Product Description

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate version 12 lets you take advantage of the latest HD video editing technologies, including Blu-ray and AVCHD. Pinnacle Montage theme based editing - designed by professional producers and artists - puts incredible creative power at your fingertips. Simply drag and drop your video clips and still images to preview your movie - and watch your content come alive, 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 video editing interface. When you are finished, archive your video memories, publish them on YouTube, or enjoy them on DVDs and portable devices.Pinnacle StudioTM Ultimate version 12 includes professional software tools for titling, color correction, lighting and special effects, plus a green screen backdrop. Product Description: Pinnacle Studio Ultimate - ( v. 12 ) - complete package Category: Creativity application Subcategory: Creativity - multimedia authoring, creativity - video editing & production Version: 12 License Type: Complete package License Qty: 1 user License Pricing: Standard Platform: Windows Distribution Media: DVD-ROM OS Required: Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Microsoft Windows Vista

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1244 in Software
• Brand: Pinnacle Systems
• Model: 82101006061
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: 12.00" h x 5.00" w x 10.01" l, 4.10 pounds

Features

• Take control of your videos with professional strength editing tools
• Capture, edit and burn: The complete native HD solution
• Define the style of your video or film, regardless of on-set conditions, with powerful imaging tools
• Share and archive your creations on DVD, YouTube, and more
• Includes: Boris Graffiti, Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks, proDAD VitaScene

Amazon.com
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate version 12 lets you take advantage of the latest HD video editing technologies, including Blu-ray and AVCHD. All new Pinnacle Montage theme based editing--designed by professional producers and artists--puts incredible creative power at your fingertips. Simply drag and drop your video clips and still images to preview your movie--and watch your content come alive, 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.

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate version 12 includes professional software tools for titling, color correction, lighting and special effects, plus a green screen backdrop.

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate version 12 lets you take advantage of the latest HD video editing technologies, including Blu-ray and AVCHD.

Choose from more than a hundred Look presets, all neatly organized into 10 categories, to help set the mood for everything from a wedding to a film festival winner.

Watch your memories come alive with Pinnacle Montage.

Native HD support means you'll get the same pristine quality from your original source all the way to final output--without transcoding and in real-time

Exclusive Feature

New--Pro video tools
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Version 12 includes professional caliber tools for complete control of your productions.

Boris Graffiti--title & graphic animation
The most innovative titling tools in the industry are now at your fingertips. Easily craft sophisticated title animations including type on text, text on a path, jitter and randomization. Create 3D text with bump maps and reflections. An expansive Style Palette and the Boris Library Browser provide fast access to hundreds of preset effects and styles.

Magic Bullet Looks--Pro film styles
Whatever the location, the look of your footage sets the mood. Now you can define the style of your video or film, regardless of on-set conditions, with powerful imaging tools. Choose from more than a hundred Look presets, all neatly organized into 10 categories, to help set the mood for everything from a wedding to a film festival winner.

proDAD VitaScene--lighting, glows & more
Now you can achieve sophisticated effects and transitions that contribute greatly to the style and mood of your project: light rays, color matching, artistic film styles, and much more. Now it's easy to add those subtle details that give you professional looking results.

BONUS:
Green Sheet (approx. 5.95 ft x 5.58 ft) included in retail box version of Studio Ultimate version 12. Essential for creating high quality Chroma Key effects.

Complete HD Workflow

Your Story--Now in Dazzling HD
Pinnacle Studio Plus works natively with HDV and AVCHD footage. Native HD support means you'll get the same pristine quality from your original source all the way to final output--without transcoding and in real-time. You can even combine projects that mix standard and high definition video and photos for a final result in full HD resolution

Built-in HD Disc Burning
Burn your Hollywood-style movies on DVD and HD DVD format discs on standard DVD media. Natively author Blu-ray format discs with full motion menus. Or make AVCHD format discs on standard DVDs to play on Blu-ray players.

New--Pinnacle Montage:
Watch your memories come alive

• Enjoy multi-track power without the complexity
  Thanks to fantastic pre-built templates designed by professional producers and artists, Pinnacle Montage automatically generates all the necessary titles, effects and animations.
  
  
• Create multi-layer effects
  Access to Picture-in-Picture, Chroma Key or A/B editing with two video tracks at the tip of your fingers.
  
  
• Mix your media together
  Use all your media--photos, video, and music--to create a Hollywood-style movie.
  
  
• 11 themes with +80 templates including Video Wall, Album, Seasons and more
  

Additional Features

It's all in the Timeline.
With its sleek, scalable interface, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Version 12 represents a stunning leap forward in workflow refinement and ease of use. Directly import your digital videos, photos and audio from a wide range of devices including DV, HDV and AVCHD camcorders, and digital still cameras. Automatic scene detection and clip creation gets your project off to a great start. You'll be editing your movie, fast!

Optimized for performance
Unleash the power of your computer. This means a faster, smoother experience while you work and in your final output.

Real-time multi-track editing
Create advanced effects like Chroma Key, graphics overlay and Picture-in-Picture (PIP).

Key frame-able 2D/3D motion graphics
Pick from hundreds of effects and transitions, and preview them in full quality, even in HD. If you ever need even more creative variety, add to your effects library with just a few simple clicks.

Scorefitter music generator
Automatically generate a rich soundtrack to match the length of your movie; now with 40+ source tracks that feature more choice, higher fidelity and increased accuracy.

New--Web publishing simplified
What fun is capturing your memories if you don't share them? In just One-Click share your movies with the world on popular web sites like YouTube and Yahoo! Video

New--Refined audio editing
New digital controls and monitors to add a dimension in sound to your movie.

Clean up and rejuvenate
Improve audio tracks, clean up video, enhance color, remove noise, and fix poor lighting to restore old, damaged footage--automatically.

New--Even more ways to share
Output movies to Sony PSP, Apple iPod, DivX certified players and even 3GP mobile phones. Export to Flash video too.

Built-in HD Disc Burning
Burn DVD, HD DVD and AVCHD format discs on standard DVD media. Natively author Blu-ray format discs with full motion menus.

Scalable user interface
Keeps tools at your fingertips. Adjustable windows are perfect for widescreen monitors.

Customer Reviews

What iMovie '08 Should Have Been
Let me start off by saying that I'm a Mac guy and I do a lot of video. I generally work with Final Cut Pro but often drop into iMovie '08 for projects that need to be done quickly without the need for precision editing. After spending a few hours with Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12, I'm almost ready to boot my Mac into Windows for those tasks I'd normally edit on iMovie.

PROS:

1. Awesome plugins: It's funny, but what I like best about the Studio Ultimate are the parts of it not made by Pinnacle! Included on a second CD are titling effects from Boris and professional-grade color correction from Magic Bullet. Magic Bullet adds a 'film look' to your video as well as a number of other color related effects. Everything renders quickly and looks great.

Those two features alone usually cost several hundred bucks a piece (on top of the editing software), so their inclusion in the package certainly adds to its value.

2. Instant conversion from AVCHD. One of my complaints on the Mac side is that AVCHD video needs to be converted to an Apple codec prior to being edited. This usually adds a considerable amount of time to the workflow, as the video is 'ingested' at a rate usually double that of the length of the file (i.e. a ten minute clip takes twenty minutes to import). All Studio Ultimate needs is the drive letter for your card reader and the video is ready to be edited. Very cool.

3. Fast performance and mixed formats: Editing performance is very fast and responsive with fast render times too. Studio Ultimate also allows a mix of formats on the timeline. I tested editing a high definition AVCHD clip along with an included DV movie and all mixed together perfectly.

4. Green screen is included: Pinnacle even throws in a free green screen! It's large and can easily fit two people in front of it. A nice and thoughtful addition to the product.

5. Many export options: Outputting the video to something playable beyond the PC is very smartly implemented. Presets for basic exports (like YouTube and DVD) are available as well as fully customizable advanced settings into a variety of formats.

6. Multi-track video editing: Unlike iMovie '08 there are two video tracks that can be used for video overlays, etc.

CONs

1. Slightly complex: The developers tried their best to keep it simple and organized, but there is some complexity involved with doing anything beyond the basics. It's nothing that's not impossible to learn, but there are a few layers of menuing necessary to accomplish some effects tasks (like chroma keying or using a plugin). Additionally, the plugins (like the magic bullet software) all have their own interfaces separate from the studio interface. They also don't install themselves automatically, so you'll need to insert the second disc on your own to get access to them.

2. File management is confusing: Studio Ultimate forgoes the standard Windows file management routines and adds a multi-paged navigation to find items on your hard disk. Not very efficient and sometimes difficult to navigate back to where you started. It would be much easier to find files based on the standard windows file open dialog. When I did import an AVCHD file, it did not show up on the 'my movies' option on the file navigation window. I'm not sure exactly where it ended up!

3. AVCHD import follows a different workflow: The developers spent a lot of time with three simple top level tabs: Capture, edit, and "make movie." Unfortunately bringing AVCHD video in does not follow that same convention. It would be nice to have the AVCHD import options in the same place as the DV/HDV imports.

CONCLUSION:

Video editing is a very complex task and many products have tried and failed to make the process fast and easy. Pinnacle Studio Ultimate is probably the best of breed for consumer video editing apps on any platform. It is a little more complex than iMovie on the Mac, but it also adds considerably more creative options that rival professional-grade applications. It will import footage from cameras as old as Digital 8 (and even VHS with added hardware) and mix that footage with the latest AVCHD offerings very efficiently.

Overall Pinnacle has an impressive offering that I highly recommended to Windows users. This Mac user is just a tad bit jealous.

Better than Premiere Elements, but ...
I own Adobe Premiere Elements 3 and 4, so I am going to be comparing Pinnacle Studio to Premiere Elements.

I have been using the Studio Beta 12.1 downloaded from Pinnacle's web site, so this review reflects the Beta program.

Studio is a decent program, it has features similar to Premiere Elements. In general, Premiere Elements has more tuning features than Pinnacle Studio. For example, consider the task of rendering a movie to MPEG. Pinnacle Studio allows you to choose bitrate and frame size, and that's about it. Adobe Premiere also lets you choose I-frame and P-frame spacing, and field order.

On the other hand, Premiere Elements crashes a lot. Some of the features appearing in its menus simply don't work. It is my least favorite piece of software by a wide margin. No bug fixes either: Premiere Elements 4 has lived its entire life without an update from Adobe. Premiere Elements 7 has already been announced. Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12 is quite new, yet a 12.1 beta is already available. Pinnacle wants to fix problems, that's great!

My issues with Pinnacle Studio all seem to involve high definition video output, which is probably not used by most customers of this program. Here are the issues I have found so far:

I cannot find a way to output 1080P (progressive) video. 1080I (interlaced) output is possible though.

A Studio "project" has to be created as a high definition project or a standard definition project. You can't have it both ways. If you try, certain features will fail to work properly.

In a project consisting of still photos (a slideshow project), I started off by manually creating the project as a high definition project. After much time spent editing and authoring, I found that 1080I output failed. The program popped up a warning "aspect ratio is incorrect." The solution is to NOT use the manual method to set the project as a HD project. Instead, drop a large JPEG onto the editing time line, and wait for the program to ask you if you want high definition or standard definition.

That last bit of awkwardness is an example of how unpleasant Pinnacle Studio can be. On the other hand, Adobe Premiere Elements is far more unpleasant in this regard, and it has other problems (stated above). In fact, I would dump Premiere Elements in favor of Pinnacle Studio, except for the fact that I really need 1080P output.

For folks that don't deal with high definition video, this is a nice program to use. Certainly, it is much better than Premiere Elements. If there is a better product in the same price range, please, someone speak up.

Beware Pinnacle's Duplicitous Practices
Pinnacle's Serial Numbers and Activation Keys expire after two years.

This applies to all Pinnacle software, not just software downloaded online. Activation Keys bought online AND Serial Numbers for software bought in retail stores only work for two years.

It's in the fine print - which you can't even see until you rip open the box (thereby forfeiting your right to a refund) and click the "Yes, I Agree" button during installation.

If you have to reinstall the program (or any part of it) two years and a day after buying it, you will have to completely repurchase the software.

What's especially fishy about Pinnacle is how it will suddenly start crashing at 2 years after initial installation. My video drivers stopped working at a point, I'd later realize, coincident with the 2 year anniversary of my having installed the Pinnacle software.

In trying to fix the suspiciously-timed program crash I was mystified to learn that a number clearly printed on a CD sleeve was suddenly "Not a Valid Serial Number." The Activation Keys I'd bought online, and had on file, were suddenly incorrect.

I contacted Pinnacle, who informed me of the two year statement in the agreement. Here is an excerpt from their email:

"The reason you are not able to obtain a redownload of your purchase is
that the Extended Download Service was not purchased with your download
and the time to purchase this service has expired. Unfortunately, this
means that in order to obtain the product, you will need to repurchase
it."

Keep in mind - I was asking Pinnacle for no software. All I needed was a Serial Number and Activation Keys, because the Serial Number printed on the CD sleeve itself, and the Activation Keys I'd received two years earlier no longer worked.

Just something you might want to keep in mind before buying Pinnacle software.