This is what I did:

1. Installed latest patch
2. Switched off realtime rendering of transitions and effects (this made the biggest difference to performance)
3. Told the guy to be patient and wait a few seconds for the HDD activity to reduce rather than trying to drag loads of effects and transitions to the time line and then scrub the timeline while the software is still trying write or read data to the HDD

There three points basically cut down 95% of the system crashes. The system can still be slow rendering but is fine during editing.

However if you want powerful and nimble software I would highly recomend Sony Vegas or Pinnacle/Avid Liquid. I even use Liquid 6.1 on my laptop, occasionally, without any performance issues.

[shoehorn]

Originally Posted by laser

Told the guy to be patient and wait a few seconds for the HDD activity to reduce

I think that's it!
I must say that I always wait for my HDD activity to reduce!
When moving stuff about the timeline you can hear the HDD and see as the audio catches up - once the audio's done it's "ready"

(Endangered Pinnacle "fan")