Recommend Video Editing Software

I have been messing around with the Pinnacle Studio video editing software that came with my Dazzle video capture box for a few months. The software is very unstable and mostly unusable. I have tried all of the updates including beta releases. I have tried three other computers. I think I need to find a different company. Can someone recommend a stable video editing suite for home video use? Thanks!

[edit on 5/21/2007 by Rotoplooker]

I find it fascinating to hear about your problems with Pinnacle.

I picked up a copy of it after having it recommended to me by a couple different people, and reading a couple positive reviews of it online.

My experience has been exactly the same as yours...the program was extremely unstable and I've removed it from my computer. I kind of figured that I just had a bad copy or something.

Anyhoo...I'll be watching this thread with interest...

2Rotoplooker: I use Sony Vegas 6.0, 5.0 is good too. Vegas is very stable and works with almost any video file format. It's very user-friendly too. Recommended.

Apple's Final Cut Pro is pretty much the standard I think.

Great. I'll start checking out the Sony Vegas program. I recall mostly positive things about it. At least, no where near as many negatives comments as with Pinnacle Studio. Essedarius, it really is amazing that there are any people out there having positive experiences with the Pinnacle product. I consider myself savvy, and have been in the computer business for about 20 years. As mentioned, I've tried numerous installs of Pinnacle Studio on multiple computers with no luck. The Dazzle Platinum hardware is fine. It works great as a matter of fact. The software that comes with it is a big let down. Thanks for the advice guys!

Pinnacle is the biggest POS for vid editing available. I dont know how they get away with continually putting out new versions that are worse then the last one.

Vegas is a sweet program, Adobe premiere, although pricey is pretty kewl too but not as easy to use as Vegas.

And as DJ stated, Final Cut pro, which i just started fiddling with this week is great if you use a mac.

Good Luck

Silver

Here is another.
Avid Free DV.

AvidFreeDV on Wiki

It's limited, of course..They want you to buy one of the other Avid products.
But there is no time limit on the freeware, and if you are already familiar with non-linear editing. It might be worth taking a look.

There is a link on the Wiki page, that take you to the AvidDV download page.

Good luck on your quest..And, if you don't mind..Let us know what you settle on!

Originally posted by spacedoubt
Good luck on your quest..And, if you don't mind..Let us know what you settle on!

Thank you! I'm going to check out Vegas this weekend. I have a few hours of video from Peru that I want to edit down. I've read a little about Avid and have seen a demonstration of it with David Lynch. Hey, if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. It may be a little more than I need or want, but perhaps the Avid Free that you mentioned will be suitable. I will post back with findings.

why not windows movie maker....should come with xp..

thats what i use for all my video edits, highlights, slideshows, etc.....very easy to use too

Very easy to use, but very limited in what it can do. Running Multi Channels and exporting to different codecs is virtually impossible in Windows Movie Maker. The basic transitions are just that, basic. People like alotta options in todays day and age and WMM doesnt offer it.

Originally posted by Boondock78
why not windows movie maker....should come with xp..

thats what i use for all my video edits, highlights, slideshows, etc.....very easy to use too

WMM merely supports a few video codecs! You won't be able to decode divx, mp4, and other stuff... WMM is for *.WMV and one of its main disadvantages is the fact that it has only one track for AUDIO tracks.. no mixing is allowed...