Customer Rating:  
Summary: Doesn't do what it claims
Comment: I bought this because it is claimed in the specs that it will handle HD with no loss of quality. But this is not true. It does not have 'smart rendering' so insists on re rendering AVCHD even if the output is set to match the input. The result is a quality drop and very extended rendering times compared to products that do 'smart render'.
Another astonishing failing is that despite claiming Dolby 5.1 support, it is incapable of passing 5.1 from cameras that record in this to the edited result! It merges it to old 2 channel stereo.
This is going back to Amazon I'm afraid. Just not fit for purpose.
The product itself was stable enough on my Quad 6600 with the current patch added.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hopelessly bug-ridden - AGAIN
Comment: Typical Pinnacle fare unfortunately - more fool me. Ridden with bugs - at first it seems great, until you actually need to do anything such as change the speed of a clip or render to AVI. Mine will not do either, even with the latest patch applied.
I had a mainstream setup as well - motherboard, CPU, soundcard, DVD writer - everything except the power supply is mainstream componentry, selected with the sole intention of making it the most low-risk option I could. What a waste of time.
No doubt there are still those at the Pinnacle forum who think it's user error - it's a joke. This is consumer-level software, it should just install and run (like almost everything else).
I should have got a Mac and Final Cut. Next time, I will.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pinnacle Studio 12 works - eventually
Comment: Out of the box, and installed on a top spec computer running Vista, there were some immediate problems - clips were freezing and rendering was not working well. The advice from the handbook was to check for updated drivers for everything - including a search for patches on Pinnacle's website. This was done and multi-megabyte upgrades were downloaded. Windows update did not find any new drivers for the graphics card - but on Nvidia's website there was a new driver. Pinnacle posted a patch in October - some months after I had bought my copy - so it looks like gremlins had been reported - and fixed. Since then everything has worked perfectly - HD as well! It is an easy piece of software to use and is well worth the money - but it does require top notch hardware and drivers.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very good for home editing
Comment: If you are looking for a cheap product for professional home editing this is your choice, for more professional I'd not recommend this. For me it does the job. Though while I gain more skills I'll move on to Sony Vegas or Final Cut.
Some effects are useless because they look so crappy, but some of the color correction and other picture manipulation work really well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Unstable platform
Comment: I bought Pinnacle Ultimate 12 because I had used Pinnacle before - in the 1990's - and had some success with it, albeit, then, the edition I was using was fraught with stability problems. Later, I realised most of these were to do with lack of computer power. Recalling this, I opted for a brand new computer with 4 g RAM, high speed Hz processor with 420 g HD, and presumed the newer version would have improved, that this level of power would make the thing work. Oh dear. Ultimate 12 loads with a wobble to begin with - indicating stability problems. Then, once you have done your stuff, it sets about saving files randomly, with suffixes it fails to recognise. It drops scenes and also muddles saved work, because of this file business and where it's managed to hide them last time. This is a BIG SNAG. If you have just spent 100 hours on your Magnum Video Opus to discover it infuses a miraculous melange of all your serious work with your earlier bungled efforts, you wonder if the people who made this thing worship a different kind of god? Or hail from some planet where nothing has logical sequencing, of any kind or order? Maybe that's modern American for you? I know not. Anyway, one look at Pinnacle's web site and all the problems people have had with their stuff will vindicate this opinion. I'm afraid, from my own humble observations, Pinnacle Ultimate 12 isn't up to much. I had hoped for better and indeed have struggled to prove myself wrong. Alas, it has not been possible to do. Editing and all the rest of it is easy but - by the way - it doesn't like anything to do with SD cards, so if you've gone and spoiled yourself with a camcorder that uses SD cards, then definitely DO NOT GET PINNACLE ULTIMATE 12 - why don't they say that on the box? But - if you are prepared to struggle, as I have, perforce, been obliged to do, eventually it will capture the import from an import, so to speak, to get the genie out of the bottle, which, believe me, leads to much fury and many bitter thoughts. By the time you have edited - nothing wrong with the actual basic editing package, which works fine, and is also fun - when you come to rendering the thing, or not rendering the thing, it refuses to acknowledge what it has done and so all your many hours of hard labour are lost.
All points considered, the editing bit is quick and good, the dissolve effects are excellent, but all the other Mickey Mouse stuff you can muck about with provided you like making stuff clogged solid with sham/fake or common or garden spoof, the bottom line is, I have found Pinnacle Ultimate 12 to be an inherently unstable video software suite, certainly not compatible with anyone who wishes to make anything beyond jokey afternoon unwatchable twaddle which you can see on Youtube any day, for nothing, if you can bear it, saving you the sweat/cost/fury of having to get it there in the first place using this particular package - according to my own views. However, I will add, that these are from one perspective only and from one personal experience. If you are more adroit at handling Pinnacle than I, then do as you will. Personally, I'll look about for something else.
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