Corel Video Studio x8 vs Pinnacle Studio 18

[data_design]

Greetings!

Corel Video Studio x8 vs Pinnacle Studio 18

Most people know that Corel owns both the above products. But I have questions. Is one of these better than the other? I have both Corel X6 and Pinnacle 16 and I am thinking about upgrading to the latest version of one or the other. I am looking for the best product for my needs. I am a professional computer programmer, and I hate difficult to use software. I am not in the business of selling my videos, but I do need and want the best quality output. Why did Corel choose to keep both products? And why continue to upgrade both? Could they not be combined and all users satisfied?

If users are willing to comment, let me recap my questions:
1. Which product is the best and why?
2. Why does Corel maintain both products?
3. Lastly, I did search on the web to see if there were any comparative reviews, but did not find any. If you know of such a comparative review, please reply with a link to it.

Thanks,

Tod

[Ken Berry]

I am afraid only people who have both programs will be able to answer your first question. I personally have never owned any version of Pinnacle. And I suspect people who have used Pinnacle in the past and switched over the Video Studio did so because of the problems they had with Pinnacle -- and which they complained about many times on this forum. So I suspect most answers you get here will be rather biased against Pinnacle.

Like you, I have never seen any comparative reviews of the two products. There are occasional comparisons between VS and other NLEs. But others might be aware of such a comparison.

As for why Corel maintains both products, while Admin people such as myself have links to a limited number of Corel execs, none of us ourselves are Corel employees. What we are told, moreover, is rather limited and usually relates to technical aspects of Video Studio (and the other programs covered by this Board). But of course we speculate amongst ourselves, though our surmises are nothing more than that: speculation.

Personally, I remain puzzled why Corel has maintained the two products separately for a couple of versions now. There are signs that some elements of Pinnacle are making their way into VS e.g. the automatic music feature in the new version X8 of Video Studio -- unpopular though that decision might have been with most (all) of us who had become used to SmartSound. But when or if they decide to blend the two into one remains a mystery to us all. I would say that us Administrators could conceivably get advance warning as it is us who would set up the beta testing forum for the new product. But even that is assuming that Corel would necessarily do it as part of our Board. There is a Pinnacle community, of course, and it is not maintained by our Board, nor do we have any contact with it. So if Corel decides to favour Pinnacle over VS, we might just be the last people to know... if we aren't the first. They might do the beta testing with the Pinnacle forum -- though it would of course be more logical to set up a team of beta testers from both forums.

The current cycle of yearly releases of new versions won't come round again for VS until February/March next year -- assuming again that Corel don't accelerate that timetable for a new combined program, and that they let us know in advance...

[canuck]

Actually Corel has 3 video programs: the VideoStudio line, Pinnacle and Roxio Creator. I don't think anyone can really say that one is better then the other. Each one has features that may be better than in the other programs or may even be lacking in the other programs. If I had to choose 2 out of the 3, I would pick Roxio and VS. I used Pinnacle years ago but did not find it user friendly and switched to Roxio and started using VS a couple of years ago. Many users have 2 or more programs and use each one for different features.

[asik1]

The answer is very simple, the best software is the one you learn and master how to use to your needs.
Both VSX8 and PS18 are total crap if you don't read the manual, view few tutorials and try to understand.
Neither of the two is "way" over the other, and at any given point one will hit the wall where he will need to find a workaround to solve a problem.

- We don't know how long Corel will continue to manage their "same market" editing software (roxio is not in that level)

[lata]

Hi Tod
I don’t own any Pinnacle programs so can only comment on Video Studio.
Given that you have VS X6 and PS16 you should be able to compare and I assume you have a favourite, I am also assuming the VS8 and PS18 have similar improvements over the years.
I would advise you run the trial just to view the changes in the workstation.
The trial as you may know is very much cut down, certainly its limitations for us are quite disturbing? no authoring module and no bluray or mpeg2 rendering, making it a little difficult to edit hd material, unless its WMV or MP4, for internet use.
But the trial will give you a feel for the program.

[Terfyn]

The older Pinnacle Studio, up to 15, could be very buggy. My last brush with PS crashed my computer. PS is now based on the AVID programme so may be better.
Pinnacle Studio was fairly easy to use but I found VideoStudio far more intuitive and flexible when I got used to it. VideoStudio may not be as sophisticated as some of the other editors available but it is much more flexible.

[asik1]

VS has many merits Terfyn, but unfortunately flexibility is not among them....

[Terfyn]

VS has many merits Terfyn, but unfortunately flexibility is not among them....

Pity you don't understand the program.

[data_design]

Greetings,

Thanks for jumping in on this topic. I think the best course of action is to follow the suggestion to download the trial versions and do my own comparison. I did not even think of that.

Thanks again,

Tod

[dtvp]

The problem with that is that there is no trial version of Pinnacle Studio, and the one for X8 is somewhat limited.

I do own both products - and I've been involved with Pinnacle a lot longer than VideoStudio. I like both programs. Both have features that the other doesn't have, or does poorly. For fast editing of a complex multi track movie, I would recommend PS (assuming you are willing to do a little learning). For someone who like things kept relatively simple, VS is probably the best choice.

I suspect that Corel maintains both programs because they didn't write either of them, so to "combine" them would be something requiring a lot of work. Both have their very loyal followers, so if they abandoned either program they would lose a lot of buyers.

If you look at the pricing, the top end version of Pinnacle Studio is dearer that the same VS and I think that indicates where they are pitched.

If Pinnacle Studio were still using the V15 and earlier interface, I would say there was no real differentiation between the products. However, PS18 is based on Avid Studio, and the timeline editing (at least in the Plus and Ultimate version) is far more flexible that VS. Any track can be any type of media, no one track is the "master" and there are some features you can't achieve in VS - rolling an edit point, advance trimming of multiple tracks and much more. PS has an editing interface much closer to Avid Media Composer or other real "pro" editors than VideoStudio.

PS uses Preview rendering, while if effects get too complex in VS it has to preview at reduced quality, or you have to create proxy files.

The down side of PS is that some people struggle to understand the interface and find that without the Ripple editing switches that VS has, they end up with items going out of sync.

The question of reliability is a very subjective one. In the time I've been using VS I've had crashes and encountered bugs, so depending on what you are editing and what hardware you have I wouldn't say it was significantly more stable than PS, but that is purely my opinion.

[Terfyn]

The question of reliability is a very subjective one. In the time I've been using VS I've had crashes and encountered bugs, so depending on what you are editing and what hardware you have I wouldn't say it was significantly more stable than PS, but that is purely my opinion.

I would accept that PS18 may be more stable than earlier versions but the last version I had, PS15, crashed my computer so spectacularly I had to return it to my Dealer for a software rebuild. On his advice I changed to VideoStudio (started with X5) and found a much more stable programme. It crashed occasionally but would always fail safe - so no more trips to the Dealer.

[dtvp]

The question of reliability is a very subjective one. In the time I've been using VS I've had crashes and encountered bugs, so depending on what you are editing and what hardware you have I wouldn't say it was significantly more stable than PS, but that is purely my opinion.

I would accept that PS18 may be more stable than earlier versions but the last version I had, PS15, crashed my computer so spectacularly I had to return it to my Dealer for a software rebuild. On his advice I changed to VideoStudio (started with X5) and found a much more stable programme. It crashed occasionally but would always fail safe - so no more trips to the Dealer.

And that is purely your opinion, not proof that everyone will suffered the same fate.

As I said, that is down to the users individual experience. I never had any serious issues with S15. Hardware and Software environment is the key to this, and of course your PC Dealer isn't going to blame what he sold you if he can blame something else, is he?

Anyway, PS18 shares virtually no code with S15.

[Terfyn]

And that is purely your opinion, not proof that everyone will suffered the same fate

Clearly you have not followed the fate of PS users or read the Forums from the past. I think I started with PS8? as a "freebe" from Canon with their HV20. It was "buggy" then and continued to PS15 which was a disaster.
My opinion is based on the facts at that time and on the many other users who suffered the same fate. Its on historic record - that is NOT an opinion. So base your "opinion" on facts and the record..
My Dealer based his experience on the trials of other users and on facts (which you seem to ignore) To comment on my Dealer shows your lack of experience in these matters. If PS15 did not crash for you - good on you.

[asik1]

Terfyn what's your point?
So ps8 to15 was disastrous and cosmically catastrophic, that is totally irrelevant to today's PS18 as it's a new software with an old name. ( I had my few minutes with ps14&15... took me less than an hour to clear them from my system)
.... Unfortunately that can't be said on VS18 as it still carry problematic code and philosophy from ulead, years old.

[dtvp]

And that is purely your opinion, not proof that everyone will suffered the same fate

Clearly you have not followed the fate of PS users or read the Forums from the past.

Please don't patronize me by saying I haven't read the Pinnacle forum - I've been a Forum regular there for over 15 years. Your experience with Pinnacle Studio is not a true picture of most users opinion of the program. S15 had a small subset of users with specific hardware that couldn't run the Importer and other problems. I have never heard of anyone other than yourself where it destroyed their operating system.

Looking at your posting history on the Pinnacle forum, it seems you were able to run PS15 for 5 months

http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/529671.aspx shows you asking questions in May, having downloaded it in January. So not an immediate disaster then....

So,

Fact: you and other users had issues with S15.

Fact: nowhere near everyone did. I had it running on three computers, one of which had initial problems because of the graphics card that were cured by installing later drivers.

Your statement that PS15 was a complete disaster is an opinion based on your own experience and the advice of someone who sold you a computer that couldn't run it.

Fact - this thread is asking about S18, a program that is completely different to S15.