Pinnacle Studio Reviews 199

As soon as you start it, It comes full of adverts, and I'm talking about the paid version. What a load of rubbish this software is. Do not buy. There are better free videoing software out there.

I bought Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 24 in 2024, used it once for a small project. Very happy (but worth to me maybe $10 of the price I paid! Next use was Jan 2026 a few days ago. So I downloaded updates etc. Got started and all seemed good, started to learn it again, and several hours into it... disaster struck. I discovered the timeline and exported sequence of modification exports had bad frames - grey frames spacers with a refresh type round symbol, not the proper content. I discovered it by scrubbing along the timeline in the editor. First a minute was OK, but in the 2nd minute of 3 minute clip... was unrendered frames !! I'm very IT and software savvy. So I diligently wasted hours trying all fixes from the web, including deleting the Pinnacle, Win 11 cahe's, checking my SSD, reverifying the high performance of my PC and video card. I reset the software, deleted and reinstalled. Rebooted multiple times. Then I read this has been a repetitive bug for years. I will not be buying this software again. I owned a software company for 12 years, and this type of attitude is unforgivable, it's what sinks software companies. I'm switching to Davinci Resolve. It's far superior and totally FREE... just harder to learn. At least it works!

The overall bad reviews do Pinnacle Studio full justice. I have a license of Pinnacle Studio Ultimate, which closes when I click Import. However, there is no help available from Pinnacle/Corel.
I have invested in a completely useless program.

I've been using the product for several years. It's user friendly and a lot of nice features. However the tech support when there is an issue is not good at all. I attempted contacting with a problem and all I would get in response was an email with a possible solution. When that didn't work, I would email back with more detail on my issue and would not get another response. When i attempted the chat with a tech online option it left me with no response for over 30 minutes then disconnected me. There seems to be no other way to contact them to actually speak with a tech to discuss back and forth. Extremely disappointed so much so i uninstalled it even though i bought it and own it and am now looking for another software program. Sad! 4 stars for the actual program, 0 stars for tech support.

Had a problem (kept getting a watermark for a package I paid for when exporting a video) with my current version of Pinnacle. I contacted support but all they had as advice is that I buy the new Pinnacle 26 version.

You get to buy the licence, but when it comes to support they are crappy.

Even if u buy from site, they have no history, so they will try junjk u down the chain say u need to buy new licence.

All in all, it is a legal site, i will give them -6.

I have had a few versions of Pinnacle Studio. I got the latest update because it claimed to improve stability. In fact, Version 26 crashes almost every single time. I am running it on a high end desktop with lots of RAM but it just freezes essentially every time I use it. I have had to move to a free editing publishing software. Fewer bells and whistles but at least it works. Do not buy this software!

I have had Pinnacle 17, 20 and 24. All are bad! Almost impossible now to burn a DVD! I received a refund for 24.

I got Pinnacle Studio 24 very cheap in a software bundle, being tempted by all the additional content packs that came with it. It isn't worth what I paid. Skirting around the built-in 'buy upgrade now!' welcome screen I tried some very simple tasks and found it to be sluggish, buggy, and falling very short of delivering what it promises.

When I tried to uninstall it, "The setup encountered a problem", and it failed to uninstall. There's a knowledge-base article about how to uninstall when the uninstaller fails, which instructs you to download a RegDelete utility, but without providing a download link.

It goes on to advise that you search your hard disk for files and folders with 'studio' in the name, and to maybe delete them, unless you're not sure, in which case you shouldn't..

Thanks for that, Corel.

There's much (much) better video-editing software available for free.

I HAD been a Pinnacle Studio user for years... since version 9, I am at wits end. Will not purchase this software again. The software freezes upon opening. If the software manages to open... it freezes and exits on the timeline. It stopped creating thumbnails for everything in the library, Pinnacle customer service is unwilling to help with any problem. Their answer is re-install. You can only do this so many times without getting absolutely boiled. I suggest unless you have an extremely high end machine... stay away. Corel has NO IDEA what the problem is. My machine is a 3200mhz quad core, 16 gig ram, high end AMD vid card. Windows 10. This is the ONLY program I have that gives me trouble. This is one of 5 programs loaded on this machine. Dedicated to video/audio/image editing. It's a sin, because IF the program worked properly, it could not be beat.

I purchased the latest version of Pinnacle Studio 26 because I liked the interface in the trial version. Although I noticed some artifacts during the trial, the support team assured me that the full version had a more recent build and significant improvements. Encouraged by their recommendation, I made the purchase.

However, after installing the full version, I encountered persistent issues with image artifacts. Despite weeks of communication with their support team, the problems remained unresolved. Frustrated, I decided to request a refund, but to my great disappointment, they stopped responding altogether.

My advice? Steer clear of this software—it’s a drain on your money, time, and nerves.

Horrible. Worked fine for me until a newer version came out and all of a sudden the software won't function and there a no help pages or forums for it. It seems as if it was bricked as all my other programs still work perfectly.

Not worth the money. Their software is unstable and troubleshooting is next to impossible. I'm using Studio 26 Ultimate and have nothing but crashes, random files not rendering, and clunky tools. Even though I paid for it, I'm going to cut my losses and start looking for another editor.

Only giving 1 star because 0 isnt an option. AVOID AVOID AVOID

Their customer service is reprehensible. Rather than giving any useful help, their help was to buy a newer product.

There are better products that are cheaper and actually provide customer assistance.

This abject contempt for customers deserves to see them go bankrupt.

I am done with Pinnacle Studio. I have been using two versions over the last years, the latest being 23. I got my current computer partly because I needed one to be up to it for various tasks, including editing, because I thought part of the problems that I experienced with PS were because my pc was not good enough. Now that I have one that is good enough, nothing changed. PS still crashed regularly. If I am editing for one hour, it will crash around five times, sometimes causing me to loose editing progress. It ruined a video because I accidentally erased 90% of the video instead of the 10% that I was planning on erasing, and while pressing CTRL+Z, it crashed - and everything was gone, because I couldn't undo it. Hadn't it crashed, AGAIN, I could have just gone back to selecting the right parts, but it was just lost. There is a 50/50 chance of crashing when I'm trying to edit the texts/titles. If there is any kind of transition involved, it probably will not render right. Rendering is a problem in general and exporting the video never works 100% right, there will always be things wrong (like the transitions, music, pixelation, if there are black screens anywhere in it, it will show weird pixel spots where it should be fully black). Some parts of the software just plainly do not work. If I'm trying to change the speed of the videoclips that I am editing, it does nothing, in the sense of: I'm trying to play it after changing the speed, and it will just freeze until I select something else. I stopped trying to do "fancy" editing with it long ago, because most of it just wasn't worth the effort because the results suck, and even the simple task of "put pictures/clips with some music and an occasional title/text" is apparently too much now. I've tried to reinstall the software, but it doesn't change a thing. So I am done with it. I paid good money for it, and it is NOT worth it. Will look for alternatives now, because Pinnacle has wasted so much of my time already by just not doing what is advertised and I am not willing to loose more time over it. Good bye forever.

Horrible horrible editing software when programs like Davinci Resolve are available for free.

I have upgraded to their latest software many times in the hopes that bugs will be fixed and yet still I have problem after problem after problem. Presently on 25 which has endless rendering issues. Avoid.

Pinnacle 17 and 23 sucks ! I have purchased 6 pinnacle products and have had nothing but problems ! No more for me !

Would certainly not recommend this company. Support is awful. I would recommend to anyone not to purchase Pinnacle studio. I did and when I had a problem with it you had to jump through hoops only to be told they wouldn't help.

Glen Mortimer

This software is love or hate, it is so buggy. I bought pinnacle 26 as I don't have that much spare income and what to edit.
Constant crashes, exports fail to finish, telly slow when editing.
And then on another occasion all fine not a problem
My computer is more than upto the task of editing by far I just do not understand the issues, and support is terrible, so bad infact I stopped trying.