Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate

[larryjd1]

Chuck,

Do you have WiFi and a laptop in there so you can answer forum psosts?

[larryjd1]

I started with Pinnacle Studio 8 and got frustrated with version 10 before switching to PrEl 2.0.

A few months ago I did get a pre-release offer via email to buy Studio 11 Ultimate for something like $39, which I thought was Avid's way of doing a makeup. Certainly better than any Adobe offer, but even though the features were nice, I didn't do it as PrEl was doing everything I needed. But a nice offer nonetheless, so long as it works.

Bob D,
if you are looking for other software to try you may want to visit a site that tracks "Deal of the Day" sites. Just about a week ago Amazon was offering Ulead 11Plus fpr $19 after rebate and I have seen other applications from time to time on the different sites. And there were a ton on ebay from those looking to make a buck or two re-priced at $29.

Also out here in California, a local electonics reseller "Fry's" frequently has software for $0 after all of the rebates. They had the Sony product last week. Not sure where you are, but may a large box retailer near you offers the same type of thing.

[Chuck Engels]

Chuck,
Do you have WiFi and a laptop in there so you can answer forum psosts?

I have a AT&T AirCard on my laptop (supplied by my office) and I could answer forum posts from the car if I wanted to, haven't had the opportunity yet though

[Bob D]

Thanks Larry for the deal ideas. I'm not rushing for another product as PE4 seems to be doing everything I need too. Although, I'm serious when I say I get a depressing feeling when I have to open it up. It is just that dark environment it is in. And with winter setting in soon, it isn't going to make matters better.

So I figure in a few months I may experiment, providing the price is right. My biggest concern would be if PE and Pinnacle can play nice together on the same machine. Oh and, of course, the fact there is no great forum for Pinnacle if I have questions or run into trouble.

[Steve_Dski]

This is my first post here, so I hope you'll forgive the rambling and simplistic questions of a muvipix neophyte, but here goes. I've exchanged a couple of e-mails with Steve Grisetti regarding PrE4, and he has given me a lot of great information. I'm at the point where I'm ready to purchase one of two programs, and this board is precisely what I need. I am an old R/TV guy from back in the day when audio was edited with razor blades and grease pencils and video required two decks the size of suitcases connected via a console. Roughly six years ago I got into digital video editing using Pinnacle Studio 8.x. Over the next couple of years, I upgraded to 9.x, and, with the exception of the massive stability issues and horrendously long rendering times, I found the interface to be quite intuitive. In fact, I rarely had to research the program features as they lined up with the physical processes I had used back in the day. For the last two years I have been using a rather limited little program from ArcSoft (ShowBizDVD2). One of the reasons I used this was its wonderful rendering ability. Complex videos (well, at least as complex as this limited package will produce) would render in minutes. [As an aside, why did ArcSoft never develop this further? A few extra features and they easilly could have taken on Pinnacle.] I am now ready to move back into a more advanced program, and I am torn between PrE4.0 and Studio 11.

It appears to me that PrE4.0 would be a better package for those projects where I wanted to create complex, custom effects, xitions, etc. whereas Studio 11 is a simpler interface with more consumer-orinted features. All things being equal, I am impressed by all the third-party add-ons with Studio 11...they seem to be great value-added features. On the other hand, I don't want to dive into Studio only to find my creativity limited by two tracks of video v. 99 and limited ability to tailor effects (Pinnacle has never been great for truly custom stuff).

So, with this LONG preface in place, what thoughts do others have on the comparison between these two? What are the strengths of one versus the other? Right now I'm leaning toward PrE4.0, but I keep hearing that little voice in the back of my mind say, "Steve, that's like $500 worth of third-party plug-ins and features you're passing up, and the new Studio package has been receiving strong reviews." Anyone willing to help me think this one through?

Thanks in advance. I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Regards,

Dski

[Steve Grisetti]

As I always say (and as I think I've even said to you already, Steve ) there is no one "best" software app. Everything depends on your personal needs and goals, what type of camcorder you're using and what you ultimately plan to output.

MiniDV footage, captured over FireWire, is the ideal PC-based editing source, so you'll get great results from both programs.

Premiere Elements' strength is in its editing interface. With PrEl you have an unlimited number of video and audio tracks, a powerful motion path creator and a timeline that ripples flawlessly, so your tracks always stay in sync, even if you insert or remove a clip from the middle of your project. Premiere Elements does require you to optimize your photos to no larger than 1000x750 pixels in order to get effective slideshow results, but it also works beautifully in conjunction with its sister program, Photoshop Elements, which contains a batch function for optimizing photos.

Beyond that, it's just a matter of which interface you feel more at home with. Premiere Elements 4.0 is a major overhaul of the interface, which makes finding your tools and features much more intuitive. (In fact, Mike Iampietro, who was one of the point people for Pinnacle Studio for years has moved over to Adobe, which is clearly trying to make Premiere Elements more Studio-like -- but without the liabilities.)

But these things fall more in the category of personal preference, and you may just want to download demos of each to see which one makes you feel more at home.

[Bob D]

Steve is spot on. I started this thread, but at the time there were some difficulties with PE4 that have been resolved. I also initially, and to some degree still do, have trouble with the dark background that comes with PE4. But I've done a couple of projects with PE4 and am happy with the stability and features it is providing. Of course budget allowing, exploring and having other tools available is not a bad thing. I may still see if there is a deal on Pinnacle 11 after the new year. My biggest concern would be if it negatively impacts the finely tuned machine I have now for Adobe products.

[Gerry]

I started with Studio 7 and upgraded to 10 and actually liked it a lot. Except that it was tremendously unstable. It would crash for apparently no reason at all at any given moment. It got to the point where I'd add a dissolve and SAVE, edit down a clip and SAVE, add a title and SAVE. The Pinnacle website/forum was virtually worthless, since it was mostly people complaining about problems but never really getting them solved.

So I switched to Premiere Elements 2. Understanding the interface took me a little time, but once over that hump, the program worked flawlessly. I don't think it EVER crashed on me. I never thought I'd need more than 2 video tracks until I had the luxury of being able to stack stuff where I wanted it; now I think it' indispensible.

I skipped Premiere Elements 3 and recently bought 4. Although there was a learning curve with the new interface, it was very similar to v2. After one major project (a 30-minute movie) I found it to be fine and fun to work with, tho I still prefer v2's ability to rearrange the interface and spread it where I want over two monitors.

To me, Premiere Elements' major (and only) drawback is the inability to do sub-menus on DVDs with menus.

So in the end, I edit in Premiere Elements, make an AVI of the entire movie, then import that back into Pinnacle Studio 7 just to do the menus/submenus, and burn the DVD from there. It's worked out great.

If I had to choose between the two today, I'd choose Premiere Elements for its stability and unlimited tracks.

[Steve Grisetti]

Bob, just as an aside, have you noticed that that charcoal-colored interface has become the new look for video editors? Premiere Pro is also adopting the look. iMovie as well as the Final Cut products have adopted it -- which is where Adobe may have knocked it off from -- and, in fact, it's also the new look for the new Mac Leopard operating system! So I guess we might as well get used to it.

BTW, have you played with the brightness setting in Premiere Elements' preferences? You can brighten it up a lot!

[Bob D]

Thanks Steve. I know in the webinars that Adobe gave they mentioned this is the direction of the industry. Of course, if you end up like everyone else, what makes you stand out? I have played with the brightness, and although I like the brighter view, they still leave the text as white, so they become hard to read. I've actually gotten used to the dark background, but I still feel a sense of darkness when I know I'm going to go into PE4. I guess this is what the early photgraphy developers felt like when they went into the "dark room".

[Steve Grisetti]

Of course in this new digital age, the "dark room" is now a computer system loaded with Photoshop -- so I guess it all comes full circle!

[Steve_Dski]

Steve, Bob and Gerry;

Thank you for your comments: They are the kinds of things for which I was looking. I will be getting into this on a basic level at first, but, in time, I hope to move the program over to a better system and do more custom things. PrE sounds like a program that will get me where I want to be. Honestly, one of the comments that made me perk up was Steve's about PrE's ability to pull a segment out of the middle of the video without having to readjust everything else that follows. That used to frustrate me with Studio, and because of that issue, I often just looked at a forty-five minute or hour-long project and said, "Yeah, that's good enough: I'd like to change that, but I just can't bring myself to have to do all the work that will result from it!"

So, now I'm just waiting for Amazon to move from 10% to 20% discount like they had a couple days ago, and I'll get it ordered. Heck, with the 20% and the $30 rebate, how can you pass it up! Keep your eyes open: I'm sure I'll have plenty of annoying questions once I get up and running! Can't wait to share some work with you guys. Over all, I can't tell you how impressed I am with this site, the forum and the passion you all share for video work. Makes me feel like I'm back in college again trying to capture the right shot with a bunch of folks who share the same enthusiasm!

...and for some reason I have this odd urge to go out an buy a 3000GT: Can anyone explain that to me?

Regards,

Steve

[Steve Grisetti]

Ask Chuck Engels. He just bought one last month! (But it was a mid-life crisis thing rather than a college boy thing.)

[Andy_E]

I missed the start (and possibly end!) of this discussion but I'd like to contribute my view for what it's worth.

I was a long-standing user of Pinnacle right back to the Studio 400 product through Studio MP10 and then on to the Studio-that-you-used-to-edit-DV range of which 11 is the latest incarnation. I gave up round about Studio 8 I think it was. It has always looked great but for as long as I can remember, they have always suffered from stability problems which steadily got worse. A new version would appear packed with new features way before they had fixed all the problems with the old. The reviews of every new version were always fantastic with no mention of the problems which filled the user forums.

I was lucky in that I ended up working for a company that provided me with a laptop that had Premiere 5.1c, Photoshop 5.5 and even a copy of After Effects (although having run that up, it was more a question of "that's very interesting, now what the hell do I do"). Firewire PCMCIA card, external Firewire drive and Bob was your mother's brother as they say. Goodbye Studio and no regrets.

To cut a long story short, I've recently got back into editing (with 2+ years of mini DVDs to sort out). Since I couldn't afford Premiere Pro (no more generous company) I took a look at Studio and the reviews and did plenty of googling and to me it was the same old story. VideoStudio I always thought was a triumph of style over substance although it appears to be able to do a lot more now and I didn't even bother taking a look at Videowave.

I had been considering Sony Vegas but then someone pointed out to me that Premiere now had an Elements version (I knew Photoshop had but I've still got Photoshop CS 1 and have no desire/need to change). Packs of features, familiar look-and-feel and with many keyboard shortcuts I've never forgotten - it was an easy choice.

What is odd with Pinnacle Studio is that they seem able to retain customer loyalty (and I include myself in that) through multiple unstable versions before they (the customers) finally give up. I can't think of another product I would have persisted with for that amount of time.

[Chuck Engels]

Thanks for the great story Andy, it is really nice to see what others have gone through and read some of their thoughts about the journey.
Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences with us