Pinnacle Studio 12

I bought studio 10.8 with add ons some years ago and using it on windows XP ran into all sorts of problems. I upgraded to Vista when it first came out and ran into all manner of problems. I was looking to upgrade to version 12 thinking by now it must be up to speed, thank goodness I have read the reviews here. I will not make that mistake, sorry Pinacle. Does anyone have a better solution?
Thanks Mark

Have been using Studio-9 thru 9.4.xxx with good results until this past week. Dual-boot W2GPro and Vista HP 64-bit, 4x320GB SATA's, 8GB Ram, 3.2GB Dual Intel,
4GB Ready Boost (USB stick), dual LightScribe DVD's, etc (no problem with inadequate resources is what I'm saying). Anyway, my latest project, a bit more complicated than previous ones renders normally until about the third pass, maybe half-way to completion of DVD, and then ...hangs there... forever. Have changed the rendering to an empty SATA drive, reduced my display and saturation, closed off the internet, AV, other items not needed for rendering video, to no avail. Reloaded Pinnacle, reloaded the updates and drivers, no help there. Lately when opening Pinnacle an advertisement pops up offering the Studio-12 (basic) update for maybe 29.oo or so. Anyway, after hours of studying reviews of Studio-12 and Sony Vegas, have about decided to go with Vegas. The thing that kind of irritates me is that I bought Studio-9 w/breakout box directly from Pinnacle for about $200.oo and have tried several times to get back in touch with them, but my original customer password and user name doesn't work. Emailed them, they set another password, it doesn't work either. Feels something like a runaround. I'm getting to that point where time wasted with non-working items is worth more than the cost of dumping them for something that works.
Not saying that Studio-12 is not worth the time or price, or that it wouldn't work, just that I'm a bit hesitant to continue wasting time. So Googled the term "problems with pinnacle studio 12" and found your posts addressing the exact questions I was trying to solve regards Studio-12 and Vista 64.bit. Thanks for the input.

Update on Pinnacle 12:
Purchased Pinnacle 12 (basic) online, the download + backup disk (to be mailed). Download went well, loaded on Vista-64 OS like a rocket, reached down into the (inactive) W2GPro Drives and retrieved projects I had done prior on Pinnacle-W2GPro. Also got a popup from Pinnacle with two activation codes for premium content that I had with Studio 9.4.xx, and one I hadn't even known about. Edited and rendered a small retrieved file from the old version over on W2GPro side (18-minute - 28,000 frames - with audio and background music) video shot on Panasonic VDR-0210 mini-disk, rendered it so fast (a few minutes, 10 at the most) I wondered if it had actually worked, but it did. Sizzled a LightScribe logo on the disk, a decorative cover for the crystal case and sent it off to the people who asked me to record ther party. Felt really good to have it go so well. So decided to download a new mini-disk from the camera on a recent vacation and make a video of all the mountain colors.
That's when the problem raised it's ugly head: Pinnacle Studio 12 on Vista 64 (at least) cannot capture from the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe V2 Breakout Box (Now called Pinnacle 700 PCI). Tried different drivers from Pinnacle (11.50.0.42619) just in case the ones downloaded were incorrect. No improvement. Spent a lot of time trying different things to no avail, so have an email request into Pinnacle describing the problem and asking what I need to fix the problem.
SO, in the meanwhile, I downloaded (free trial) Sony Vegas, and it couldn't use the Pinnacle Breakout Box either. It identified it as "Pinnacle 700 PCI" in the choice dropdown menu, but then said it couldn't use it after setting it as choice capture device. And Sony Vegas doesn't load on the other side of this box (W2GPro) so dumping Pinnacle for Sony Vegas isn't an option. But the Sony Vegas people were really nice.
The way Pinnacle 12 worked on the editing and rendering phases, I'm more satisfied with it than with the prior V-9.4.xx iteration, and that's saying something because I'm not easily satisfied. So if Pinnacle can't come up with something to make Studio 12 happy with the Breakout Box, then I think what I'll do is give this camera to my Grandson, buy one that uses a firewire or USB link to the computer, and get on with making movies. If Pinnacle comes up with a fix, I'll let you know what it is, otherwise you can figure I've changed cameras to provide a different means of importing my videos rather than the Blue PCI Breakout Box.
Hope this didn't bore you too much, and hope it might help someone. If you have the Blue Breakout Box ("Studio Deluxe V-2", AKA "Pinnacle 700 PCI"), you're going to have problems capturing video with both Pinnacle 12 on Vista (at the least) and Sony Vegas won't read the device either. Best Regards, Codejunkie.

I have tried Pinnacle Software up to the Ultimate Version 11. I refuse to upgrade to 12 or higher. The software is JUNK! and crashes more than anything ever seen. Tech support is of no help whatsoever... Its fine for simply projects but anything worthy to be called a real production piece freezes up, terminates the program unexpectedly, and fails to burn the finished work. You'll have less frustrations using MovieMaker for simple jobs. Its pointless to spend hours working on a project and then the software can't produce the finished product. Serif Movieplus seems to be the way to go ... much nicer and it delievers as promised. No more Studio software for me EVER!