Corel VideoStudio Pro X8 X7 worth upgrade?

[Terfyn]

Terfyn,
I'm running X8 on XP and it runs great.
On the other hand, I never loaded 100 clips to VS. If I hit a brick wall in VS I convert my video/audio to friendly formats.
X8 isn't perfect as unfortunately X9 will not be but neither pinnacle 18.5 or PD13 are.
But certainly many improvements where made from X4 to X6 to X8.

This is not a criticism of XP, which I used for a number of years, but an attempt to explore OPs problems with X8.

[jamesd1]

Terfyn, I'm running latest update of Windows 7, 8 Gigs memory, 64bit moderately fast machine.

"If I hit a brick wall in VS I convert my video/audio to friendly formats."

Well that brings up the question, is Corel VideoStudio Pro more friendly to some file types than others? I could convert to what ever works best but have no info on what works best. Are their settings that give more stability and others that are more problematic? Is there a list of dos and don't?

It would be nice if their were a map to tell where glitches are apt to be encountered so one could work around them, a guide titled "How to avoid problems."

Unfortunately, some users seem to need such a guide.

[jamesd1]

Again I do not claim to be an expert and others will answer this better. You are still running XP, I wonder if this is your problem? I have had no problems with VS X8 running under Windows 7 and there are now reports that X8 will run under Windows 10.
There will always be a problem running newer programmes with older systems and vice versa. Everything has to match eventually. (which, lets face it, is how these software companies make their money)

I was using fully updated Windows 7 when I first posted. I'm now using Windows 10 on a machine that is much upgraded.

I still get the black thumbnails. Apparently this occurs because VS is not smart enough to use a preview frame other than frame 1 so if your video starts with black or something equally illuminating then that's what you get. Pinnacle Studio has the same problem but Premier Elements 13 does a much better job with the thumbnails as does Windows itself and in Windows there is even a utility for adjusting what frame is used.

[jamesd1]

So here we come down to it again. I opened up a project and began editing, dragging clips to the time line and arranging them. In the last 20 minutes I've had five crashes. VSP just stops and says it has to close:

"Corel VideoStudio has stopped working"
A problem caused the program to stop working corectly.
Windows will close the prgram and notify you if a solution
is available."

[jamesd1]

I upgraded to X8 from X7. My experience was that it was not more stable. It's crashing every few minutes on a simple audio editing job. Disappointing program.