Our testbed contained a 3.2GHz Hyper-Threaded Pentium 4 processor, an Intel 875 (Canterwood) chipset, a Plextor PX-708UF external FireWire DVD rewriter, and 1GB of Kingston Hyper-X DDR433 SDRAM. We began our evaluation by subjecting Studio 9.0 to an elaborate series of stability tests. Studio 9.0's slick, mature interface makes it easy-even for newbies-to burn a disc or capture video from a VCR or camcorder, and it does so without limiting your ability to tailor each task to personal preferences. Pinnacle Studio 9.0's pioneering three-step approach to video production partitions projects into Capture, Edit, and Output phases, each of which you manage from a single screen. It's still not totally bug-free, but we can't think of a better sub-$100 tool for creating and distributing home movies or producing video content for a presentation, a DVD project, or a Web site. Better yet, it adds a raft of powerful new features that include audio- and video-cleanup tools, support for Hyper-Threaded Pentium 4 processors, and the ability to accept third-party plug-in tools. Pinnacle has obviously worked hard to address these problems, and our Pinnacle Studio 9.0 evaluation copy was the most stable version we've tested to date. Despite being one of the most versatile video-production packages in its class, its popularity has suffered from a reputation for maddening lockups and system conflicts. Pinnacle Studio is the kind of program that our readers love to hate.

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