Want to fade a clip in or out? Just grab the top corner and pull it over for the duration of the fade. The big difference in work flow is that you manipulate things right on the timeline with VideoFactory that would be a few menus deep in Studio. ) This convenience alone is worth the price of VideoFactory. In Studio you have to select the proper tab (video, titles, audio, etc) then select the browse button, then navigate to your media folder, then wait for Studio to import thumbnails of all the media, then you have to remember why you even started doing this because it took so long you forgot why. With VideoFactory you can drag media from the Windows Explorer onto the timeline. Add Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 ($45) to VideoFactory and you’ll be making DVD’s in no time. VideoFactory already does this very easily and with full previews. People who have Studio and need another video track are upgrading to HFX Pro (for +$99) just to do video overlays and picture in picture effects ($198 total cost!!!).

VideoFactory ($69) has two video tracks while Studio ($99) only has one video track and one still image title track. I don’t have time to add MP3 files back to my project every other day. That was Pinnacle’s solution to their bug. Sometimes you could restart it in the middle but other times you had to delete the MP3 and add it back to get it to play again. Unlike Studio, where it would play sometimes and not others. I placed an MP3 on the timeline and it actually played each and every time hit the play button. Saved by butt 'cuz I had a deadline to meet. I had a project in Studio 7 crash for the second time and I was about to recreate it from scratch when I decided that if Pinnacle’s only answer to my problem was to start all over again, I would take their advice and start all over again with more reliable software! I recreated the project with VideoFactory in just a few days and it never crashed even once. I left Studio 7 for VideoFactory over a year ago and have been very happy.

Pinnacle studio media suite version 9