Using Pinnacle Studio 8

I just finished (at 4 this morning) my first major project using Pinnacle Systems Studio 8 editing tool and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. The occasion was our annual Network World Holiday Video where just about the entire staff wishes each other a “happy holidays” on camera. I ended up with 111 different scenes stitched together to create the nearly 11 minute video. The video was shot in and around the office the past few weeks using a Canon XL1 DV camera. Studio easily sucked in all the tape and used the time codes to dice it up into different scenes. I used the storyboard feature to get a rough layout of all the clips then went into timeline editing to cut things down to the right lengths and add transitions. Another nice features was the CD Audio tool that lets you pull in background music direct from a CD. The only real negative is there’s only one video track, so adding B-roll over another clip while keeping the original audio is a pain at best. I heard there’s a new version coming out early next year, so maybe they’ll be an extra video track to make life easier. Overall though, Pinnacle Studio is an excellent editing tool and well worth the $99 (MSRP) price.

Bonus: Here’s a clip from the video that I like to call “Luddite Santa”. (Windows Media Player, 300k)