Pinnacle Studio 18

Pinnacle Studio 18 review

We upgraded to Pinnacle Studio 18 recently, and wow I'm glad we did. We have the Ultimate version which is made to work with 64 bit computers. This makes a huge impact on the actual editing process, as everything is much snappier--adding titles, adding special effects, working with video footage--everything is much faster. So far it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference in the actual rendering of the dvd project, but it's well worth it for the actual video editing.

There are alot of really nice extra effects including some effects packs from New Blue. They are ones that most video editors will use daily, and seem to be geared for the types of family and business editing that most of us do.

Studio 18 includes support for HD and 4K (if your computer is fast enough to work with those types of files); includes izotope music and speech cleaner; allows for bluray disc creation (if you have a bluray burner); includes 3D features (which we never use); includes 2000 transitions, effects, templates and menus; allows for unlimited editing tracks for superior editing capabilities; works with Sonifire music if you buy the optional plugin (and you've updated to the latest patches); includes Scorefitter and some other free royalty free music; photo slideshow features; and many other features.

We had been using Studio 16 for quite a long time, and it worked pretty well but was made for 32 bit computers. For our video to dvd transfer projects it worked quite well. We decided to upgrade to Pinnacle Studio 17 and it was a disaster--the program was crashing constantly and caused us enough grief to return it for a refund. We were a bit skeptical to upgrade to Studio 18 but now we're in video editing heaven!

We normally don't recommend new products so quickly, but Studio 18 is definitely ready for prime time. Give it a shot--you can request a refund within the first 30 days if it doesn't meet your video to dvd editing needs.

Helpful Tip for Pinnacle Studio 16

If you're having trouble when video editing with Studio 16, especially if you have trouble with the program not responding when using the Title editor and/or any of the video effects, change your Windows theme to the most basic so that Aero is completely turned off. You'll be surprised how much of a difference this makes when doing your video to dvd project.

Pinnacle Studio 16 Ultimate First Impressions

1. We're running Studio 16 Ultimate on a Vista 32 bit laptop with a good video card (Nvidia 8600M GT). We set the playback optimization slider to 25 (in the control panel under preview) and effects and transitions are quickly rendered in the background for smooth playback while editing. We also have the preview quality set to "fastest playback".

2. The ability to add custom collections in the library is awesome. We made a custom collection "favorite transitions" and put all of the transitions used the most in that collection. Now we can easily get to those through the library without having to scroll through ALL of the transitions.

3. For some reason if we run Studio 16 as "administrator" we see an marked increase in performance. Not sure why, but it's definitely noticeable.

4. In the control panel under storage locations, there is a button all the way at the bottom to "delete render files" and IT ACTUALLY WORKS! It actually deletes the render files!

5. The included video tutorials are excellent.

6. We like the feature that can toggle on/off transitions length using the dynamic button (to the left of the magnet). We have transitions length set to 1 second so when we drag transitions between clips it stops at the set length. When we want a longer transition, all we have to do is click the dynamic button, insert a transition to a length that we want, and can click the dynamic button back again so future transitions are at our set length.

7. LOVE the storyboard track and the checkmarks that show which items from the library are in a project.

8. The jog shuttle is excellent. If you move it just slightly to the left or right, you can move very slowly through the footage.

9. When you double click on a video source file, you can click on "transition in" or "transition out", choose your transition from that screen, move the white slider to increase the length of the transition and watch the transition into or out of your clip right on that screen. Nice.

10. When you double click on a photo or video and choose "corrections", there are tons choices to make adjustments (such as removing red eye), and these corrections are saved only in the project (so the original file is not affected).

11. You can change the aspect ratio of the project at ANY time and the timeline will re-render to the new ratio. Awesome.

12. When you hover over many of the buttons, you get a tooltip box where in most cases you can watch a video of the feature you're trying to use. Very, very helpful.

13. You can customize the toolbar to hide any features that you normally don't use. Makes for less clutter, and you can always add them back later.

14. The installation process takes longer than other versions, but you don't have to add all of those activation keys during the install. All of the Ultimate features are already activated during the installation. Since we already have Studio 15 and Avid Studio on this laptop, Studio 16 also entered the previous activation keys from those programs into Studio 16.

One feature that we would like to see is that when using the storyboard above the timeline, it would be SO handy to be able to drop transitions between source clips/photos right on the storyboard.

Pinnacle Studio 16 - Video to DVD Transfer

Pinnacle Studio 16 - Video to DVD Transfer

We recently purchased the newly updated video editing software Pinnacle Studio 16. We've been using it for a few days now, and here are some of our thoughts:

--we're using it on Vista 32 bit and have noticed significant speed improvements over Pinnacle Studio 15

--even though Pinnacle Studio 16 is optimized for 64 bit computers, there is a marked overall "snappiness" in the program on 32 bit computers

--the program really should have been called Avid Studio 2.0 as the interface mimics Avid Studio 1.1

--we've found that running the program as administrator seems to have a positive effect on the speediness of the program, but not sure why

--we purchased the Pinnacle Studio 16 Ultimate option, and even though the installation of the program takes a great deal longer than previous versions, the program automatically installs all of the plugins during installation so there's no losing serial number keys for add on content

--at the beginning of installation, you only have to input the serial number; if you already have an older version of Pinnacle Studio or Avid Studio, the program finds the version for you during upgrade so you don't have to input an old serial number

--for moving add on content from Avid Studio to Pinnacle Studio 16, compare the following folders, then copy/paste missing files/folders from C:\Program Files\Avid\Studio\plugins\RTFx  to C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 16\plugins\RTFx and do the same C:\Program Files\Avid\Studio\plugins\RTFXV2\ to C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 16\plugins\RTFXV2. All of the files/folders in Avid Studio RTFx and Avid Studio RTFxV2 should be the same as their corresponding Pinnacle Studio folders

--Alpha Magic transitions are not included in Pinnacle Studio 16 but you can easily copy them over from Avid Studio. For Alpha Magic, again copy/paste all Alpha Magic folders and files from C:\Program Files\Avid\Studio\plugins\RTFx to C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 16\plugins\RTFx. Alpha Magic will be listed at the very bottom of the transitions library

--there is a storyboard option in Pinnacle Studio 16 and it puts a mini storyboard above the timeline (very useful); the only thing that would make the new storyboard better would be to be able to put transitions between the storyboard pictures/videos instead of having to do it from the timeline (which is more time consuming)

As we use the program more, we will post more information on Pinnacle Studio 16 Ultimate.