Pinnacle Studio 7.0 video editing software

Although it may take days and perhaps weeks to become truly proficient--as indicated by the program's 300-page user's manual--Pinnacle Studio should have you tweaking your footage within minutes. Its intuitive and extremely polished interface, generous help section, slick tutorial, and massive online FAQ section are superb rookie aids. Unfortunately, you'll be far better off asking specific support questions via e-mail than through the company's telephone support lines, where hold times can be very long indeed.

Pinnacle Studio has been designed to look both elegant and visually appealing. It is divided into three main areas--Capture, Edit, and Make Movie. To upload a video, merely click the Start Capture command in the Capture interface. Control your video device by clicking various buttons on the program's large camcorder icon, and formulate edits on a large filmstrip spread across the bottom of the Edit screen. Pinnacle has smartly hidden secondary functions in pop-up windows to keep the screen uncluttered and easy to navigate.

The program offers several perks not found in other budget editors. When a video is uploaded, it automatically deciphers each new scene and creates a corresponding thumbnail image that may then be drag-and-dropped to any position on the filmstrip. Screen transitions can be drag-and-dropped, too, as can titles and sound effects such as music or voice-overs. If you want to deviate from the prefabricated special effects, Pinnacle Studio allows you to modify or create your own from scratch. For pinpoint edits, you'll want to access the timeline view, wherein you'll see an exacting second-by-second account of every video frame and every special effect you've added. Furthermore, the program helps conserve valuable hard drive space by converting your full DV-quality video to a more economical format for editing purposes, then reconverting it back to DV quality for the final product.

Veteran moviemakers may find some of the program's special effects rather basic, but anyone new to video editing will undoubtedly have a blast turning their home-grown movies into dynamic works of art, saving them in any number of video formats, and perhaps even sharing them at the Pinnacle Web site.--Gordon Goble, Amazon.com

Having captured from a digital camcorder using Studio 7's "full quality capture" and then having edited using Studio 7, I was very disappointed with the final rendered quality. After burning to CD the result was like a fifth or sixth generation copy. I tried different codecs but with no better success.

I understood the strong point of digital was quality retention, i.e. that the quality produced by the camera will pass through all processes unhindered, but I was wrong. With Studio 7 it seems that capture, editing, and rendering all take their toll and overall there is a massive reduction.

Sorry, but this is not a product I can recommend for people who are serious about their home movies.


Studio 7 - Blakes 7   July 30, 2002
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Whilst Pinnacle S7 appears to be very nice, the gliches are often infuriating. The online manuals are fine for knowing how to use the product, but often have found several errors not referred to in the manaul and the internet support can be a little annoying....case of circles being round.Indeed,I've had to fork out 500 to upgrade my PC despite meeting Manufacturers specs>Still not completely happy, although basic operation is fine, more complex use of 3dfx are not.Overall good software product, just a shame support/technical supprt not so. You get what you pay for with this.


Pinnacle Studio 7, for the serious editor?   July 20, 2002
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Having used Pinnacle Express for a while I decided to treat myself to something slightly better, and I thought I'd give Studio 7 a go... The delivery from Amazon was excellent, full marks for service, came in a day. The program loaded itself without problems and ran first time without trouble, occasional bugs mean restarting the computer to get things right. Studio 7 is very much like Express in ease of use and is very intuitive to use, in half an hour I was working on the video project without any worries. Unlike Express, this program allows you to add titles and music pretty much where you like with all the fades and transitions in place to suit the video. Pinnacle also provide a hard copy user manual with Studio 7, definitely a plus. I would recommend it to more serious editors wanting more professional results, there are better editors on the market though, but at much more money. I think I will be using it for a while yet.....


The best budget editor   July 30, 2002
Doug (Northants United Kingdom)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Pinnacle's Studio 7 is the best editor for the home movie maker. I have tried Ulead's VideoStudio 6 and MGI's Videowave 5 and as you would expect most of the essential features are present in all of these products. However, Studio 7 scores far above its competitors in at least two respects, firstly, the easy with which the various components of the production, including the original audio track, can be assembled and edited using the timeline edit interface. Whilst this sort of interface is common to all video editors Pinnacle version is both simple to use and allows unrestricted cutting and splicing of all the elements. Secondly, and probably the most useful feature, is the ability to preview in real-time all the edits and effects that have been created without the need to render first. This avoids time consuming delays and makes the creation of home movies a continous and enjoyable process rather than a stop start business.

I would recommend this product to any would be home movie maker.