Pinnacle Studio Ultimate V14 | 
| From: Pinnacle Systems
List Price: $99.99
Buy New: $84.99
as of 3/19/2010 08:24 CDT details
You Save: $15.00 (15%)
New (20) Used (3) from $66.75
Seller: Malachite
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 445
Format: CD-ROM
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
Media: CD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Windows Vista
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 8 x 2
MPN: 82101006331
Model: 82101006331
UPC: 613570225669
EAN: 0613570225669
ASIN: B002NN2WK8
Release Date: October 15, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | Transform your videos and photos into amazing movies | | • | Capture, edit and burn: The complete native HD solution | | • | NEW theme-based editing gives you created power | | • | Share and archive your creation on DVD, YouTube, and more |
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Get ready to go viral when you share your screen sensations with the world in widescreen format, the way they're meant to be seen. The Pinnacle Studio Ultimate V14 Software has the power of a professional editor with easy at-your-fingertips. Allowing you to add Hollywood-style animations and transitions with over 80 Montage Themes and share straight to Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD, YouTube, the web, MP3 sound files and more. Tell your story with clear high-definition video, stunning effects, polished transitions and animation, all backed with incredible Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and technology from Avid.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
 No USB support in 14 March 7, 2010
Alvin L. Nunley
I used an older version for years, but found that with this version you need a fire wire port to down load videos. Sad to say, but my Sony miniDV nor my brand new Lenov computer have fire wire ports and the program makers will do nothing about it. I can down load stills, but for video it's no help at all.
What really makes me mad is no where in the box, in the manual or in the teaching videos does it tell you this.
Comprehensive Review of the top 7 video editing software titles March 5, 2010
C. Helm (USA)
Sorry about the formatting, Amazon is removing all my spaces when I publish even though it looks fine in the editor.
Computer Specs:
Intel Core2 Duo @ 1.86 GHz
2 GB RAM
256 MB Video
32 bit
Windows Vista
My test:
Added 2 videos.
Added image stabilization to one
3D transition between them.
Rendered the project.
AVCHD in and MPG2 out (both in full HD, 1920*1440, Dolby 5.1 if available)
Video length 4 minutes and 20 seconds.
Overall Review:
***** Corel Video Studio Pro X3
***** Cyberlink PowerDirector 8
*** Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro Plus 9
**1/2 Adobe Premiere Elements 8
** Magix Edit Pro 15
* Roxio Creator 2010
* Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 14
Package Options:
My reviews are against the top versions of each product line. You will find that most of the differences between the top versions and the base are Blu-ray export options, and some add some extra sound options. See for yourself the option that suits you at the manufacturer's website in their respective product comparison guides.
Windows 7:
All seemed to work for me in windows 7, 64 bit with 4 GB RAM. I didn't do any tests with it b/c I wanted to use an older machine that would come closer to representing the average computer. This includes Roxio 2009, but not 2010 for reasons stated below.
Final Opinion:
If you want something super easy to use, then I would go with Cyberlink PowerDirector 8. If you want something with a bit more power that you can grow into, I would go with Corel Video Studio Pro X3. Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro plus 9 may very well be good, but I see no reason to purchase it with the power of the Corel package.
If you are a masochist, go with Adobe, Magix, Roxio, or Pinnacle.
DETAILS:
Adobe Premiere Elements 8
65 min render time
Pros:
You can search effects
Layout was good but not great
Interface was pretty straightforward
Cons:
Virtually locked my system
Slow and temporarily froze frequently
Output menu was cumbersome
Corel Video Studio Pro X3
19 min render time
Pros:
Great Output menu
Very fast
Easy to use user interface
Proxy editing*
Autofit for timeline
Cons:
No search function for effects
Cyberlink PowerDirector 8
30 min render time
Pros:
Output menu was nice
Very nice and easy to use layout
Cons:
No Blu-ray output
Magix Edit Pro 15
41 min Render time
Pros:
Simple
Cons:
Poor user interface
Oversimplified (Too simple I think for most people)
Very Cumbersome to use and add effects
Output options were confusing and cumbersome
Extremely limited options for PC output (which is what many will be doing)
A couple of lock ups
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 14
Pros:
Nice little finished project to see what can be done
Nice interface for editing
Cons:
ONLY SOFTWARE that I was not able to import a video
Locked up my system many times and left errant process running at 80% CPU
Took 50 seconds just to load the import video TAB
When I selected videos to import and hit start import, absolutely nothing happened
Tried one of their movies and went to help to find stabilization and it crashed on me b/c I didn't have enough memory
No Blu-ray output
Cons on install on windows 7 computer:
Failure on export of file on all formats
I actually tried Pinnacle about 10 years ago and had absolutely nothing but problems. Spent many days downloading patches just to get it to work. Then, like a moron, I did an entire project and when I went to burn it, the burn failed every time. I see a decade later, I still can't export a file.
Roxio Creator 2010
Pros:
-----
Cons:
They don't allow a trial download. I contacted them asking them if I could download a trial and even noted that I was a current customer. I personally like the 2009 Roxio. It was a nice "all-purpose" program. They told me that I had to buy it. I was offered a money back guarantee, but to do so, I had to send in a letter of destruction. This is way too much effort on my end to see if your software works for me.
I find it ridiculous in this day and age that you can't have a trial version of something, especially when EVERY ONE of your competitors does. In addition, this is how they were treating an existing customer!
You throw in all the compatibility issues that can occur in software in general and video software in particular, and that leaves me to think they have nothing to hide.
As icing on the cake, the following sentence was in their reply.
"Creator 2010 does support AVCHD software and hasn't been know to have any issues thus far!"
I replied to them about this OUTRIGHT LIE! First, you can read the compatibility issues on Amazon. Second, as a person that writes programs, there is no such thing as bug free software, especially video editing software.
Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro Plus 9
14 minute render time (NO ANTI-SHAKE IN RENDER, see below)
Pros:
Computer stayed pretty responsive during render
Savable packages of effects
How to guide is nice
Cons:
Couldn't search effects
Very, very cumbersome to use
Couldn't find stabilization
The render time approximation stayed at around 1 minute or 2 left the entire time
Here is my issue with Sony Vegas. I have compared its features with many of the other programs and they are all very similar. Now, when compared with Corel Video Studio Pro X3 and Cyberlink PowerDirector, they are virtually identical. I personally think Sony leaves their software cumbersome so that it "looks/seems" more powerful.
I was definitely most disappointed in this product because it was the one that I was looking the most forward to using. When I say that it is cumbersome to use, it doesn't mean that it can't be used. Let me give an example. I am a programmer, and in something like excel, I like the ability to write my own code to create functions and tools that it doesn't offer or to tweak ones that it does. HOWEVER, when I want to enter numbers in boxes, I just want to enter numbers in boxes. I don't want to click in a box, go to a menu or right click, select some gadget and then enter a number. It is ok for complicated things to be complicated, but simple things should not only be simple, but also INTUITIVE.
The main thing that I saw that you could do in Sony Vegas that you couldn't do in the others is change your transitions (both audio and video) ramp as far as how quickly they come in and go out. I am not talking about changing the time, but how your out video accelerates out and how you in video accelerates in during that time. It is a cool feature, but something that 99% of people will only not use, but won't care about either.
Another thing, the image stabilizer should be easy to do, and it may be. However, I did a search in help for stabilize, stabilizer, sta, shake, anti, etc. and could not find out how to do this very simple thing. This worries me greatly that if this isn't readily available in the help docs, then much of the other stuff probably isn't either.
*A note on proxy editing.
Proxy editing is basically you working on a very low def version of your file, but when it comes time to actually render your output, the original file is used. Some view this as a crutch because they say you should be able to optimize the software to work with the high def video. My opinion is that if I can work faster, then I will work faster. Who cares what my resolution is while I am editing. If you have the fastest software out there for HD, and you can do your edits in very low def and it is even faster still, then why would you not want that?
Worst video editing with major bug infestation February 26, 2010
Video User
Studio Ultimate v14.
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs:
1. Very hard to create even a simple movie. Each time adjusting transitions between clips they eat out more and more of the clips themselves (when reducing the transition duration).
2. Unpredictable behavior when adjusting the duration of a clip. Sometimes it does not allow adjusting the size by changing the digits in the box, but allows only via dragging sliders.
2. Bugs that were added in v9.5 are still in v14 -- encoding of certain clips hangs for unknown reasons, which is it does not progress, does not allow to cancel, and consumes full CPU.
3. When it was unable to open clips referenced by the project file, it automatically created "My Movie" empty content and replaced what I had before without asking. It happened when I was switching back and forth between two projects. Obviously, it has also problems with releasing the files on closing. Later, I found that Studio at least saved the previous project by moving, and not telling me, to who knows what directory.
4. Calculation of available disk space when making DVD is completely incorrect. The movie that was estimated 5min over the limit on 4.7GB DVD was generated as 3.6GB - more than 10min under the limit. And deleting 5min clip from the movie somehow _increases_ the "occupied size" by 3min.
5. When encoding the movie slider indicating encoding position goes way beyond the last clip of the movie, thus it takes a lot of unjustified time to make a movie.
6. High requirements for available disk space (does not take into account removal of its own already pre-rendered stuff). When it reported not enough space to create a movie, I had to manually delete using Explorer the "render" folder in order for the movie to be generated, and there is plenty more space was left after the movie was generated.
7. Audio adjustments do not work when using clips of different formats like MPEG2 and AVI in the same movie. Moreover, when disabling the whole audio track, disable works only on MPEG2 clips, but sound from AVI clips stays unaffected.
8. Serious quality degradation of the video even at output quality 100% level.
9. Menus shifting pictures back and forth when editing clips.
It seems to me that there was not done enough testing to make this product usable. Pinnacle tech support, please fix the above bugs and post the software update.
 I tried five others before settling on this one February 19, 2010
Anthony R. Cianci (Malvern, PA USA)
I am taking the time to write this review because I read many reviews on Amazon before selecting Pinnacle Ultimate for my usage. I hope this helps someone.
First the background: I have a Canon HF10 and I mostly take videos of my kids playing rock music in shows, gigs, concerts. The lighting is typically not great, but the AVCHD video produced by this camera is amazing and I watch it at home in hi-def on a 60 inch screen playing through a Playstation 3 unit. The Imagemixer software that came with the camera is much maligned, but it does a decent job of allowing you to pull together DVD's, convert clips to .mov for uploading to YouTube, etc. But the rendering times, editing capabilities, etc are bad.
So, I was determined to find software that could read native AVCDH files, import them easily from my hard drive, do some basic editing (mostly clipping them down--I am not much into affects at this point) and produce regular and Blu Ray DVD's with decent menus and titles. Not too difficult, but every review I read on all the software ranged from mediocre to horrible. I must also say that as part of this process I was moving to a Win7 64 bit HP Pavillion Elite HPE 180t with an Intel core i7 2.67ghz processor and 12 gig of RAM--I know, a monster machine, but I was tired of waiting hours for the rendering of a DVD.
I downloaded the trial version of Pinnacle Ultimate and so far so good. I watched a few short videos on their website and within a couple of hours I had imported a concert that comprised of 10 video clips, added menus and was burning DVD's. The initial rendering for 50 minute DVD took about 20 minutes, and each subsequent copy can be burned in about three minutes. I have not gotten into anything fancy yet (for example: I have a Blue Ray burner, but the costs of those disks are still pretty steep and I have not had a request from anyone yet to burn one...since I watch on the PS3 I have no need for them at home).
Bottom line: easy to install, import AVCHD files, and create DVD's in a fast efficient manner. I look forward to having time to play with effects and other features of the software, but so far I am very pleased with this application. It works for all the above functions and with the above OS and hardware--which is much better than I can say for the others I tried like Nero, Cyberlink, etc.
 Great AVCHD handling, effects quality, and speed January 11, 2010
Morimoto (Greenwich, CT, United States)
Great software for consumer AVCHD editing on a PC.
My friend has been an actor in NYC for 10 years and regularly produces his own digital material. He helped me shoot some test 1080/30p test greenscreen footage in my garage studio and was he blown away at the speed results. The overlay was flawless and rendered very quickly - he said After Effects would have never been able to achieve that quality of overlay.
Pinnacle has special background rendering which allows you to get working with AVCHD files instantly while it background renders. The result is a little bumpy but keeps you productive right off the bat.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
|
|
|
|
