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I was big fan of Videostudio before Corel killed it. It will cause you more trouble than it is worth.With that out of the way, I will say I enjoy the product and it is loaded with features for video editing. I created a music video of our 6 six year daughter singing happy birthday to her little sister. If you do not have at least 4GB of RAM and a good video card, you may run into performance issue. The most popular video formats are supported so you should not run into any issues imporating the videoBuilding the DVD/Bluray is not the fastest even on my computer.I would definitely recommend the software to my friends and family as long as their computer has the power The software is just not as easy to use as some of its competitors.
I was able to quickly remove the chroma key and replaced it with various backgrounds to my liking.There is definitely a learning curve; however, Pinnacle does provide many video tutorials on the product.Importing videos and pictures is straight forward and easy to do. I have a Quad Core 64 bit computer with 8GBs of RAM. This software is not for the low end computer. The interface is clean and has multiple parts to the timeline for building your projectsThe green screen that comes with it a little on the small side but very usable.
In my experience, it couldn't seem to tell the difference in the display it is RUNNING it on, with other system displays. I disabled that card & monitor, and it started. As soon as the program started up, I noticed that monitor just went black. Thinking it was the datalink device, I disabled that, and then it started, but perhaps because my 2nd monitor video card isn't so great, it hemmed and hawed like a mule being forced off a ledge, telling my my card didn't have what *I know* it has. It runs ok, but it is slow and we'd all rather just stick with After Effects since we know it and it runs better. If you haven't learned After Effects YET, it might be easier, that is, if you are running it on a fairly normal system with a widely supported good video card. After 30 seconds of listening to my poor harddrive just grind and grind, I tried to stop the program, but it wasn't showing up in device manager. Had to restart my pc.
(So it has to be getting 'confused.')Running what I think is a crippled system, I can only do simple short movies with it, and it crashes- when it doesn't crash immediately after opening something - certainly not worth disabling what has become a beloved part of my system just to get it to start. I'd think twice if I were choosing software and had a USB datalink devices. It's a nice looking software package, and it came with a really great green screen, nice and large and perfect for editing, and a nice rebate if you're already using a competing product - BUT.I can't get it to RUN.I tried it first on my main computer which is running 3 monitors, one of which is being powered by a datalink device instead of an internal card. Stopped the dump, but the program still seemed hung on the display. I got rid of it, and let my husband put it on his PC.
I experienced no program crashes duringt several weeks of use but have had stability problems with past versions. One thing I noticed was that renders seem to be slower than on Vegas 9. I feel that at this price point the software does a pretty good job. I installed the program on a Windows 7 64 bit machine and it overall seems to work good. It is nowhere near as good as Sony Vegas Pro 9 but it of course costs nowhere near as much. I tested Blu-Ray functionality and it seemed to work OK.
I tried these two features,yet I was somewhat disappointed. Overall, thisproduct is fair and enjoyable. I am not an expert on video formats, but it'scommon sense that the video work needs a good machine. I tried a couple of different formats(ipod version, dvd version, and.wmv) for exporting, and it took awhile, yet I was satisfied with the result.
It was much faster than the tape one, yetit took a while to import multiple clips. Itjust took time because the importing speed is the actual tapeplaying speed, but I had no problem controlling and navigating fromthe Studio thru firewire cable.Also, importing HD files (.mov) from my xacti worked well. As we all know,Windows Movie Maker is the most hideous thing ever; however, thissoftware was like meeting a whole new world. It was too much blur in the stopmotion capture and too much of magnification in stabilization.Stabilization also took a long time to process a clip of couple ofminutes. There are also many brilliant features including imagestabilization and stop motion capture. Luckily, Ihad enough hard space and memory on windows 7 starter, andexporting still took time. I guess if I had better clips from a bright outdoor/sunnyday the environment or expensive camcorder, I'd probably get lessblur and graininess.
I was actually impressed with theuser interface. The dvd I made on thisalso worked great on a standard dvd player. I like things simpleand clean, so when I make movie clips of my child, I edit tight andadd effects minimally. It wasconnected via usb cable using the sanyo's dock, and Studiorecognized it instantly.
For the iphone moviefiles, I had to download the files on the computer first, butbesides that I had no problem importing the clips to the Studio aswell.For me, editing was the fun part. But if you'd like to put new and cooleffects, templates, transitions, and animations, you'll enjoy thisStudio. It depends on the clips, I suppose.Lastly, comes exporting. This also supports blu-ray, so If you have the burner, you'll enjoy it.
I tried this product with three different camcorders: panasonic minidv (sd quality, firewire), sanyo xacti (720p HD,.mov sdhc card), andiphone (.mov file).Importing the movie clips from the mini dv tape worked smoothly. It was simple and easy enough to make the editingfun, even for the people like me (no video expert). Video converting heavily relies on thesystem's capability.
In the end you decide how far you want to take the program - it has a ton of features, too many to describe in one review but I highly recommend getting it if you need a good video editor which supports all kinds of formats, will help make you custom movies (with special effects if you need them) and then copy it all to the type of media you need. There are a host of new improvements and features with Version 14 Ultimate including image stabilization, motion titling, stop-motion capture, over 80 Montage templates, improved AVCHD support, straight sharing to Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD, You Tube etc. It will also support High Definition (HD), so a good AVCHD or HDV camcorder would also be preferable for the best results. Version 14 Ultimate continues in that vein. I know there have been mentions of issues in other reviews but I have had no problems with this software but I would say that it is best to run it on a higher-end PC.Bottom line - I really enjoy using this software and what has always made Pinnacle Studio special is its simplicity.
They have kept the traditional `import' (previously called capture), `edit' and `make movie' buttons at the top of the screen which makes this program so easy to use. I must emphasize that this is a not must though; this software is very flexible so it will work with almost any type of video standard. This software has continually improved over the years by adding new features and including extra software. and a full suite of Hollywood-style animations, transitions, and effects. I installed and used this software on Windows Vista 32 bit and Windows XP SP3 computers without any problems; both have a dual-core CPU's and good graphics cards. Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection Version 14 is quality video editing software so the first thing I would recommend is that you have a computer with a dual-core CPU and a good graphics card.
I also have a HDV camcorder.I have owned Pinnacle Studio since Version 9. A lot of these new features are due to the Red Giant plug-ins which are now included with this software.The best thing I noticed about Version 14 Ultimate is that everything processes quicker so Pinnacle has certainly been working on the overall stability of this software.
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