Others say...

"All you'll need for home movie productions"
I was a big fan of Showbiz DVD 2, but when I had the opportunity to work with Studio Ultimate, I thought I'd give it a try.

It is very easy and intuitive. Don't let the manual scare you. It's got a lot of great effects, transitions and even comes with a green screen for you to add some backgrounds to you videos. It supports layering so you can use the green screen to put a different background to your actor, or whatever foreground you wish to have.

It also comes with the ability to mix audio.

It supports and creates many formats such as AVI, MPG, MOV and others. It is pretty comprehensive. The transistions that you can use are really nice. Very fluid, doesn't make the picture "choppy" during the effect, like others have.

The best part is that is supports video and analog signals, so you can take all of your old VHS tapes, or in my case, non-digital video camera, and capture it and edit to your liking.

I highly recommend this product as it will make your movie making a whole lot easier than some of the other products.

"Best video editor and tools for Windows XP+"
I have used Pinnacle Studio for years. I'm pretty sure it was version 8 that I started with. I paid for the upgrade each time until version 11, but was slow to upgrade to 12. If you have a previous version, the upgrade will cost a little more than half of the new version.

I'll start with the only problems that anyone would have. Mainly, you need a newer PC that can handle all that it has to offer. Windows XP SP2 or Vista SP1. 2GB memory, 3GB disc space if you want to create HD quality.

This can burn everything including Blu-Ray. And exports files DV, HDV, AVI, DivX, RealVideo 8, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Flash, 3G, and edit audio such as WAV, MP3 etc.. most everything you need. Or direct to your ipod, PSP, iphones etc.

If you are new to Pinnacle, I actually suggest starting out slow. Maybe start with the standard version and upgrade your way up. There could be a newer version by the time you get used to it. If you are like me, I am not much into manuals and user guides. I learn by seeing or doing. But their web site has online tutorial videos on every subject. They even had a DVD class not too long ago.

The appeal with Pinnacle Studio in the different versions the add-ons. Many not even created by them, but work well with it. With these included parts, you can create a wide variety of effects, titles, transitions, and take editing to some interesting levels. With 12, there are now animated effects,

The most appealing addition to 12 is "Montage" which finally gives you the ability to layer videos, be it other video or animation or images. There are plenty of templates to get your creative juices flowing.

YouTube users are remembered here with special upload abilities to save some steps.

If you want to make a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, and have no idea what you are doing, the program helps you along with templates and easy effects such as motion menus and title sequences etc.

There's so much in "Ultimate" that you might not even use it all. But it's great to know all the features are there. The third party add-ons helps with many directions such as error corrections, enhancements, specific effects such as 3D or chroma key (green screen is included in the box!)

This is by far the best release of their so far. Each release before I never completely felt it was worth the upgrade, but this one is a definite and actual upgrade... or the best starting point if you are new to Pinnacle.

"Much Better Results than Previous Pinnacle Studio Products"
I'd started out a few years ago with a previous version of Pinnacle Studio (I think v.8) and found it to be not-ready-for-primetime. The editing was intuitive and relatively easy to grasp, but the rendering and creation of DVDs was a disaster. I went through countless blank-DVD-coasters before finally resorting to using Nero to burn the videos that I'd edited with Pinnacle. Way too much of a hassle.

I'm happy to report that Pinnacle Studio 12 seems to have worked these kinks out. I'm now creating great looking videos (from DV sources) and actually rendering them for web or DVD use with consistent reliability. Plus, this Ultimate Version comes with a lot of effects add-ons that used to be sold separately from the main editing suite. So, this version is also a better value than prior ones.

There is more than adequate documentation provided for advanced operations, but most will make simple cuts of home videos and doing so is as easy as ever. Installation was straightforward and I encountered no problems with it.

If you've been looking for a way start getting your home videos out of your camcorder and into finished products, then this is a very good choice for doing so.

"Easy to use, professional quality editing"
I have been using Pinnacle studio since 2004 - and till today find it to be the best video editing software for home users.

Windows Vista Home Premium packages a neat software called Movie maker for editing videos - I have used it a couple of times - it is very basic, it just serves the purpose but no where near comparison to Pinnacle Studio.

I've divided this review into what Pinnacle can do for you and then compared it with Windows movie maker for editing features so that you can decide if you want to buy Pinnacle or just stay with Windows movie maker depending on the kind of editing that you need to do.

What does Pinnacle Studio Ultimate lets you do ?
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--> Capture Movies & photos from Camera/Camcorder: Pinnacle includes a nice UI to capture videos from your camcorder, infact you can even control the camcorder from pinnacle - such as pause, rewind, fast forward ... This feature is very easy to use and this is the first step you do in creating your own movie

When the video is captured, it get broken down into scences (not the file itself, but the scenes) - Pinnacle does this by comparing the changes in light in the video - this will allow you to view different scenes of an hour long video capture. Example, let us say you were shooting a video of your kid indoor and then you stop recording, go outside and start recording the next sequence - even though the entire sequence is one video file - it will appear as 2 scenes

--> Edit captured movies: Video editing happens on a time scale - you are presented with a time scale, where you can drag and drop your video scenes or you can choose to drop all the video scenes into the timeline.

In Parallel to the video timeline, you have the following:
Original soundtrack - edit the volume of the original soundtrack with the click of mouse, very intuitive
External audio - add any music you want to - mp3, cd or in built standard sounds ... and edit its volume
Title - add any text that overlaps your video

The timeline is the key thing in understanding video editing - irrespective of any software that you are using to edit the video - Pinnacle provides a very easy to use interface for editing all these features.

As an example, let us say you were shooting video in a noisy environment and you want to edit that noice and replace with your own music, you just need to reduce volume on the original soundtrack, add the external audio and keep it for the duration for which you want to override your music on the original sound track. This may sound complicated, but trust me it is very easy to do.

In addition to all this - there are tons of features - slow motion, fast motion of videos ... giving the video different kinds of effect ...

--> Publish your video: Publishing your video is a beauty - really love doing this.
Let say that you were creating a video of your recent trip to Disneyland and you visited 3 of the theme parks - Epcot, Animal kingdom and Magic Kingdom and you have your memories captured in all of these theme parks and have spent time in editing these.

When creating a DVD - you can create a DVD title with mark up links to each of these theme parks, so that when you are playing on your DVD player - you can use your DVD remote to select the particular title and play it.

If you do not wish to publish in a DVD - there are many more options to publish - VCD (lesser space, low quality), DVD, mp4 ... But most of us stick to simple DVD



Comparing WinDVD to Pinnacle
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-> Add music to your video ? Both
-> Edit video to take out unwanted stuff ? Both
-> Add titles to video ? Both
-> Edit original soundtrack volume ? Pinnacle only
-> Edit added music track volume ? Pinnacle only
-> Multiple publishing formats ? Pinnacle only
-> Special effects ? Pinnacle only
-> Slow/fast motion of video ? Pinnacle only.
-> Support .mov files ? Pinnacle only


Overall - from all the video editing softwares that I have used, Pinnacle is the best for home users like you and me, it is simple to use and yet create professional quality video.



"The Ultimate Pinnacle"
Factoring in all the requirements with hardware and software, this top of the home end requires some serious hardware.The major factor to consider is that it is made by the makers of AVID, one of the finest digital video editors in Pro production.
Following all of the listings in this package, you need at least a Dual core Machine, about 4 GIG of RAM, and input and output cards that include firewire to take advantage of all the options available. As well as multiple format disc burners and players( including Blu-ray).
The considerably impressive functional elements that make up this package, are set so that you can get started in an easy mode, and produce something fairly decent with the templates available to you.However, you will still need to spend about an hour or so to get the basics.And should you wish to go all out, you can really rip into it, and make the templates do what you want, anyway you like, and its totally brilliant at that.For both levels, and all stops in-between, you can vary things in any fashion.The basic formula of Capture, Edit and Export to disc ( or
where-ever, and Where-ever can even be You-tube) is so variable that the flexibility of this software is truly wonderful.
I was fully convinced when I had friends and associates who varied from Pro level skills to basic, and they all wanted the software. This is one gem which even has its own green screen for those shots of the cat where you place him or her in Ancient Egyptian animatics !!