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Back to Studio Deluxe (Full)
  • Overall Rating
    3 stars 3 Star Review
    Reviewed by: mjo69

    Updated:12-23-03

    Duration of ownership:14 Days

    Strengths: Easy to stream in analog video and build a movie using scene clips and transitions

    Weaknesses: The burning process is very inadequate.

    Overall Evaluation: I wanted a product that would allow me to make DVD's out of my analog camcorder tapes. Streaming the video in was a piece of cake, but you need a huge hard-drive to store the .avi files. Making a movie from the streamed in video was easy enough that I really didn't need to read the manual for the basic things I wanted to do. Although there is a fair amount of functionality in the edit tool, I only used a small portion. Rendering the movie to a format suitable to burn on a DVD took about 12 hours for around one hour of video. I expect that is because my PC is only 800mhz. I could do this overnight which was fine by me. The process of burning a DVD is very unreliable. I ruined 2 DVD's before I consulted the forums and found that there are a ton of people that had problems burning DVD's. There are also known issues with having this product installed with other burning software such as Roxio EZ CD Creator. The tech support told me to try about 20 different things to rectify the problem none of which I had time for since I wanted to get the videos for the holidays. Many people used Nero to burn the DVD's so I downloaded a trial version of Nero and used the instructions I found in one of the Pinnalce forums to burn the DVD with Nero. After 20 minutes I had a DVD that played fine in both of my players. I now use Studio only to stream in the video, edit and render the DVD files. I use Nero to burn which I guess I will have to buy at $80 if I want a reliable solution.

  • Overall Rating
    1 stars 1 Star Review
    Reviewed by: manufracture

    Updated:06-21-03

    Duration of ownership:21 Days

    Strengths: Nice layout, easy to create DVDs. If you can get it to that point.

    Weaknesses: The audio and video will not stay in sync when capturing from VHS. The tech support is not helpful. They seem clueless.

    Overall Evaluation: I finally reached my limit of fustration trying to capture from VHS, and returned it to the store. I worked and worked with this thing, and tried everything to get it to work. Tech support was well aware of the problem, but had no solution. They kept promising it would be better with the next patch. Each patch they released made things worse and messed up what would work before. The Studio 8 software could be worth while, but it constantly freezes and the last patch they gave me caused it to make DVDs incorrectly. This package is not good for trying to turn your VHS tapes to digital video. If you are looking for something to work with right out of the box, stay away from this.

  • Overall Rating
    2 stars 2 Star Review
    Reviewed by: vicmitch

    Updated:04-01-03

    Duration of ownership:3 Months

    Strengths: Ease of use and combination of AV and DV features.

    Weaknesses: Audio sync when creating DV from AV (VHS) is off and sound transfers are mediocre. DV features limited and slow for the price. I also found Pinnacle technical support weak and with a bit of attitude.

    Overall Evaluation: As another reviewer stated, check the Pinnacle support site before buying. There are a lot of problems with this product. I would recommend ADS Pyro or Dazzle over the Pinnacle offering. If you are primarily doing DV from a camcorder buy the ADS Pyro 1394 DV instead and use the analog connections on your camcorder to convert VHS tapes. It's a lot cheaper and is a better 1394 card. You can always buy the Pinnacle Studio software seperately later if you feel you need features it offers and you still come out ahead dollar wise.

  • Overall Rating
    3 stars 3 Star Review
    Reviewed by: tabby36

    Updated:12-21-02

    Duration of ownership:21 Days

    Strengths: Easy editing, Nice special effects and transitions.Easy to create titles and Disc menus.Captures the video off of old VHS tapes very well.

    Weaknesses: Hard to get drivers to install in XP.Audio sync problems capturing analog video tape.Sometimes you have to rearrange your pci cards to avoid conflicts.Slow to render even on fast computers.

    Overall Evaluation: Before buying this I would recommend you go to Pinnacle message boards and read all of the problems and fixes. This will make your job easier when loading and running this hardware/software.Tech support is through email and they do respond in a couple of days. There are hundreds of postings about analog audio sync capture problems. Pinnacle support sometimes recommends to purchase Scenalyzer ($33).Other users recommend AudioDub. I have use scenalyzer.Now my captures are in sync and have succesfully burned many high quality DVDs.All of the headaches have been worth it to see the DVD's play. One tip if you purchase, create your DVD movie to hard disc first, don't burn. Then Burn it later. Trying to do it it once can lock the system up and you get a unknown burn error ( also mentioned in Pinnacle message board).

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Pinnacle Studio Deluxe (Full)
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