Pinnacle Studio 12, the next generation Video Editing Software

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Pinnacle's Studio has a long and chequered history, and now it has reached the grand old age of version 12. Where Adobe Premiere brought the filmstrip timeline to PC video editing software, Studio introduced the stage-based approach using tabs for each stage. So it quickly became a firm favourite with novice editors, and the tabbed stages have now been copied by most entry-level apps.

Certified for Windows Vista, the Pinnacle Studio version 12 family consists of three affordably priced versions to meet the needs of consumers ranging from novices to dedicated video enthusiasts. In addition to Pinnacle Studio, the basic version, Pinnacle offers Studio Plus and Studio Ultimate with more advanced audio and video tools, including a complete HD workflow.

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Pinnacle Studio 12 family

When you get to a version 12 product, what do you do to improve on it? You would think that everything that could be done to a product that is pushing its teens would have been done, but with version 12 the company has added some cool workflow features, a weird auto recovery feature, and the Montage. Within the scope of this review, a few of the new features will be covered.

Everything you need to make home movies. With Pinnacle Studio version 12, making great looking movies has never been easier. Get up and running faster than ever with all new Pinnacle Montage theme based video editing, which features designs by professional producers and artists. To get started, just drag and drop your video clips and still images to preview your movie - complete with Hollywood style multi-layered effects, animated graphics, titles and Hi-Fi audio. Edit and polish to your heart's content with the sleek new video editing interface. When you are finished, archive your video memories, publish them on YouTube, or enjoy them on DVDs and portable devices.

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Pinnacle Studio 12 Easy Interface

The new version also offers improved effects performance on lower-end PCs, advanced 2D editing, the ability to rotate effects and new content for titles and DVD menus. A number of “of course” features have been added to Studio 12 such as direct access to specific file pages, image or video cropping to eliminate “black bars” and pausing during the exporting process if drive space needs to be cleaned. It also incorporates an audio alert when a file is being made or burned to disc and the process is complete. Users can also configure the PC for auto-shutdown when the video file exporting or disc burning process is completed.

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Pinnacle Studio version 12 Advanced 2D Editing

The rest of the improvements have been aimed at tidying up the interface, and adding labour-saving widgets. For example, you can now get direct page access from the album by right-clicking and selecting a page number, instead of flipping through successive pages. This could be laborious with libraries containing many entries. If you're combining footage with different aspect ratios in one project, there is now also a cropping tool - simply right-click on the clip on the timeline, and choose ‘Zoom picture to fill frame'. The clip will be magnified to fit, although you will lose some of the edges. Another potentially useful but minor new feature is the option to Find Image or Scene in Album. Right-click on a clip or digital photo on the timeline, select this menu entry, and the album will be opened with the clip or photo highlighted.

Features

Exclusive Features

Pinnacle Montage

Pinnacle Montage is a completely new feature that makes it easy to achieve high-end results with multiple video layers, animated text and graphics.

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Pinnacle Montage

Easy Moviemaking

Making great looking movies has never been easier. Simply select a theme complete with associated titles and animated graphics. Drop in your video and photos. Then surprise everyone with polished results.

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Pinnacle SmartMovie

Great Graphics

Each theme gives you access to a series of templates to give your video a fabulous “look”– over 80 templates for multi-layered effects, animated graphics and great titles.


Fantastic Results

Amaze your friends and family with professional style videos. Who ever thought that mixing your media together – video, photos, audio – could be so simple and create such amazing home movies?


11 Themes + 81 associated templates including:

50s Modern, Album, Baby, Instant Photo, Love, Multi-layer Mix, Season, Sports, Star, Tribute & Video Wall



Everything you need to make home movies.

Give it some style

Select from an impressive collection of titles, transitions, filters and effects.


Pinnacle Scorefitter music generator

Automatically generate a rich soundtrack to match the length of your movie.

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Pinnacle Scorefitter

Bring your still photos to life

Animate your photos with close-ups or motion pan-and-zoom features.

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Pinnacle pan & Zoom

Keep your memories safe

Archive your video memories with Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder.


Clean up and rejuvenate

Improve audio tracks, enhance color, remove noise, and fix poor lighting.


Built-in Disc Burning

Easily create DVDs with motion menus and custom navigation for playback on DVD players. With integrated CD and DVD authoring you can preview your work in progress with full, on-screen DVD controls.


Web publishing simplified

Direct upload to video sharing sites like YouTube and Yahoo! Video.


Enjoy your movies on the go

Enjoy your movies on your Sony PSP, Apple iPod, DivX certified players, and even 3GP cell phones.

Minimum System Requirements

• Windows® XP SP2 (SP3), Windows Vista™ (SP1)
  Intel® Pentium® or AMD Athlon™ 1.8 GHz (2.4 GHz or higher recommended)
  
  
• Intel Pentium HT or AMD Athlon 2.4 GHz or 1.6 GHz Dual core required for Windows Vista 1 GB system memory recommended
  
  
• DirectX® 9 or 10 compatible graphics card with 64 MB (128 MB or higher recommended) 128 MB required on Windows Vista (256 MB or higher recommended)
  
  
• DirectX 9 or higher compatible sound card
  
  
• 2 GB of disk space
  
  
• DVD-ROM drive to install software
  
  
• Optional:
  CD burner for creating Video CDs or Super Video CDs (S-VCDs)
  DVD burner for creating DVD* discs

Capture Options

• Capture from DV and Digital8 camcorders or VCRs (requires a FireWire® port)
  
  
• Capture from analog camcorders, 8 mm, HI 8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C, SVHS-C, or VCRs (NTSC/PAL/SECAM). Requires DirectShow® compatible graphic board or TV tuner board with analog (Composite or S-Video) inputs

Output Options

• Output to DV or Digital8 tape (requires camcorder with DV Input port and a PC with a DV/FireWire port)
  
  
• Output to analog videotape (requires DirectShow compatible video device or video card with TV-output)
  
  
• Output to Apple® iPod® and Sony® PSP™ formats*

Import Formats

• Video: DV, AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX®*, MPEG-4*, 3GP(MPEG-4)*, WMV, Non-encrypted DVD titles*
  
  
• Audio: MP3, MPA, WAV, AC3*
  
  
• Graphic: BMP, GIF, JPG, PCX, PSD, TGA, TIF, WMF

Export Formats

• Video CD (VCD) or S-VCD with optional CD burner (CD-R or CD-RW)
  
  
• DVD* disc with optional DVD burner (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R or DVD+RW, dual layer)
  
  
• Apple iPod and Sony PSP compatible (MPEG-4) formats*
  
  
• DV, AVI, DivX*, RealVideo® 8, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4*, Flash, 3GP*, WAV, MP3* files
  
  
• Dolby® Digital 2 channel* and 5.1 channel** audio

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* Requires free product activation via Internet.
** Requires product activation via Internet at additional cost.

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Pricing & Availability

The Pinnacle Studio 12 family is available now for pre-orders at the Pinnacle Systems estore and will be at e-tail and retail stores later this month. Upgrades from all of the previous Pinnacle Studio versions to version 12 are available from the Pinnacle Systems website – www.pinnaclesys.com - with prices ranging from $69.99 (upgrade to Pinnacle Studio Plus) to $99.99 (upgrade to Pinnacle Studio Ultimate).


Verdict

As one of the most mature video editing apps around, Pinnacle Studio's interface and core abilities haven't changed much over the last few versions. The Montage tool is the most significant new feature in this release, with most improvements being minor ones allegedly requested by users. But Studio remains one of the easiest apps for new users to get to grips with, and the Plus and Ultimate versions have plenty of power under the hood for the more experienced. The continuing lack of more than one extra video track could be a drawback for some users, but otherwise Pinnacle Studio 12 is a comprehensive option for newcomers and seasoned Studio users alike.

Pinnacle has had problems with some earlier versions of Studio. Version 10 got a very bad reputation for this. But they sorted the issues by the 10.5 dot release, and Studio 12 uses a development of the same engine. We had no stability problems during testing. In fact, it was a little more responsive than 11. Certainly didn't crash every two minutes, that's for sure. In fact, it didn't crash at all during testing.