Pinnacle Studio 12 Hits the Streets

The number one consumer video editing software, Pinnacle Studio has been enhanced with a new range of features and capabilities to meet the needs of first time and advanced videographers. The new Pinnacle Studio 12 includes more than 25 new features and more than a dozen capabilities requested by present users. The new version includes Pinnacle Montage, an innovative tool that puts high-end compositing and animation effects in the hands of consumers. It also includes more titles, DVD menus and templates as well as professional audio/video controls and a complete high definition workflow capabilities with Blu-ray authoring in the advanced versions of Studio 12.

Certified for Windows Vista, the Pinnacle Studio version 12 family consists of three affordably priced versions to meet the needs of consumers ranging from novices to dedicated video enthusiasts. In addition to Pinnacle Studio, the basic version, Pinnacle offers Studio Plus and Studio Ultimate with more advanced audio and video tools, including a complete HD workflow.

“The video editing market isn’t just growing vertically, it’s growing horizontally,” said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research (JPR), a leading market research firm based in Tiburon, Calif. “New markets have emerged led by casual and younger users who simply want to quickly edit their videos and post them to the Web, women who have become the designated memory keepers in the family, and the growing number of folks over 50 who are becoming video hobbyists. The people in these new markets don’t want to deal with a complicated application; they just want the fun of quickly creating videos that are entertaining. Clearly, Pinnacle Systems’ customer-driven approach has helped it unlock opportunities in these emerging markets.”

The company paid special attention in the development of Studio 12 to meet the needs of family memory keepers, mothers who wanted an easy solution to creative family movies in the blink of an eye. The new Montage system incorporated into Studio 12 allows users to quickly and easily select from a wide range of creative templates and rapidly produce a professional looking family moments/memories video with outstanding titles, transitions and special effects.

To meet the needs of millenial users who want to create web videos, the software provides all of the tools and capabilities to develop spectacular movies and instantly upload them to video sites such as YouTube, Yahoo! Video and MySpace. For people who want to experiment with the entire video post production process and prepare/upload content to video sharing sites such as YouTube, the company introduced a free solution earlier this year at www.videospin.com.

Already used by more than one million users worldwide, VideoSpin leverages Pinnacle Studio’s editing engine and makes the editing process virtually foolproof. A no-risk solution for people who don’t want to spend time turning video clips into movies, VideoSpin helps you create entertaining videos in minutes.

More than a video editing solution, the VideoSpin application also makes it amazingly easy to upload videos directly to popular Web sites like YouTube or Yahoo! Video.

The VideoSpin site also includes a complete, interactive tutorial on how VideoSpin makes it fast, easy and fun to create movies at www.videospin.com. The tutorial guides you through every step of the movie-making process and makes using the VideoSpin album, timeline and preview components exceptionally easy to understand. For video enthusiasts who have recently purchased one of the new HD or AVCHD camcorders, Studio 12 gives them a jumpstart on their video editing experience by enabling them to do 1-2-3 type easy production and then get more involved with the advanced professional type capabilities and tools.

Pinnacle Montage is a completely new feature that makes it easy to achieve high-end results with multiple video layers, animated text and graphics. It includes more than 11 pre-defined themes with over 80 single templates. In addition, version 12 offers marker tools for the timeline. The company has expanded format compatibility to include photo import in Photoshop’s native PSD as well as GIF format. The new export options, allow users can create MP3, Flash Video, WAV and 3GP files or upload files direct to YouTube.

In the development of Studio 12, Pinnacle polled existing users to determine what features, capabilities or enhancements they would like to see in the product. Based on these inputs, the company added advanced capabilities for audio, with numerical audio volume, master volume controls, a timeline VU meter and track peak indicators. Convenience features include the ability to reference images in the album and direct crop control to automatically remove black bars of a video or image.

The new version also offers improved effects performance on lower-end PCs, advanced 2D editing, the ability to rotate effects and new content for titles and DVD menus. A number of “of course” features have been added to Studio 12 such as direct access to specific file pages, image or video cropping to eliminate “black bars” and pausing during the exporting process if drive space needs to be cleaned. It also incorporates an audio alert when a file is being made or burned to disc and the process is complete. Users can also configure the PC for auto-shutdown when the video file exporting or disc burning process is completed.

One of the first firms to to offer native HDV and AVCHD editing software, Pinnacle Systems Studio 12 Plus and Ultimate includes new Blu-ray disc burning capabilities in BD-MV with motion menus. AVCHD 1920 and support for various HD camcorder types including JVC full HD, Canon Vixia, Sanyo Xacti have also been added.

Designed for the most serious video enthusiasts, Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate also includes a green sheet for Chroma Key (weather reporter) effects. Despite its consumer level price, Studio 12 integrates three of the industry’s most highly acclaimed professional video tools:

• ProDAD Vitascene (a $399 value) – a complete library of highly customizable transitions and lighting effects. The effects include film looks, blurs, glows, sparkles, and glass effects. Transitions include film effects, ripples, wipes, sparkle and starburst dissolves, and many others.
  
• Red Giant Software Magic Bullet Looks (a $399 value) – a powerful tool for adjusting tone, color and focus to simulate the appearance of classic films or specific production conditions. Offers more than 100 simple-to-apply presets to match common looks found in television programs, commercials, and motion pictures.
  
• Boris Graffiti(a $299 value) – the 2D/3D vector title animation plug-in that includes text on a path, jitter, randomization, independent vector text, advanced type-on title animation and automated rolls, crawls, fades and zooms. Comes with hundreds of presets to streamline title creation.
  

Designed for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista systems, the Pinnacle Studio 12 family includes Pinnacle Studio, as well as Pinnacle Studio Plus and Pinnacle Studio Ultimate with full HD support. MSRPs are US$49.99, $99.99 and $129.99, respectively.

The Pinnacle Studio 12 family is available now for pre-orders at the Pinnacle Systems estore and will be at e-tail and retail stores later this month. Upgrades from all of the previous Pinnacle Studio versions to version 12 are available from the Pinnacle Systems website – www.pinnaclesys.com - with prices ranging from $69.99 (upgrade to Pinnacle Studio Plus) to $99.99 (upgrade to Pinnacle Studio Ultimate).

• Email this page
• Printer-friendly version