Pinnacle Studio HD Ultimate Collection v15 (PC)

Pinnacle have produced many versions over the years,(and i`ve used many)some stable,some not so ,but what you can say is the layout of the editing suite for serious hobbyists is very easy to use.The Studio 15 collection continues this easy to use tradition,as long as your computer meets the specification to the letter if you want to produce dvds or HD quality dvds.I make mine in the AVCHD FORMAT which produces superb quality when played back through a Blueray capable player.
My only criticism,would be there is no manual supplied and to find answers you have to use their PDF manual built into the program.
To sum up,if your considering this product,buy it, its brilliant ,but make sure every piece of your computers specification meets the requirement stated on the box,and if possible use a dedicated computer.,

I've tried quite a few video editing programs in my time, but on balance I like Pinnacle Studio the best. In the past, I've been disappointed when buying earlier versions of Pinnacle Studio because Pinnacle tend to market `cut-down' versions that are likely to leave you without some feature or other that you'll need at some time. (I know you can buy Pinnacle add-on packages, but doing that is only likely to leave you needing to buy yet another add-on package for some other feature that you'll decide you need at some time). My advice is, avoid disappointment and buy the Ultimate Collection version. It has just about everything that you're ever likely to need.

Some of the things I like about Pinnacle are the Montage themes (animations in which you can insert video clips and/or still photos), the `Scorefitter' background music that adjusts its length to exactly fit your video, very smart Hollywood FX transitions and scores and scores of audio and video effects (yes, I know that a lot of this stuff is going to make the video unwatchable, but for the appropriate video material and audience - e.g kids - you can make some great videos by using it).

When I first started using Pinnacle Ultimate Collection, I was a bit undecided about Pinnacle's use of keyframes. I thought perhaps that it was more restricted than in other video editing packages that I've used. In Premiere Elements, for instance, you have the ability to use keyframes for any function you wish. For example, you can rotate a still photo any number of times you specify while zooming the photo onto the screen at any zoom rate you want, or move a text box across the screen from any start point to any end point etc. Pinnacle, on the other hand, use a different approach in that you can only use keyframes with pre-designed video effects. But I was wrong, because among the video effects that you can apply keyframes to is `2-D Editor Advanced' which will allow you to do just the things I've mentioned, and more. Talking of effects, one of my favourites is the Ken Burns effect in which you can zoom in-out and pan a still photo to give you animated close-ups/scanning of any section of it.

One other thing; for anyone with any experience of using computer software, Studio is pretty intuitive to use. However, there are so many features and actions available on every screen, you are bound to overlook some of them unless you are already aware of them. My advice is, buy the user manual. It comprises 355 pages and costs less than 10% of the cost of the software. I'm sure you'll get at least 10% more use out of the software if you read the manual first.

And one last thing; as a previous reviewer said, make sure your hardware is up to the task. I use Studio on a laptop with a Intel Pentium quad-core i7 processor - no problems there, then. But on another laptop with a 2-core, 2.1GHz Pentium T6500 processor, 4Gb ram and 256 Mb video ram (the minimum video ram recommended for processing HD), it struggles a bit and very occasionally `hangs' because I carry on editing when the program is doing background rendering. So, if your hardware isn't up to the recommended specification, you'll have to be patient and let the program finishing processing before wanting to view the result - rendering in particular will take longer. That's another benefit of the user manual; it has a section on minimum hardware specs and tips on configuring the pc to avoid problems.

I am very pleased with Pinnacle Studio 15. It has certainly stopped me reading reviews of video editing software. I'm sure it will last me for many years.

Before I retired, I was a professional video editor, and the software I used was the InSync "Speed Razor", a brilliant program but went out of business a few years ago. I have tried a couple of editing software programs before Pinnacle Studio, but this program is very similar to Speed Razor and I am getting on very well with it.

I have still to discover many of the advantages of Pinnacle Studio, and it's like a new adventure. For the couple of problems I had in the early stages, these were quickly resolved through the Avid/Pinnacle support program.

I feel very confident that anyone trying this software will not be disappointed.

Ron Bailey.