Some might consider this a bargain.......


FRYS.com*|*PINNACLE (http://www.frys.com/product/5640541)


Note that this promotion apparently only runs for one day, today, December 30th. Also note that this is NOT the full Ultimate version, but supposedly does allow AVCHD editing.

Yes this does allow AVCHD editing. This is the "plus" version which edits HD and AVCHD, has a second video track for overlay's and effects, and probably gives more real "bang for the buck" than a lot of other NLE's, it being quite fully featured.

For AVCHD 1920x1080 17Mbps video editing a quad core running at 2.66Ghz as a bare minimum is required.

I have the Ultimate version but have not installed the Ultimate plug ins so essentially I am running the "plus" version offered in this sale.

This is without doubt the most tempermental pinnacle studio software yet,its fine for me when it works ok[rare]the problems are it often crashes during rendering,the rendered film can have an echo efect on it,to be fair it is with hdv that i get the most trouble with it avchd disc render is far more successful but it can not do window menus on dvds avchd or bd discs which is why i edit hdv films with pinnacle then capture them on my laptops click to dvd bd software for disc creation.

Martyn,

I have had all sorts of problems with the "Ultimate" version of this product, and made the original comment above that "Some might consider this a bargain for -$.01" since I found this program to be extremely unreliable also.

Having spent over $100 for it, and having had my complaint comments deleted by Pinnacle from their forum, I can only say that I personally would never buy it again, not even for a single penny. If they offered a free download, I wouldn't waste my disk space or time downloading it...

Larry

I feel kinda like some sort of outsider freak here when I say that I have not had too much of a problem with Pinnacle 12. Perhaps I am tempting fate by stating this fact, but as of now, I have only had Pinnacle 12 crash on me but once, with no loss of data. It may be that I purchased the one copy that actually works (knock on wood), or maybe it was the beta test model that somehow got out or escaped from the labs into general circulation. Whatever the reason, my copy of this program works pretty well, so far. Oh no, I probably just jinxed myself!
Oh well, as Larry has pointed out (and which I also believe), Pinnacle does not produce quite as nice a final product as a couple of other NLEs do, as far as PQ is concerned. But it is pretty close. It is however, very easy to work with and has lots of features.
I will now cower in the corner of the room for fear of having had just condemed myself to endless crashes with Pinnacle.

Your most humble servant,
mike

Mike,

Opinion regarding Pinnacle Studio seems sharply divided based on the research I have done, with strong advocates and harsh critcs. Many people use it very happily and succesfully, and my comments are hardly 'fair and balanced' since my personal experience has been so very negative.

I must say that I do find the Pinnacle method of menu creation to be extremely odd, and one which differs entirely from essentially every other NLE I have ever used. The fact that it also frequently crashes when I insert or revise menus on the timeline adds to my general frustration.

Given the pedigree and ownership of this program by Avid, a hugely established video editing force for many years, I expect it to be a lot better, so I am especially harsh when it fails to do basic things like run in a stable manner without crashing. My complaints are, to many happy users, very inconsistent with their own observations, so the bottom line is that your mileage most certainly will vary. I am quite certain the some hardware and software installations are much more fussy than others, and another system might prove to be very stable with their software.

I too am retired Mike and have plenty of free time to play with these programs, compare them, and use them in a variety of ways. Perhaps I may be pushing them too hard and not giving them a fair audience.

Larry

Hi Larry. I agree with you. Although I have had three versions of Pinnacle, they have all behaved differently. Why do I stick with Pinnacle? My son, who works for BB, seems to think since I have had it in the past, I must like it, and therefore he gets me the latest version for my birthday. Thats OK with me, since I get a chance to use the newest versions and see if/how they have improved. Besides, having worked with Pinnacle for so long, I have grown very used to its features, tools, and workflow.

As for other NLEs, I value your experience, and would like to be kept up to date on any and all future products that you learn of and try. My budget is happy if I keep the costs below $150.00 on these programs. Until any other newer programs reach the market, I may just try the Corel again. I liked its workflow and features better than that of Nero (although I am getting used to Nero).

Hope you and everyone else have a great New Years.

Mike

Pinnacle downmixes Camcorder 5.1 sound to stereo which is a bit of a downer. Adobe premiere Elements cannot output AVCHD disks, only HD to real bluray burners. ULead VS still has issues when effects/transitions are included on AVCHD clips. Sony Vegas Moviestudio Platinum/Pro doesn't smart render and cannot produce menus on AVCHD disks.

Just ordered Cyberlink Power Director Ultimate which is very cheap at Amazon atm, to see what's wrong with that one!

One day, there will be an economical product that does everything properly...
I think the nearest so far, for me, is the Sony product, since I'm not bothered about menus on disks that only last 30mins or so.

Mike (Lewis),

Power Director 7 Ultimate suffers from a bug in the Smart Render which prevents total Smart Rendering of AVCHD under some circumstances. It also has a buggy menu designer which can be overcome with using a non-intuitive sequence of steps. It is mostly easy to use, stable, and produces very nice AVCHD disks.

Nero and Corel both make low cost and high quality AVCHD editing and authoring software, and these have been discussed extensively in aother thread here:

Burning AVCH Disks Please Help!! - The Digital Video Information Network (http://www.dvinfo.net//conf/showthread.php?t=130759)

Although it is lengthy, it contains a lot of comparison information.

And to both Mikes: Happy New Year!

Larry

Martyn,

I have had all sorts of problems with the "Ultimate" version of this product, and made the original comment above that "Some might consider this a bargain for -$.01" since I found this program to be extremely unreliable also.

Having spent over $100 for it, and having had my complaint comments deleted by Pinnacle from their forum, I can only say that I personally would never buy it again, not even for a single penny. If they offered a free download, I wouldn't waste my disk space or time downloading it...

Larry
Larry To be fair it has yet to crash while disc rendering dvd avchd or bd but unless i am missing something it does not do window menus,which is why i use my vaios built in software for discs,it is tape editing and rendering that plays up for me .
But as i have said for converting avchd to hdv it has proved great.

Not quite sure what you mean Martyn when you refer to 'window menus'? The Ultimate version of Pinnnacle allows the creation of standard navigation menues on the AVCHD disk which permit such things as chapter selection. Perhaps this is only a feature in the Ultimate version?

Just ordered Cyberlink Power Director Ultimate which is very cheap at Amazon atm, to see what's wrong with that one!


When you get it and install, before doing anything else be sure to go to DVD Player Software, Video Editing, DVD Burner, Blu-ray Player and DVD Decoder - CyberLink (http://www.cyberlink.com) and download the patch to the latest build. 2227c is the latest I know of and has "stomped" a lot of the "undocumented features" we refer to as bugs.

You were smart buying a retail version from an Amazon associated Vendor, you get the "box" version with a pretty good manual. The "build" is usually an older one, though and will really need updating before you attempt to use it because sometimes the updated patched version may not read project files you were working on in a previous "build" version (this is not uncommon with NLE's)

The website also has a pretty good forum for mutual support as long as we're nice. Register and take advantage of it.

PD7 has a different interface that on one hand is somewhat familiar but can seem a bit odd at times. It is quite a bit less demanding of computer resources and I am able to smoothly edit 1920x1080 17Mbps on a computer Pinnacle feels is a tad slow.

I think if you have the patience to deal with the learning curve you will find it eminently usable. The first thing that threw me was not being able to find a "fade to black" transition. The "fade" is a dissolve but used in conjuntion with color blocks also works as fade to "color". Things like that!

Youtube has a cyberlink power director channel with many video tutorials in place which really help. I did the one on titles and the one on creating a HDD file for playback on an HDD camcorder.

I use both Pinnacle Studio 12 and CyberLink PowerDirector 7 Ultra.

Mike (Lewis),

Power Director 7 Ultimate suffers from a bug in the Smart Render which prevents total Smart Rendering of AVCHD under some circumstances. It also has a buggy menu designer which can be overcome with using a non-intuitive sequence of steps. It is mostly easy to use, stable, and produces very nice AVCHD disks.

Nero and Corel both make low cost and high quality AVCHD editing and authoring software, and these have been discussed extensively in aother thread here:

Burning AVCH Disks Please Help!! - The Digital Video Information Network (http://www.dvinfo.net//conf/showthread.php?t=130759)

Although it is lengthy, it contains a lot of comparison information.

And to both Mikes: Happy New Year!

Larry

I do have an inbuilt prejudice against Nero for the reasons others have mentioned (taking over so many aspects of one's previously tidy PC) and Corel is the Ulead VS product that has a spasmodically buggy AVCHD stream when intershot transitions are added.
But we'll get there!

Thanks Bruce for the reminder about the patches for Power Director.

Best regards and an excellent and productive New Year to all!

Not quite sure what you mean Martyn when you refer to 'window menus'? The Ultimate version of Pinnnacle allows the creation of standard navigation menues on the AVCHD disk which permit such things as chapter selection. Perhaps this is only a feature in the Ultimate version?
The vaio software does menus with picture thumbnails Larry,i can only make avchd or bd disc from hdv converted avchd with my pinnacle 12 ultimate as my quad core pc does not want to know as far as editing avchd cam footage goes,i was not aware 12 ultimate did navigation menus with chaptor selection,not that i have tried.

Martyn,

Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate does indeed allow you to create navigation menus with chapter selection. The fact that it is not obvious is reflective of one of my earlier complaints of this product. The capability is there but it takes some work to figure out how to mae it function. And, in my case at least, this menu creation function is one of the most fragile and unstable areas of the program, causing it to literally crash more than occasionally when I make menus. Your mileage may vary.

Larry

Martyn,

Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate does indeed allow you to create navigation menus with chapter selection. The fact that it is not obvious is reflective of one of my earlier complaints of this product. The capability is there but it takes some work to figure out how to mae it function. And, in my case at least, this menu creation function is one of the most fragile and unstable areas of the program, causing it to literally crash more than occasionally when I make menus. Your mileage may vary.

Larry
Yes i did not realise the navigation menus were there,but i gave up after countless crashes as soon as the dvd renders started.

It is just so amazing to me that others are able to use Pinnacle without complaints since I have found it to be terribly unstable.

The fact that a product is in its 12th version and still has basic problems which cause it to crash often is inexcusable, and I would have never bought it if a trial version had been available.

Of all the dozen or more companies who make video editng software, I have left comments on their forums and exchanged helpful advice and opinions, and only 2 of them have very systematically deleted any complaints regarding their products, in most cases deleting entire threads with other people expressing the same complaints: Magix and Pinnacle.

Guess which ones I will NEVER buy again......

Larry