Using Pinnacle Studio 10 to make a DVD and or file....

I captured the footage but have a question regarding making a DVD. What has worked best for you when making a DVD using Pinnacle?

1. Rendering directly to a DVD? If so, did you render directly to the DVD disk or to a file first?

2. If rendering in Pinnacle to a "file" and then using Nero Express to burn a DVD (not data DVD) What file format did you render it too AVI, mpeg 2, mpeg 4 etc. so that it will play across most DVD players?


I'm been having a little trouble and think it might be my computer. If you can tell me the settings you used it would help.

Thank you.

PS My thought is to render the video to a "FILE" for DVD authoring but then open Nero Express to do the burn to DVD. I tried using the Pinnacle direct to DVD twice today but the computer seemed to do nothing but hiccup part of the way making the video speed up a bit into chipmunk sounding effects when I played the final DVD.

One other thing to add, I have an external hard drive. I have the render files and aux. files now going to folders on the external hard drive. Is it best to do this or should the aux. files stay on the computer and final render files on external hard drive. What's the best way or does it matter?

Lisa,

Pinnacle Studio 10 was the "buggiest" version they ever had. I don't know if that has any bearing on your problem but with version 10 they rewrote the program around the Liquid Edition "engine" and I found out very quickly that my single core computer couldn't "cut it" any more.

It got better on a dual core machine but things like menus "broken" and other problems I can't remember kept happening. To finish projects I had to build my own menus. They started issuing updates and things settled down somewhat with 10.7.

11 and 12 ran MUCH better.

Here is a link to Pinnacle support and downloads for Studio 10. I recommend you first download and install the 10.7 Release Update, the Menu Template Pack for 10.7 and then if you are running Vista go for the 10.8 update (but do not run this without installing 10.7 and the menu template pack for 10.7 first.

If your computer has a quad core processor 2.66Ghz or faster consider going for version 12 plus or ultimate or version 14. Available reasonably priced at amazon.com.

I've run every version from StudioDV and 7 through 12, now running 12.1

Link: Pinnacle Systems - Product Support - Studio version 10 - Download Area - Drivers - Updates (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+version+10+Support/Download+Area/Drivers+-+Updates?mode=documents)

Good luck

Hi Lisa,

My memory of producing DVD's with Pinnacle Studio 10 and 11 are as follows.

1. Render your project to a DVD ISO file.
2. Now use Pinnacle + DVD ISO file to burn a DVD. The reason to NOT use Nero at this stage is Nero rarely likes the ISO files that Pinnacle produces. Also, do not burn at the fastest possible speed - it maximizes unreliability if you do. Slow and steady wins the race.
3. Now use Nero to rip/create a ISO file from your DVD. This ISO file will be your master for creating subsequent DVD's and archive.

My method for creating that DVD ISO file in Nero:
1. Put your DVD in a drive.
2. Tell Nero you want to copy the DVD from/to the same drive.
3. Obviously you want to tell Nero where to put and name the ISO file.
4. When Nero is done reading the DVD and creating the ISO file, it will tell you to put in a blank disk. You want to use this pause in the programs flow to browse to where the new DVD ISO file is, right click the newly created DVD ISO file, select Properties, check Read-Only, click either Apply or OK.
5. Now cancel the Nero Copy operation. If you didn't make the file Read-Only, Nero would now auto-delete it. Making it Read-Only prevents the file from going away.

I have studio 12 and if its anything like studio ten, there is no need to render to a file first. Simply go to "Make Movie", then click on create disc. Then click on dvd. You wil then see a dropdown box whcih will ask you about the quality of the disc that you want to create. Chose the option that says "Best Quality". From there simply hit create. If you get a message that says that there is to much video to fit on the disk, simly go back to the drop down box and click automatic quality. The system will base the quality on the amount of video that you are trying to put on the disc. You can put about an hour of hd footage on a dvd and get excellent quality. I'm not sure how much sd footage can fit on since I only shoot in hd. Let me know if you have any other questions.