First time on this site and I wish I had found it before I bought Pinnacle Studio 10. My problem is that earlier versions of Pinnacle cannot be fully de-installed and cause conflicts during subsequent installations or upgrades. And you really need to check the small print to discover that Studio SE, Studio, and Studio Plus have different capabilities.
In summary: Studio 10 SE is a bit better than Windows Moviemaker, but not much.
Studio 10 is a bit better than Studio SE, but not much.
Studio Plus seems a great product with all the bells and whistles, when it works!
If you really must buy it, I'd advise going for Studio Plus at the start. On no account should anyone try to upgrade the others because Pinnacle software just isn't up to it. Similarly, it's impossible to de-install earlier versions of Studio without much hassle. Above all, anyone doing so MUST back up all their data first as there is great risk of losing it as happened to me.
I have been very pleased with Pinnacle Studio 8 software purchased in 2004 and liked the idea of the extra features in Studio 10, so in November I downloaded the Studio 10 trial from the Pinnacle website. This worked well so after my one-month free trial I re-installed my Studio 8 software as instructed by Pinnacle. This proved impossible as I received various error messages. After two days of work and much live chat with Pinnacle’s helpful support staff I was able to reload Studio 8 after using various tools from Pinnacle, including a Regdelete programme which removes earlier Pinnacle entries from the computer registry. Unfortunately my original discs were Studio 8.4 which I had updated online to 8.8, and 8.4 will not open projects made using later version 8.8. When I tried to update my Studio 8.4, Pinnacle advised me that support was no longer available so I had no option but to.purchase Studio 10 to complete my existing projects.
I purchased Studio 10.6 and encountered similar installation problems, which I tried to sort using previous procedures. This took several days, during which I discovered three full screens on the Pinnacle website which deal with Studio 10 installation issues, still more which deal with update issues: for example, Pinnacle recommends installing the 10.7 patch but warns that the download won’t work with Internet Explorer 7, so offers a further download called Pixietool which seemed to produce further problems. The Studio 10 manual contains 12 pages devoted to crashes and hangs (pp228-240).
Next day my computer refused to start. I learned that the registry had been corrupted by previous attempted installs and de-installs of Studio 8 and 10. I had to pay for recovery of data and re-format of my hard disc. The technicians told me that they had a number of similar cases and advised me to avoid Pinnacle software because it caused many problems.
After the re-format I again tried to install Studio 10 but the installation hung with the message ‘There is a problem with the software licence’. This is one of the errors I received previously. Being unwilling to use Regdelete or Pinnacle’s other fixes again, I took the programme back to the retailer who tested the discs, encountered the licence problem message and gave me a refund.
Studio is really great in what it can do, but in 20 years of digital publishing I have never known a computer programme so filled with bugs. My advice is to be prepared for problems with a new installation, and not even to consider upgrading an existing Studio installation. Go for Adobe Premiere instead, it may not do quite as much but it’s stable.