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Pinnacle Studio 8.0 review: Pinnacle Studio 8.0

Pinnacle Studio 8.0

Erik Holsinger
See full bio
Erik Holsinger
5 min read
2002
It's been more than a year since Pinnacle Systems Studio DV took top honors in our roundup of low-cost video-editing systems. Pinnacle seeks to dominate again with Studio 8.0, the latest version of the company's editing app, by adding DVD authoring, new 3D transitions, and a host of useful, well-integrated editing tools for both the novice and intermediate video editor. Version 8.0 comes in six different packages, ranging from a $99 bundle, for those who already have video-capture cards, to the $300 Deluxe, which includes hardware to interface with both traditional analog and digital video hardware. Whether you're just getting started or have already made your first feature, Pinnacle Studio 8.0 won't disappoint. It's been more than a year since Pinnacle Systems Studio DV took top honors in our roundup of low-cost video-editing systems. Pinnacle seeks to dominate again with Studio 8.0, the latest version of the company's editing app, by adding DVD authoring, new 3D transitions, and a host of useful, well-integrated editing tools for both the novice and intermediate video editor. Version 8.0 comes in six different packages, ranging from a $99 bundle, for those who already have video-capture cards, to the $300 Deluxe, which includes hardware to interface with both traditional analog and digital video hardware. Whether you're just getting started or have already made your first feature, Pinnacle Studio 8.0 won't disappoint.

Good support; tentative install
Installation is easy, but in our tests, it wasn't glitch-free. When we tried to install the second CD-ROM into Windows 2000, Studio 8.0 attempted to replace some key files that were already on the computer. If you ignore these warnings and just leave your files, the program works just fine. Still, Pinnacle ought to solve this problem (we called technical support, but they didn't return the call).

7.8

Pinnacle Studio 8.0

The Good

Easy-to-use interface; great documentation; DVD authoring is a snap.

The Bad

MPEG rendering and DVD burning take a long time; audio is limited to three tracks; no QuickTime import or export; relatively unstable.

The Bottom Line

Pinnacle Studio 8.0's easy-to-use interface and intuitive tools make it the ideal package for beginners. However, its slow encoding and limited number of audio tracks might frustrate some.

To Pinnacle's credit, the tech support and the documentation for Studio 8.0 boast the kind of detail usually reserved for products that have gone through many years of revisions. In the 258-page manual, you'll find well-written information on every niggling little feature in the program, as well as editing and DVD-creation tips. Pinnacle still provides free phone support for just the first 90 days, but you won't miss it much after that. The Web site, open all the time, is where you'll find extremely helpful user forums, FAQs, drivers, and software updates.

Familiar interface; new features
Like the original Studio, Pinnacle divides Studio 8.0's interface into three main parts: Capture, Edit, and Make A Movie. You can control any DV camcorder that's hooked up to your computer's FireWire interface from the Capture section. Here, you'll find two of our favorite features from the previous version: Smart Capture records video at a lower resolution, sacrificing video quality to save storage space; and Auto Scene Detection, which now lets you select and organize video clips by date, specific time (say, every 10 seconds), or video content, such as a change of scene. Studio 8.0 can handle digital or analog video, but you can import only AVI or MPEG digital video files. Unfortunately, the more flexible QuickTime gets the shaft.

Another bummer: While most DVD-authoring programs encode a single video stream--for example, the audio/video coming from a camcorder--Studio 8.0 encodes the DV footage to MPEG, then renders all of the transitions and mixes the audio from three tracks to stereo. Although MPEG encoding takes some time anyway, the whole process lasts about an hour longer than it should.

Fortunately for Pinnacle, Studio's editing tools make up for lost time. Studio 8.0 adds two new editing views, accessible from icons on the top of the Timeline view or as menu selections in the View menu. There's a Storyboard view, with icons arranged in a grid from top to bottom and transitions marked as symbols between icons, and a Traditional Cut list, which is a text description of each edit listed one cut after another. The Storyboard view works especially well for quickly assembling a rough cut of your video, then using the Timeline view to refine your edits.

Burn me, baby
In addition to smooth editing tools, Studio 8.0 now supports DVD authoring and, when used on a system with a DVD or CD-ROM burner, DVD and VideoCD burning. Similar to the DVD-authoring tools offered by Dazzle DVD Complete and Sonic Solutions MyDVD, Studio 8.0 uses 27 preset menu designs, which contain elements such as buttons and moving backgrounds that you can modify using the new Title Editor window. You can also create opening credits and name titles to play over your video. Just drag and drop to modify transitions or titles. For example, dragging a left-to-right Push transition to the beginning of the clip moves the title into position from left to right.

Most impressive, Studio 8.0 can create chapter settings within the timeline as you edit, so you can go straight to a specific point in your video from the menu. Move the Timeline Scrubber to the section of your video where you want a chapter setting, then right-click your mouse and select Insert Chapter Marker. Voilà! Studio 8.0 automatically places a small chapter marker in the timeline and adds a button to your DVD menu bearing an image of the spot where you placed the marker--a huge time-saver when creating a DVD menu from your video material.

It's a winner
With its improved video-editing features and new DVD-authoring capabilities, Studio 8.0 is clearly still the reigning champion of the low-end editing tools. Although Pinnacle needs to add QuickTime support, this program's elegance and simplicity make it the ideal video-editing program for beginners who want to do both video editing and DVD authoring.

Studio 8.0 now integrates DVD authoring and burning. Here, we create a DVD based on the media in the timeline and one of the 27 preset menu styles.