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The higher end of video editing is filled with heavyweights. Adobe Premier 6.5 offers impressive features. It also comes with an awe inspiring price in the area of $550.00, give or a take a few depending on what where you shop and when. Sonic Foundry’s Vegas Video offers some great sound features with its video editing. Unfortunately, it hovers around $400.00, again give or take a few. While these are not stratospheric sums, they are hardly bargain basement applications.
Those wanting to create videos on their PCs, but not inclined to invest this much in software alone or have limited skills with editing or even knowing if this is something they may want to explore, the high end applications present more than simply price point considerations. When you factor in the learning curves, the whole process of making a video on your home PC can become a real endurance test.
In the case of some systems, the major PC makers may include software to create videos. More often than not this can mean “lite” versions of full featured applications. Usually all the consumer may get is a CD, if they are lucky, a brief booklet and little else in the way of support. And as is sometimes the case, the features omitted in the lighter versions are usually the ones users want the most.
Filling the gap between high-end editing and more economical approaches, Pinnacle Studio 8 offers welcome relief. Not only can it edit digital and analog video, it can also burn to CD and DVD. Although it is billed as a professional movie making system, price wise, it stands at a considerably lower end of the spectrum. Clocking in at around $100 (see links at right for current price), give or take a few, Studio 8 offers up its own unique menu system and some rather powerful features.
The real benchmark for software in this category is ease of use. Instead of giving you options, applications in this arena can seem more like a child’s toy than an adult program made simple. While Studio 8 may not offer the configurability and power of software like Premiere or Vegas Video, it does offer sufficient power to allow the user to make fairly sophisticated videos.
In an experiment to test the actual user friendliness of Studio 8, I approached it literally blind. Rather than reading the enclosed documentation before I started, I simply played the video installed with the application. I wanted to see if there was sufficient information given to permit one to create a basic video without a great deal of prep time.
Surprisingly, the whole process was informative, concise, and actually resulted in the creation of a video based on the viewing of just one demonstration video. While my project will never win an Emmy, I managed to incorporate transitional effects between scenes with no problems. I even incorporated sound effects into my little production. Creating transitional effects between scenes was simple and fast. There was no real fumbling for features or spending hours finding the right menu. Everything was there, and my production was completed in little less than an hour!
For those that do not relish the prospect of reading page after page of documentation, the enclosed video on how to capture, edit and create your own video was anything but dull. The program was clearly created with the casual user in mind. There is enough support available on the enclosed program that a user can be proficient without spending days and weeks with books and Acrobat files.
In an unusual move, Pinnacle has enclosed a 258 page manual. Normally documentation this detailed is reserved for much higher-end packages with an extensive development history. Bucking the trend that so many software companies have followed by only enclosing paper-thin hard copy documentation in lieu of a real manual, Pinnacle has taken the course adopted by Corel Corporation and given the buyer a detailed guide to the application. Keeping the techno speak to a decided minimum, this leisurely description of the software is a good guide for those moments when you want to see the nuts and bolts of a particular action.
The main window is a clean unassuming space that alters as you pass through the various steps needed to transfer a video to CD, DVD, or your own PC. Tabbed menus at the top of the application list the principle actions and are broken down into three distinct areas: capture, edit and make movie. Here one can take a video from a digital camera, analog video source, and Sony’s MicroMV without too much confusion. Depending on your input source, the DV set up allows you to control the camcorder via an on screen camcorder that resembles your average home video camera. In the capture interface the camcorder, album page for storing clips captured, the player and the diskometer, which displays graphically and numerically your available free space on the computer you are using, are all visible and easily accessible.
Automatically sensing a break in the scenes taken from your source, various scenes are broken down in the album space for easy use. They can be moved, re-sequenced and moved about like so many small cubes.
One feature that was surprisingly easy and utilized a number of effects was the transitions section. Studio’s transitions collection sports 74 standard transitions, 52 Alpha Magic transitions and more than 100 (watermarked) Hollywood FX 3D transitions in the pro and plus categories. In the audio department, Studio 8 comes complete with its own set of wav files for special sound effects such as bells, animals and so forth. If the enclosed sound effects are not to your liking, the program makes it very easy to grab audio files from your own hard drive with little discomfort. Trimming clips is also a breeze. The time line used to line up all of your effects, sound effects and transitions takes the guess work out of orchestrating your various components and in some ways resembles Adobe’s approach to editing. Even creating your own audio voiceovers is just a click away. The intuitive interface and the very visible functions make editing a case of selecting the clearly marked open tabs to do what you wish.
By breaking down the process into tabbed spaces that you access beneath the standard Windows menu with the appropriate file, edit, help items, the entire interface changes permitting you access to the appropriate features for the given task. It is a logical arrangement and takes a lot of the stress out of finding the right action for the correct procedure.
For creating titles and menus as in DVD disk menus, Studio 8 comes with a built in text tool that allows you to manipulate text. In previous versions of Studio this feature was called the “Title Deko.” The features associated with that independent application are now built into Studio with added features. Basically this means text for opening scenes, chapters and menus are completely configurable to create whatever features you wish.
I would not recommend Studio 8 for complete newbies. The program does assume you can figure out basic concepts without a lot of coaching. There is surprisingly little hand holding. On the other hand there are a surprising number of features present to permit more than just a home made product that looks home made.
From articles and reviews I have read on line, there have been issues raised with regards to problems with installation and general stability. Working on a Pentium 4 with a fairly large hard drive and decent memory, I experienced no issues with the installation. Not even one error message came up during the fast install process. I did visit the Pinnacle Web site to see if there were bug fixes, updates and patches available to download. I did locate an update to address certain issues with the application. It installed without incident.
The one problem I did consistently notice with the application had to do with stalling. During certain processes, particularly during capture, it seemed the application was completely frozen. Within a few seconds the application returned as if nothing had happened. Much in the same way that Procreate’s Painter 7 seems to fall asleep in mid process, Studio 8 does the same thing. While this was not a horrid thing, it is something to keep in mind when working with any form of graphics intensive software that stalls and freezes.
Studio 8 supports a wide variety of video formats like RealVideo, Mpeg 1, 2 and Windows Streaming Media, conspicuous by its omission is support for QuickTime. With so many Web applications using this format it seems unusual that this is the one format missing from what is a full featured application.
I have included the minimum system requirements, but I think they are a bit low. I would really recommend a new Pentium 4 system with at least 256 megs of RAM and a 40 GB hard drive. I consider these bare minimum requirements for any video application like Studio 8. Also, like so many new applications, this one does not support Windows 95. It does support Windows 98 SE version only, Windows ME, and of course Windows 2000 and XP. There is no Mac version available of Studio.
To sum everything up, Pinnacle has created one of the easiest to use software programs on the market in the area of video editing. With a full set of editing features and the ability to incorporate your own touches, this is about as easy and painless as computer video editing can possible be. I also appreciated the extras included with the program along with the dense manual for those times when you need hard copy support. If you are looking for a solid program able to get the job done without investing a huge block of time or money, Studio 8 is the version for you.
Talk to Kurt in Graphics Unleashed Forums
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