| User review:
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I had a real problem coming up sith scores for this. The biggest issue that I have with S8 is performance as advertized, in which case I would give it a minus 10. That's why my overall score is low and the other 3 categories are high. I'm a heavy user of S8 -- probably have put in over 1000 hours of use. Unfortunately, about 300 of those hours have been spent troubleshooting the software. This was done mostly via the excellent webboard community. The bottom line is (w/o geting into all the gory details) the software is easy to learn and works well when it works. However, it is NOT for the easily frustrated and those who really expect to get it to work without a lot of work on the part of the user. For me personally, I have become aware of the major pitfalls and avoid them. I have found that there are certain things that it does very poorly but there is no way of knowing what they are without testing it on your own system and spending a lot of time reading the webboard. There is no clue from Pinnacle from their corporate hype on their www pages or what is on the box and documentation. HOwever, those of us who continue to use it anc frequent the webboards have become almost a cult in the way we dog the problems and help each other out. Also, you have to become familiar with the various personalities of the webboard contributors and know who to avoid and who to trust. Pinnacle engineers contribute to the webboard occasionally, but here again, they're apparently spread too thin and you can't count on any response from them. Also, I've found their help to be lame and/or actually counterproductive in a lot of the cases. Many times recommending really drastic measures like upgrading hardware (OS, HDD, CPU) or reinstalling Windows. Early in my experience I actually did some of the things recommended thinking that at least it will get S8 running and my problems would be fixed. No such luck.
I would strongly recommend against buying this software unless you are willing to join the cult and put in lots of hours of dialog and trial/error. However, if you're willing to put in the time/effort, you will ultimately learn how to use it with much trepidation and will be able to produce some really good work. |
