Thank you for your in depth review David. I used Pinnacle from about version 9 to 18 (including the Avid Studio days) and all through the process it limped along and I lived in hope that the next version was going to be better however as you say you learn how far you can push the program and you work accordingly albeit frustratingly. Each year I looked forward to upgrading in the hope thiungs would get better and each year I was disappointed. Thinking it was my computer I upgraded to an hp z640 workstation but the new version of Pinnacle I was using (I can't remember which now) wouldn't even load. After 2 weeks of messaging the Pinnacle people and watching many youtube videos, reloading the program I realised it was probably time to try something else. You hope that day would never come after many years of investing so much time, effort and money into the program. I thought I'd try Cyberlink Power Director and I really couldn't believe it. It worked. And straight away. No looking up countless help videos. And I could add all my fancy tricks and it didn't fall over. Anyway after years of being very happy with Power Director I thought I would buy Pinnacle 26 for my laptop (before seeing your review unfortunately) to try and reload some old studio files and export them as MP4s as I had only saved my files on DVD previously. I thought surely by now things would have improved. I opened an old studio file and it sluggishly loaded. The memories of old Pinnacle versions came flooding back but I gave it time to load and get itself sorted knowing it was loading an old file. Finally after locating moved files etc it came time to export to an MP4 file. It started and I thought hmmmm... perhaps things have changed. The last time I looked at the computer it was about 60% complete. I left the room and came back about 1/2 hour later only to find Pinnacle 26 had shut itself down and there was a failed file saved on my hard disk. I closed the laptop with all the familar feelings I had when I had bought previous versions of this substandard software. I'm not here to sell Cyberlink Power Director but can tell you honestly it can do everything Pinnacle can do and actually works. And a lot quicker. I feel Pinnacle and its owners have had enough of my money over the years and the last $100 I just spent on Pinnacle 26 will be the last. Thank you again David for confirming my beliefs. Get out while you can. 🙂
Thank you for sharing your experience and a recommendation for software that does what customers expect Cyberlink Power Director. I have actually read some very good things about this software at review sites. It reinforces my opinion to give up on Pinnacle Studio permanently.
I too have used Pinnacle from 15 onwards with terrible results. Having lost a hard drive crashing I moved to 26 ultimate. I had lots of problems. I opened a ticket with Corel & they gave me instructions as you say of deleting 25. Also cleaning up the cache etc. Now so far it has been great & so much faster than any previous versions. Txt can still be a little test & see but overall I am happy with the version 26. I do a lot of youtube video's so it is paramount that i have a good editor to do this with. Thanks for your video. Regards. Steve.
Pinnacle, that brings back memories. I liked the way it worked, but it got too buggy for me. I eventually switched to Vegas. I think it felt more complicated to use, but crashed less. I’ve been away from video editing for many years. I’m not sure what I would use if I had to get back into it. Thanks for sharing your experience with Pinnacle.
Make also a video comparing this with Corel Video Studio Pro 2023 or Corel Video Studio Ultimate 2023 with your current Pinnacle Studio 26 .... There are 100,000s of people (maybe millions) around the world who really appreciate that if you did :)
That would be a good idea. However; I couldn't give a fair review, since I've never used Corel Video Studio Pro. It takes years to get the experience needed to be objective.
I have been pondering purchasing Studio 26, and thanks to this video, I have decided to give it a go. I loved it when it first came out all those years ago despite its problems. Thanks David.
Thanks for the review, it's what I needed as I research my next editing move. I finally have to let go of Pinnacle Studio 15... the last of the old-style editing version of Studio. For my project, I really wish I could keep using 15, it was perfect for me
I used Pinnacle Studio in 2000 to edit mini DV and output to DVD. Almost without exception each project would get to the 95% mark - and then something would happen to make the last 5% take 95% of the time. Really frustrating as when it worked, it worked good. If I got back into it, I'd probably find something "free". Thanks for posting, very interesting.
Hi David, thanks for the informative video. Is there a way to create youtube shorts (vertical) from a regular formatted video and maybe use motion tracking so that the frame moves with the subject? I would like to create shorts on some of my videos but I just can't figure out how to do it. I am thinking of subscribing to Canva to create shorts from some of my videos but I'm sure Pinnacle have that capability but it is not obvious to the users.
I've not made any shorts on Pinnacle; but I think it can be done manually. I looked at it briefly just now, and you could use the editor to crop the video to the proper orientation and then export in portrait mode. I'm not sure if motion following would work automatically. Good luck. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for the video, David! Had some great info in it, very helpful. I was wondering if you (or anyone else) have had any issues with the playback when Time Remapping (either reversing the clip or just speeding/slowing it). I didn't have any issues with the remapped clips in 25, but the playback in 26 stutters and never shows it running properly, even when the timeline is showing it completely rendered and all clips around the remapped one playback perfectly? I've been jumping between 25 and 26 regularly when I need more remapping done as again 25 has no issues. I know you mentioned that uninstalling 25 might help the preview playback, do you think uninstalling it may help? Thanks again, you are one of very few people online with any reviews/tutorials for Pinnacle and its many little annoyances and quirks. Good to know others have issues too
Sometimes, when I try to rush the preview, I'll get stuttering in time remapping. When comparing the two, 26 time remapping works better than 25 except, I get funky audio distortion on the other audio tracks with 26; even if I mute the time remapped clip. I have to detach the audio of the remapped clip and delete it. In my case, deleting 25 improved 26's performance, but I think it is system dependent. Good luck!
I went overboard to give it a try (version 24 left me behind with a lot of grey hair). Probably 27 is being released next month. But 26 was sharply priced for the upgraded Ultimate version now (€50 with an additional Newblue effect pack). 27 will probably be on it's lowest price at around €80/90 for first 6 months). But I just didn't wanted to work with 24 annymore... A few things looks improved, like menu's and side programs. In 24 it sometimes felt like I was still working on Windows 95. Rendering also seems to be quite faster. But I also think it's because I directed my nvidia card correctly this time. So seems I have the benefit of my GPU now. And it seems it has a lot more timeline and export formats to work with now. But still encountered some crashes and glitches. Like it made me suddenly jump to an pther time on the timeline while working (not such a big deal though). And already had a few crashes. Like I just had 3 crashes in the last hour by justvpressing the "export button" in the upper side of the screen. I didn't had the time yet to dive really deep into it yet, because I was bussy importing all my previous made titles etc. (Which is a pain in the ass until activating legacy functions/ watchfolder/ missing files tree). But the overal performance seems good so far. I needed to restart 24 miltiple times after working on more complex projects or rendering. Felt something was cloging up there (think this also resulted in crashes). But 26 seems to be more stable on that field so far. Edit: Rendering seems not to have made a great difference. Seems it seemed much faster. But now it seems that it was the difference of complexity of the video. Other videos render very "slowly" again.
Great! If you have both versions on your machine at the same time; try removing 24 altogether. 26 works better if it's the only editor on the computer.
Thanks for the review of 26 vs 25, i am still working on 25 with some of those nasty freezes and crashes, so maybe this can change my mind for the upgrade ;)
You're welcome. Although 26 is better than 25, it wouldn't be Pinnacle Studio without some bugs; which it still has. However, I've done several videos since this review and 26 does improve my throughput.
Thanks David! I started off with 22 and made it to 24 and got MultiCam Capture. All was ok so I decided to get 25 and that was a mistake! I literally placed 5 DOZEN calls to customer service for the constant crashes, went through 4 install attempts with CS, and had to get a MultiCam zip file because the 25 install wiped my paid version and reverted it back to LITE. Finally, I requested a refund after 15 days and reinstalled 24. I think I will stay here for a while. Thanks so much for your review. You have saved me a lot time and headache. Good luck with 26! 🙂
Oh, for me 24 isn't working really well. And only causing frustration. So probably I better should skip 25 and 26 then and just dive into the learning curve of a new program :)
Not really; however, I've had a couple times where a really complicated video which I edited in a piecemeal goofy way would start throwing errors that I couldn't get rid of. In those couple cases, I would render the good pieces of the video; discard the damaged parts, and then create fresh new video piecing together the rendered video with more "thoughtfully" edited clips; thus not loosing all my work.
I don't have much experience on upgrading hardware to improve editor performance. However installing an SSD for the rendering files did make things faster for me. Just be aware that SSDs have a limited lifetime. Good luck!
I use pinnacle 20 to edit my videos. Then have to use pinnacle 25 to put the 3d titles in. Pinnacle 25 and 26 has As too many bugs in it. It keeps crashing when I try to edit. I really wish pinnacle would fix all the bugs in the program and make it run more smoothly. Also they should give us the complete program with all the features for free and not charges extra.
I agree. I found that having multiple versions of Pinnacle Studio on my machine caused problems. You might try uninstalling all versions but 26. It is a big step, but it might make your work flow better.
Hi, David thank you, after I watched your video I bought Pinnacle Ultimate 26. The Pinnacle Studio 26 works better than my old Pinnacle Studio 24. I have crashed too many in Pinnacle Studio 24 Ultimate, In every minute got crashed and I had to shut down and restart my PC back on. Now I just started one Movie with Pinnacle Ultimate Studio 26 already in slice photos it looks good to me. I wondering if I just upgraded my Pinnacle Studio 24 to Pinnacle Studio 26, Is there any problem if I uninstall the Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 24? I want to have free some space.I just got Pinnacle Ultimate 26 on Dec.2, 2023.Best Regards,
I don't think so. I uninstalled all of my old Pinnacle Studio packages (18 & 25). In fact, just this weekend, I had a few problems between my microcontroller work, and Pinnacle; so I completely uninstalled Studio 26 and then reinstalled it with no problems. Good luck and thanks for watching!
@@LifewithDavid1 I realized the problem. I changed my acceleration engine to Intel, reduced the playback rate to 70, and I also realized I was trying to export videos which had protective Codec language in them. Now, when I try to export non-protected videos (normal videos), the exporting is SUPER FAST.
I don't have any experience using Adobe Premier Elements 23. However, video software tends to be pretty much vendor specific; so I don't think there would be much compatibility between the two.
I haven't used 23; before 25 I ran 19. 19 seemed a little quicker than 25. I think 26 is enough faster than 25 that it would be worthwhile to use the free trial to see if 26 is faster than 23. Sorry, that's all I've got. Good luck!
Most phones use a variable frame rate to record video. This allows them to use less memory for scenes that don't have much movement. However, most video editing programs have a problem with variable frame rates. They can make the video work; but the audio goes out of sync. That''s why I use "Handbrake" to convert my videos into a constant 30 fps framerate before editing. I never have audio problems after I use "Handbrake" on ALL the videos that go into my video. Good luck!
Oh yea, Pinnacle is buggy. But I use it anyway. (been using since, I think, 15) Just last night was creating and when I did export screens went multi color and after 5 minutes I did the power down. When PC came back up speakers did not work. Had to fiddle to get the sound card installed again! This has happened before where a crash has disabled the sound card. Tonight I am working, created a smart movie, added titles/text and saved. End result crash. Lost the smart movie so had to create it again. My bad. I learned in 25 that create a smart movie, save your movie, exit and restart Pinnacle you don't have an issue. One thing I have never had success with is saving a .axx and then going back later(or immediately to test the feature) to open it and it work. Corel support was useless. But with all the issues it will do what little stuff I create. Had not heard of the need to remove prior versions. I still have 25 installed. Maybe I should clean up a little. Thanks for taking the time to make this overview.
You're welcome! There is a new patch that was just released; so far it solved the editor reverting back to a single preview screen every time it's restarted.
5% faster rendering rate? Did I hear that correctly? I might have to wait until they have direct support for NVidia cards, so that the rendering rates are many times faster.
26 was definitely worth the upgrade, at least for me the most stable version of pinnacle in a long time. I was getting ready to jump ship, but this version saved me the time of learning a new tool.
I was using studio 24 ultimate for quite some time now. But I was actually thinking about starting over with a new program. I was leaning toward VSDC or Davinci Resolve since studio 24 is a real pain in the bottom. It's verry buggy and it costs me a lot of time to work around the bugs and errors. It crashes a lot, it suddenly creates black frames in cuts, speed change is verry buggy, it creates clicks in sound after rendering, keyframes are verry buggy and a lots more. Rendering videos became a hell with 24. I'm still not sure giving it a new chance with 26... What actually annoys me is that they don't seem to solve the problems on earlier versions, to keep customers happy. But rather bring out a new version and letting pay customers again. I believe they bring out a new version every 1 or 2 years now, leaving customers behind with a shitty or buggy version.
@@rockel83 I wasn't happy paying to get 26 which was just a debugged 25. However, 26 is better than 25, and 25 seemed to have the same issues you described with 24. 26 is still a little buggy, but much better than 25. I think you can try 26 for free; just make sure you fully remove previous versions before you install 26. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 I could consider trying the trial version yes. But I actually expect that a version will eventually be kind of bug free/patched. But in the case of Pinnacle I'm getting the feeling that they're just focused on bringing out newer versions, hoping that people upgrade to generate money...
@@rockel83 I agree; I was looking for another package before 26. Thought I would give Pinnacle another shot. It sounds like no editor is bug free; I guess developers are more excited about new features instead of a good basic editing experience. I figured deal with the demons you know vs. the ones you don't. However; if 26 gets buggy again; I'll look elsewhere.
I have a very simple question, my initial videos are very long, several hours, I am currently experiencing a lot of frustration with execution time of shotcut will this software help me? I not any suggestion as to what I should use?
My videos are typically about 25 minutes long. Longer ones slow Pinnacle 26 down a little; but it's better than 25. I think you can download a trial version of 26 to see how it would work for longer videos. I think a particular computer's resources affect performance; a test would let you try it out for yourself. Good luck!
Several hours is very long... I'm re-editing an old 40-50min video as I speak. 24 had a lot of problems with keeping up on the longer videos. 26 seems to do better now. But several hours is very long... I actually think for a lot of editing software out there should have troubles with that and depending on your PC (although 24 felt clogging up on bigger projects). But it probably could help working with separated project bins. Like making separated projects of lets's say 45-60min. And making 1 final project bin used for "stitching" them together and for the final result. You can insert other projects on a timeline project. It probably could save you a lot on resources and limitations of the programm and PC.
Specking of buggy due to having 2 versions on the pc I have had 3 on at the same time not to mention Coral VideoStudio which uses the same NG studio engine of 3 versions of that. I never notices anything I only did that to get the music and transition I wanted that no one version had. I always wondered if Corel would get rid of one of these programs. But the interface is what is deferent. Some times things would run better in VideoStudio than Pinnacle studio. I do not know why but it would depend on what you are doing. The more effect and tracls you use the more chance you have it will crash. I made my videos in segments and hooked them together after I got them all done. I am wanting to start rendering things in AV1 due to smaller files and faster uploads.
I found that having more than one editor installed causes problems not only for Pinnacle but other editors also. I really don't need complex transitions; just give me basic transitions that work well. Thanks for sharing!
You are probably right but if Pinnacle and to be fair the others I have on my PC would have done every thing I wanted them to do. I would not have needed them. Maybe I go big like Davante Resolve or Hit Films. In the long run it would be cheaper.
I don't know; however there are several companies that offer premium titling effects that plug into Pinnacle. Maybe they offer that capability. Good luck!
Just lost 8 hours of serious work after I tried to reset my PS 24 because it was pausing after every action...when it asked should it restore old version, I said no, but it went ahead anyway. Lost my work. This was money burnt and time lost. I tried to reuse this application, but want to move to Da Vinci Resolve even if its apparently harder.
That totally sucks. I've been there. As I mentioned, recovering from crashes is one of Pinnacle's weak points. Unfortunately they have a fair number of crashes. PS26 is a little more stable, but crashes still occur. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 Thanks. It has so many great features, unfortunately they can't get the basics right. Looking at Da Vinci Resolve for my next project.
Well, after 24 I was also looking around for an alternative. Didn't wanted to work with work with PS anymore. I dove in alternatives and I finally came across VSDC, Powerdirector, and Davinci resolve. All the others didn't trigered my interest. VSDC and Powerdirector eventually also fell off that list. And I was on the point of going over to Davinci too. But a few things I wanted to use are only available in the paid studio version (€275 is a lot of money). It also meant I needed to recreate all my titles and startscreens, finding out how to do so and it seems to be verry complex to work with. I downloaded the manual, and it counts 4000 pages. Went to 26 now again, but especially for saving myself the time and effort. And by having the possibility for re-using my previous made content and projects. But probably going to Davinci too when 26 is going to seem to be 24.2
Pinnacle Studio 25 war die schlechteste Software, die ich je gekauft habe. Kein Produkt dieser Firma, wird von mir jemals mehr auf einem Rechner installiert. 🤮🤮🤮
Thank you for your in depth review David. I used Pinnacle from about version 9 to 18 (including the Avid Studio days) and all through the process it limped along and I lived in hope that the next version was going to be better however as you say you learn how far you can push the program and you work accordingly albeit frustratingly. Each year I looked forward to upgrading in the hope thiungs would get better and each year I was disappointed. Thinking it was my computer I upgraded to an hp z640 workstation but the new version of Pinnacle I was using (I can't remember which now) wouldn't even load. After 2 weeks of messaging the Pinnacle people and watching many youtube videos, reloading the program I realised it was probably time to try something else. You hope that day would never come after many years of investing so much time, effort and money into the program. I thought I'd try Cyberlink Power Director and I really couldn't believe it. It worked. And straight away. No looking up countless help videos. And I could add all my fancy tricks and it didn't fall over. Anyway after years of being very happy with Power Director I thought I would buy Pinnacle 26 for my laptop (before seeing your review unfortunately) to try and reload some old studio files and export them as MP4s as I had only saved my files on DVD previously. I thought surely by now things would have improved. I opened an old studio file and it sluggishly loaded. The memories of old Pinnacle versions came flooding back but I gave it time to load and get itself sorted knowing it was loading an old file. Finally after locating moved files etc it came time to export to an MP4 file. It started and I thought hmmmm... perhaps things have changed. The last time I looked at the computer it was about 60% complete. I left the room and came back about 1/2 hour later only to find Pinnacle 26 had shut itself down and there was a failed file saved on my hard disk. I closed the laptop with all the familar feelings I had when I had bought previous versions of this substandard software. I'm not here to sell Cyberlink Power Director but can tell you honestly it can do everything Pinnacle can do and actually works. And a lot quicker. I feel Pinnacle and its owners have had enough of my money over the years and the last $100 I just spent on Pinnacle 26 will be the last. Thank you again David for confirming my beliefs. Get out while you can. 🙂
Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to give Power Director a look. You're right that hope springs eternal; maybe I need another reference.
Thank you for sharing your experience and a recommendation for software that does what customers expect Cyberlink Power Director. I have actually read some very good things about this software at review sites. It reinforces my opinion to give up on Pinnacle Studio permanently.
May 2023: Shopping around right now. Current Amazon reviews give favor to Studio 25 over 26. A lot of great info. Thanks.
You're welcome. Studio 25 is not perfect; but it is less glitchy than 25. Good luck.
I too have used Pinnacle from 15 onwards with terrible results. Having lost a hard drive crashing I moved to 26 ultimate. I had lots of problems. I opened a ticket with Corel & they gave me instructions as you say of deleting 25. Also cleaning up the cache etc. Now so far it has been great & so much faster than any previous versions. Txt can still be a little test & see but overall I am happy with the version 26. I do a lot of youtube video's so it is paramount that i have a good editor to do this with. Thanks for your video.
Regards.
Steve.
You're very welcome. I agree the text is sketchy. Otherwise, better than previous versions. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the info. I am using Pinnacle 23 and have been thinking about an upgrade.
You're welcome. Thanks for watching!
Pinnacle, that brings back memories. I liked the way it worked, but it got too buggy for me. I eventually switched to Vegas. I think it felt more complicated to use, but crashed less. I’ve been away from video editing for many years. I’m not sure what I would use if I had to get back into it. Thanks for sharing your experience with Pinnacle.
Pinnacle Studio used to be very buggy. It's a LITTLE better now. Thanks for the comments!
Make also a video comparing this with Corel Video Studio Pro 2023 or Corel Video Studio Ultimate 2023 with your current Pinnacle Studio 26 .... There are 100,000s of people (maybe millions) around the world who really appreciate that if you did :)
That would be a good idea. However; I couldn't give a fair review, since I've never used Corel Video Studio Pro. It takes years to get the experience needed to be objective.
@@LifewithDavid1 Be autodidactic
I have been pondering purchasing Studio 26, and thanks to this video, I have decided to give it a go. I loved it when it first came out all those years ago despite its problems. Thanks David.
Good luck. I hope it works out for you as well as it did for me.
Thanks for the review, it's what I needed as I research my next editing move. I finally have to let go of Pinnacle Studio 15... the last of the old-style editing version of Studio. For my project, I really wish I could keep using 15, it was perfect for me
Glad it was helpful!
I used Pinnacle Studio in 2000 to edit mini DV and output to DVD. Almost without exception each project would get to the 95% mark - and then something would happen to make the last 5% take 95% of the time. Really frustrating as when it worked, it worked good.
If I got back into it, I'd probably find something "free".
Thanks for posting, very interesting.
You're welcome. I had the same problem with Studio 10. Studio 19, 25, and 26 rendering is MUCH better.
Hi David, thanks for the informative video. Is there a way to create youtube shorts (vertical) from a regular formatted video and maybe use motion tracking so that the frame moves with the subject? I would like to create shorts on some of my videos but I just can't figure out how to do it. I am thinking of subscribing to Canva to create shorts from some of my videos but I'm sure Pinnacle have that capability but it is not obvious to the users.
I've not made any shorts on Pinnacle; but I think it can be done manually. I looked at it briefly just now, and you could use the editor to crop the video to the proper orientation and then export in portrait mode. I'm not sure if motion following would work automatically. Good luck. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for the video, David! Had some great info in it, very helpful.
I was wondering if you (or anyone else) have had any issues with the playback when Time Remapping (either reversing the clip or just speeding/slowing it). I didn't have any issues with the remapped clips in 25, but the playback in 26 stutters and never shows it running properly, even when the timeline is showing it completely rendered and all clips around the remapped one playback perfectly?
I've been jumping between 25 and 26 regularly when I need more remapping done as again 25 has no issues. I know you mentioned that uninstalling 25 might help the preview playback, do you think uninstalling it may help?
Thanks again, you are one of very few people online with any reviews/tutorials for Pinnacle and its many little annoyances and quirks. Good to know others have issues too
Sometimes, when I try to rush the preview, I'll get stuttering in time remapping. When comparing the two, 26 time remapping works better than 25 except, I get funky audio distortion on the other audio tracks with 26; even if I mute the time remapped clip. I have to detach the audio of the remapped clip and delete it. In my case, deleting 25 improved 26's performance, but I think it is system dependent. Good luck!
I went overboard to give it a try (version 24 left me behind with a lot of grey hair). Probably 27 is being released next month. But 26 was sharply priced for the upgraded Ultimate version now (€50 with an additional Newblue effect pack). 27 will probably be on it's lowest price at around €80/90 for first 6 months). But I just didn't wanted to work with 24 annymore...
A few things looks improved, like menu's and side programs. In 24 it sometimes felt like I was still working on Windows 95.
Rendering also seems to be quite faster. But I also think it's because I directed my nvidia card correctly this time. So seems I have the benefit of my GPU now. And it seems it has a lot more timeline and export formats to work with now.
But still encountered some crashes and glitches. Like it made me suddenly jump to an pther time on the timeline while working (not such a big deal though). And already had a few crashes. Like I just had 3 crashes in the last hour by justvpressing the "export button" in the upper side of the screen.
I didn't had the time yet to dive really deep into it yet, because I was bussy importing all my previous made titles etc. (Which is a pain in the ass until activating legacy functions/ watchfolder/ missing files tree).
But the overal performance seems good so far. I needed to restart 24 miltiple times after working on more complex projects or rendering. Felt something was cloging up there (think this also resulted in crashes).
But 26 seems to be more stable on that field so far.
Edit:
Rendering seems not to have made a great difference. Seems it seemed much faster. But now it seems that it was the difference of complexity of the video. Other videos render very "slowly" again.
Great! If you have both versions on your machine at the same time; try removing 24 altogether. 26 works better if it's the only editor on the computer.
@@LifewithDavid1 No, completely removed 24 and all of it's folders before installing 26. To exclude possible errors regarding both versions
Thanks for the review of 26 vs 25, i am still working on 25 with some of those nasty freezes and crashes, so maybe this can change my mind for the upgrade ;)
You're welcome. Although 26 is better than 25, it wouldn't be Pinnacle Studio without some bugs; which it still has. However, I've done several videos since this review and 26 does improve my throughput.
Thanks David! I started off with 22 and made it to 24 and got MultiCam Capture. All was ok so I decided to get 25 and that was a mistake! I literally placed 5 DOZEN calls to customer service for the constant crashes, went through 4 install attempts with CS, and had to get a MultiCam zip file because the 25 install wiped my paid version and reverted it back to LITE. Finally, I requested a refund after 15 days and reinstalled 24. I think I will stay here for a while. Thanks so much for your review. You have saved me a lot time and headache. Good luck with 26! 🙂
You're welcome. I can totally see those problems happening. I don't know what I'd if I edited a video without any problems. Thanks for watching!
Oh, for me 24 isn't working really well. And only causing frustration. So probably I better should skip 25 and 26 then and just dive into the learning curve of a new program :)
Great video! Thank you David!
You’re welcome. Hope it helped.
Any tips on dealing with event log issues? It never gave me that problem before but now it seems to be popping up over and over.
Not really; however, I've had a couple times where a really complicated video which I edited in a piecemeal goofy way would start throwing errors that I couldn't get rid of. In those couple cases, I would render the good pieces of the video; discard the damaged parts, and then create fresh new video piecing together the rendered video with more "thoughtfully" edited clips; thus not loosing all my work.
do you know how to improve the hardware and speed up the program? I'm not talking about updating drivers here. I have windows 10/11
I don't have much experience on upgrading hardware to improve editor performance. However installing an SSD for the rendering files did make things faster for me. Just be aware that SSDs have a limited lifetime. Good luck!
Thankyou, you just help me make up my mind. !!
Glad to hear that! Thanks for watching.
Thank you for the review.
My pleasure! Hope it helped.
Great review, thank you!
Glad it was helpful. Thanks for watching!
I use pinnacle 20 to edit my videos. Then have to use pinnacle 25 to put the 3d titles in. Pinnacle 25 and 26 has As too many bugs in it. It keeps crashing when I try to edit. I really wish pinnacle would fix all the bugs in the program and make it run more smoothly. Also they should give us the complete program with all the features for free and not charges extra.
I agree. I found that having multiple versions of Pinnacle Studio on my machine caused problems. You might try uninstalling all versions but 26. It is a big step, but it might make your work flow better.
@@LifewithDavid1 ok thanks
and wat programs you recomen
I just use the standard effects that come with with Studio 26.
good info
Thanks
Hi, David thank you, after I watched your video I bought Pinnacle Ultimate 26. The Pinnacle Studio 26 works better than my old Pinnacle Studio 24. I have crashed too many in Pinnacle Studio 24 Ultimate, In every minute got crashed and I had to shut down and restart my PC back on. Now I just started one Movie with Pinnacle Ultimate Studio 26 already in slice photos it looks good to me. I wondering if I just upgraded my Pinnacle Studio 24 to Pinnacle Studio 26, Is there any problem if I uninstall the Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 24? I want to have free some space.I just got Pinnacle Ultimate 26 on Dec.2, 2023.Best Regards,
I don't think so. I uninstalled all of my old Pinnacle Studio packages (18 & 25). In fact, just this weekend, I had a few problems between my microcontroller work, and Pinnacle; so I completely uninstalled Studio 26 and then reinstalled it with no problems. Good luck and thanks for watching!
@@LifewithDavid1 Thank you, David. From Canada.
I use pinnacle 25 and it is so slow at rendering/exporting a video. I can't figure out how to solve this problem.
26 was a little faster. Try closing all other non-essential programs. Pinnacle is very memory intensive; more available memory will help. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 I realized the problem. I changed my acceleration engine to Intel, reduced the playback rate to 70, and I also realized I was trying to export videos which had protective Codec language in them. Now, when I try to export non-protected videos (normal videos), the exporting is SUPER FAST.
@@Michael-fw5ef That's great! I'll have to try that myself. Thanks for sharing!
Great review
Thank you. Hope it helps.
cuechion i have adobe premier element 2023 and it work whit Pinnacle Studio 26 or 25
I don't have any experience using Adobe Premier Elements 23. However, video software tends to be pretty much vendor specific; so I don't think there would be much compatibility between the two.
Should I upgrade from 23 to 26? 23 is a little bit slow...
I haven't used 23; before 25 I ran 19. 19 seemed a little quicker than 25. I think 26 is enough faster than 25 that it would be worthwhile to use the free trial to see if 26 is faster than 23. Sorry, that's all I've got. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 TY😄👍
Did I understand correctly that the audio drift problem is because of the phone that was used for recording and not Pinnacle Studio itself?
Most phones use a variable frame rate to record video. This allows them to use less memory for scenes that don't have much movement. However, most video editing programs have a problem with variable frame rates. They can make the video work; but the audio goes out of sync. That''s why I use "Handbrake" to convert my videos into a constant 30 fps framerate before editing. I never have audio problems after I use "Handbrake" on ALL the videos that go into my video. Good luck!
Oh yea, Pinnacle is buggy. But I use it anyway. (been using since, I think, 15) Just last night was creating and when I did export screens went multi color and after 5 minutes I did the power down. When PC came back up speakers did not work. Had to fiddle to get the sound card installed again! This has happened before where a crash has disabled the sound card. Tonight I am working, created a smart movie, added titles/text and saved. End result crash. Lost the smart movie so had to create it again. My bad. I learned in 25 that create a smart movie, save your movie, exit and restart Pinnacle you don't have an issue. One thing I have never had success with is saving a .axx and then going back later(or immediately to test the feature) to open it and it work. Corel support was useless. But with all the issues it will do what little stuff I create. Had not heard of the need to remove prior versions. I still have 25 installed. Maybe I should clean up a little. Thanks for taking the time to make this overview.
I agree. Thanks for the comment, I guess the demons we know are better than the demons we don't.
Thank you !
You're welcome! There is a new patch that was just released; so far it solved the editor reverting back to a single preview screen every time it's restarted.
5% faster rendering rate? Did I hear that correctly? I might have to wait until they have direct support for NVidia cards, so that the rendering rates are many times faster.
You're right, it wasn't a compelling improvement. But at least it wasn't worse; which it seems to have been happening with previous versions.
26 was definitely worth the upgrade, at least for me the most stable version of pinnacle in a long time. I was getting ready to jump ship, but this version saved me the time of learning a new tool.
I agree. However sometimes I think I need to check out other editors to experience the difference. Thanks for watching!
I was using studio 24 ultimate for quite some time now. But I was actually thinking about starting over with a new program. I was leaning toward VSDC or Davinci Resolve since studio 24 is a real pain in the bottom. It's verry buggy and it costs me a lot of time to work around the bugs and errors. It crashes a lot, it suddenly creates black frames in cuts, speed change is verry buggy, it creates clicks in sound after rendering, keyframes are verry buggy and a lots more. Rendering videos became a hell with 24.
I'm still not sure giving it a new chance with 26...
What actually annoys me is that they don't seem to solve the problems on earlier versions, to keep customers happy. But rather bring out a new version and letting pay customers again. I believe they bring out a new version every 1 or 2 years now, leaving customers behind with a shitty or buggy version.
@@rockel83 I wasn't happy paying to get 26 which was just a debugged 25. However, 26 is better than 25, and 25 seemed to have the same issues you described with 24. 26 is still a little buggy, but much better than 25. I think you can try 26 for free; just make sure you fully remove previous versions before you install 26. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 I could consider trying the trial version yes.
But I actually expect that a version will eventually be kind of bug free/patched. But in the case of Pinnacle I'm getting the feeling that they're just focused on bringing out newer versions, hoping that people upgrade to generate money...
@@rockel83 I agree; I was looking for another package before 26. Thought I would give Pinnacle another shot. It sounds like no editor is bug free; I guess developers are more excited about new features instead of a good basic editing experience. I figured deal with the demons you know vs. the ones you don't. However; if 26 gets buggy again; I'll look elsewhere.
I have a very simple question, my initial videos are very long, several hours, I am currently experiencing a lot of frustration with execution time of shotcut will this software help me? I not any suggestion as to what I should use?
My videos are typically about 25 minutes long. Longer ones slow Pinnacle 26 down a little; but it's better than 25. I think you can download a trial version of 26 to see how it would work for longer videos. I think a particular computer's resources affect performance; a test would let you try it out for yourself. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 Thank you for your reply
Several hours is very long... I'm re-editing an old 40-50min video as I speak.
24 had a lot of problems with keeping up on the longer videos. 26 seems to do better now. But several hours is very long... I actually think for a lot of editing software out there should have troubles with that and depending on your PC (although 24 felt clogging up on bigger projects).
But it probably could help working with separated project bins. Like making separated projects of lets's say 45-60min. And making 1 final project bin used for "stitching" them together and for the final result. You can insert other projects on a timeline project. It probably could save you a lot on resources and limitations of the programm and PC.
Specking of buggy due to having 2 versions on the pc I have had 3 on at the same time not to mention Coral VideoStudio which uses the same NG studio engine of 3 versions of that. I never notices anything I only did that to get the music and transition I wanted that no one version had. I always wondered if Corel would get rid of one of these programs. But the interface is what is deferent. Some times things would run better in VideoStudio than Pinnacle studio. I do not know why but it would depend on what you are doing. The more effect and tracls you use the more chance you have it will crash. I made my videos in segments and hooked them together after I got them all done. I am wanting to start rendering things in AV1 due to smaller files and faster uploads.
I found that having more than one editor installed causes problems not only for Pinnacle but other editors also. I really don't need complex transitions; just give me basic transitions that work well. Thanks for sharing!
You are probably right but if Pinnacle and to be fair the others I have on my PC would have done every thing I wanted them to do. I would not have needed them. Maybe I go big like Davante Resolve or Hit Films. In the long run it would be cheaper.
does this software or one you know of have and random video effects that will react to music?
I don't know; however there are several companies that offer premium titling effects that plug into Pinnacle. Maybe they offer that capability. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 thanks
Just lost 8 hours of serious work after I tried to reset my PS 24 because it was pausing after every action...when it asked should it restore old version, I said no, but it went ahead anyway. Lost my work. This was money burnt and time lost. I tried to reuse this application, but want to move to Da Vinci Resolve even if its apparently harder.
That totally sucks. I've been there. As I mentioned, recovering from crashes is one of Pinnacle's weak points. Unfortunately they have a fair number of crashes. PS26 is a little more stable, but crashes still occur. Good luck!
@@LifewithDavid1 Thanks. It has so many great features, unfortunately they can't get the basics right. Looking at Da Vinci Resolve for my next project.
Well, after 24 I was also looking around for an alternative. Didn't wanted to work with work with PS anymore.
I dove in alternatives and I finally came across VSDC, Powerdirector, and Davinci resolve. All the others didn't trigered my interest.
VSDC and Powerdirector eventually also fell off that list. And I was on the point of going over to Davinci too.
But a few things I wanted to use are only available in the paid studio version (€275 is a lot of money).
It also meant I needed to recreate all my titles and startscreens, finding out how to do so and it seems to be verry complex to work with. I downloaded the manual, and it counts 4000 pages.
Went to 26 now again, but especially for saving myself the time and effort. And by having the possibility for re-using my previous made content and projects.
But probably going to Davinci too when 26 is going to seem to be 24.2
Do you uninstall older versions??
Yes, that worked best for me. Before I removed the older versions, there were several bugs which were carry-overs from the older versions.
Спасибо!!!
Пожалуйста!
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Thanks for watching!
They should hire you as their tester..
Thanks; but I am just a user that wants to let others know my experiences.
Many bugs in 26 but i use it .... waiting for 27
Let us know how 27 compares.
la même chose en français me ferait plaisir
Désolé, je ne parle pas français. Merci d'avoir regardé!
Pinnacle Studio 25 war die schlechteste Software, die ich je gekauft habe. Kein Produkt dieser Firma, wird von mir jemals mehr auf einem Rechner installiert. 🤮🤮🤮
It certainly was a disappointment compared to Pinnacle Studio 19.