Pinnacle Studio Reviews

This software is so unreliable that you basically can't use it. It crashes repeatedly and is pretty much unusable. Don't spend your money or time on it. I have an advanced degree and have been creating my own videos for years. Trust me, you'll throw away money and countless hours.

Thank goodness I checked the reviews before throwing money at this. I tested the trial version on my high-end workstation with tons of RAM, and it couldn't import video files or even play the sample content. When I tried it on my laptop, things were slightly better but I still had issues importing certain video formats. I switched to trying Corel VideoStudio 2022 and it works way better than this.

I picked up this software because of what it claimed to offer, but using it felt like a nightmare. The performance was incredibly slow and bugs showed up constantly. I figured maybe my computer was the problem, so I invested in a brand new, high-performance laptop. That helped a bit, but the software itself is still garbage. I can't even view my clips properly in the timeline. Other video players handle the same files without any issue. Customer support at Corel is a joke. They've got a huge knowledge base of complaints, but responses take days and they just ask you to send system reports. After that, they tell you to reinstall stuff that never actually solves anything. I'm done. This feels like it was built by people who have no idea what they're doing. I won't touch another editing program from Corel or Pinnacle without doing serious research first. It's honestly disrespectful that they're selling this garbage to people.

I've been with Pinnacle since the early versions and dealt with so many years of crashes, instability, and confusing design. The thing is, I had all my movie projects stored in Pinnacle's system, so I kept hoping each new release would finally fix the problems. Around version 20 it seemed better. Then they started pushing upgrades, version 22 worked okay for a bit, and then boom, back to all the old issues. Sluggish, buggy, unpredictable playback, a clunky editor that barely functions. I tried all the standard maintenance stuff like registry cleanups and removing old files, nothing helped. So I went for one last shot and upgraded to version 25. First time I opened it, same terrible problems. Painfully slow, unstable, broken text tools, and features that just add complexity without helping. It feels amateur. Corel should do better. I'm looking for a different video editor that actually works properly.

I've had Pinnacle Studio 23 Ultimate for about two years and I honestly can't suggest it to anyone. You can make decent videos with it, but it's a really painful experience. I've been working with audio and timeline-based editing software for a long time and I know my way around these tools. My audio editing software just works smoothly. The focus stays on the creative side without wrestling with the program. That's what quality creative software should do. Unfortunately, that's not how Pinnacle feels. The software has tons of features, but they seem designed mostly for the marketing checklist. There's more focus on quantity than quality and some of the UI decisions are just weird. I've got three major issues with it: First, it crashes constantly and is really unstable. Basic stuff like trimming and moving clips around has problems. The playback cursor jumps around unexpectedly and moving clips always brings weird glitches. Second, the tools for basic editing work aren't good enough. Most of your time goes to trimming and moving clips, but that's exactly where things feel broken.

The Ultimate version doesn't work. It just crashes right after I install it. I've uninstalled and reinstalled over and over, and it still crashes. I tried downloading from the web instead. Now it won't even start from the disk or internet download. Your phone support is the worst. When I call, they want to talk about insurance. I can't find any way to actually get someone to fix the issue. I agree with everyone else saying this, I want a refund. For the amount I spent on this broken product and the two months I wasted trying to get help, I should absolutely get my money back.

I've been using this for a while and I'd say I restart the program more often than I actually edit. And that's not even the worst part. This software wrecks your computer. I'm not sure if it's just bad programming, but when I import files to work on, I've actually LOST footage. The whole thing is a pain. Saving projects should be simple, but when I try to load one back up, I get file not found. If I change directories, it corrupts the files. I was working on a quick video yesterday, made some cuts, and saved. That save turned all my clips bright lime green. The audio disappeared. I closed and reopened it thinking thank goodness I saved. Nope, it didn't. I've never had this many problems with any other video editor ever. Exports have timing glitches and often don't render right. Getting files into the editor is slow and wasteful because it copies everything to a different folder. You work from that copy. Your hard drive fills up fast. Which would be okay if the clips were stable. I filled an external drive with files only to find them unreachable afterward. The files are there taking up space but I can't access them.

I was getting .MTS files straight from my Sony camera. Once I converted them to .mp4 using Handbrake, all my crashing issues disappeared and exports started working properly.