I have used Pinnacle studio products for 4 years and have made over 30 home videos for family, friends, and High school sport teams, yet continue to grow weary of all the problems I encounter with Studio, that happen at all the most inconvienent times. I have spent 5 thousand dollars over the last two years trying to handle the problems with faster computers but I am just wanting a program that is predictable and stable. Can anyone suggest an alternative. I make family DVDs of the years activities and mail them to family and make video of the highschool sports teams and give them to the kids. Nothing too complicated. 20-40 minutes of video with a couple title pages, a song, a couple of transitions, a few still shots, Maybe a menu if its 30+ minutes. I am even considering going the route of MAC. My friend does not have my experince with making videos and yet he can make some nice little movies with his MAC. Is there another program to consider?

Check out Sony's Vegas Movie Studio + DVD (http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=932).

Stability has never been an issue since I made the switch from Studio 7 to Vegas. The interfaces are different enough that a DVD tutorial was a big time saver. Though, the new interactive tutorials in Movie Studio look pretty good.

Final Cut Express (http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/) is another excellent and stable program, Mac only of course.

If you want uncompromising stability and real time, take a look at the Canopus products.

Thanks. I will begin to look at the choices you have mentioned.

Step up to Liquid 6. The upgrade price is $299. Liquid Edition is written by a different dev team at Pinnacle.

I stepped up to LE 4.5 because of issues with S8. I have not been disappointed. LE6 will import Studio projects (listed as a feature.)

Kevin,
I can't add much more to what has been said. I used Studio, Studio 7 and Studio 8. They were actually pretty stable on my PC, except for S8's confounding ability to mix and match titles where they were not intended.

I decided on Vegas in part because of the very strong audio tools. I was getting some really poor sound on videos people asked me to put on DVD, and Vegas was great at improving the sound tracks. I assume that some or most of the audio tools are in Vegas Movie Studio.

At the time I decided to upgrade, the was no trial version of Liquid Edition.

BTW, I still retain S8 on my PC as it has considerable value as a utility for tape output (or for feeding a set-top burner). The S8 version of Title Deco is also of some value

Thanks for all of your responces. After doing some research at the quoted companies websites I have some additional questions for you guys:

On Canopus: What software version would I need to buy to be similar in features to Studio 9, and any hardware I would need to purchase , or is there a version which includes software and boards necessary. (I have read that the DV board I have from Pinnacle will not work with other products) Mike I have read through their site but I am confused as to what to buy. I am willing to call them if you think that is a good idea.

On Vegas: Michael and Ralph, do you think Vegas Movie studio + DVD is Good enough for me given the type of Hobbie movies I make or should I consider the step to Vegas 5? Also As I mentioned to Mike above do I need a new board as well and is it included.

On Liquid Edition: George Thanks for mentioning it as an option. I was aware of it but had figured, perhaps incorrectly, that it would just be a more complicated and sophisticated frustration at times. Again I do not have alot of problems with Studio, but when I do they cause me alot of lost time and frustration and time is not something I have alot of.

Question on all of these products: how are the rendering times? Typically the movies I make take about twice as long to render as the movie length (ex. 30 min. movie=60 min. to render, another 15 to burn)

Thanks again to all of you !

Kevin,

Any of the mentioned NLEs will surpass Studio in features. I downloaded the Vegas 4 evaluation copy then played with it for a few weeks before buying. I suggest you do the same. Your hobby applications will be well served, but you will soon move up in sophistication of videos because the capability is there. Vegas requires an OHCI compliant 1394 board. I use the same one that came with Pinnacle Studio DV.

I have not used Vegas Movie Studio - just the full version of Vegas plus DVDA. There is a Vegas forum for Movie Studio at

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowTopics.asp?ForumID=12

You may want to lurk there for a while to see what you think.


My first Vegas project was a two camera shoot with audio that needed lots of work and an analog recording that had to be lipsynced to a talking head shot. Vegas gave me the ability to synch two video tracks, boost a trumpet solo that was lost in the reverberation of a large church, and change the speed of the analog recording to match the speaker's lips.

I was impressed with the capabilities of the software, and the stability was 100%.

Rendering quality is high on Vegas. Rendering speed is not, but learning curve and ease of editing should be considered as well.

I have LE 5.5, Studio 9plus. I use studio 9 for quick, single track jobs. I use LE for my major projects. Authoring on Liquid will take much longer, you have more options, and the playback compatibility in DVD players is not an issue.

The control over special effects, transitions, color correction, plus the ease of use make liquid a great a choice. The main point is the authoring from the timeline. You don't have to transfer it into another program.

However, I have only had problems when I don't defragment the hard drive, which is probably so for all editing programs.

I built my computer system around the program and that computer is strictly for editing and making copies of DVDs.

Liquid will not run very well on a multiuse computer with all different kinds of programs. Liquid runs best on a clean install of windows. I have not had any major issues, every program has it quirks and bugs, however I have been extremely satisfied with LE.

Wanted to throw Apple's Final Cut Pro into the mix. You can find out more about it at apple.com of course and dvxuser has forums for all the various NLEs if you want to hear people's impressions.

Forgive me if DVInfo also has forums for each editor also; I'm just now learning my way aroundl!

Your in DVX user also. I signed up here, but forgot about it because I spent so much time at DVX.

do you think Vegas Movie studio + DVD is Good enough for me given the type of Hobbie movies I make or should I consider the step to Vegas 5? Any of the programs mentioned is more than enough. If you're leaning towards Vegas, I'd check out Movie Studio first, you really can't beat it for US$99.00. My guess is it does 80-90% of what most people need.

Sony has an upgrade to Vegas 5 if you feel you need it later on down the road.