Studio 9 Plus

With the wide choice video editing packages on the market it can be quite difficult to select the right one. It is always a balance between features that you want or need, the amount of time you have learning a program and the amount of money you want to spend. In this sequel of three articles, Robbiebee introduces three packages that are in the medium to high end of video editing. The first one is Pinnacle's Studio 9 Plus.

• Part 1: Studio 9 plus (this article)
• Part 2: Premiere Elements
• Part 3: Liquid Edition
  

Introduction

Studio 9 plus is much more capable than the previous Studio 8 software, but it retains its user friendly approach. If you like a “point and shoot” approach, you can have it, but there is plenty of scope to delve a bit deeper . The interface has 3 main windows, all using graphical representations, but that does not interfere with the functionality of the program, as it sometimes does with other entry level programs.

Capturing

Capturing via Firewire gives full control of the camcorder, but analogue capture, via a movie box or through a miniDV camcorder’s analogue inputs of course requires manual control. One feature which I have never needed to use is the ability to capture at a reduced resolution and edit with that, saving hard drive space. The program then recaptures just what it needs when outputting to your chosen format. This relies on the time code on the tape.

Captures for me have been flawless via Firewire. Analogue via a moviebox worked for me with Studio 8, but I haven’t tried it yet with 9 plus. After capture, scenes are automatically detected and the clips stored in an album for editing with the 1st frame of every clip used as a picon. You can also choose not to split into scenes, or split later. Automatic scene detection makes quick editing of a tape extremely fast, and that is one of my main uses for this program Studio also allows you to control the signal coming in from analogue tape, adjusting for brightness, contrast hue, saturation and audio levels before or during capture.

Editing

Editing is simple and straightforward, using either story board , timeline or list views. Most people would use the timeline. There are now 2 video tracks, plus a title track, original sound and 2 other sound tracks. It is possible to do insert editing, and to edit the video and audio of a clip separately. Chromakeying is now available, as is picture in picture (PIP). The PIP can be placed in various places on the screen, resized, but not tilted or rotated. A very wide variety of transitions and video effects are provided as standard, but more are shown and become available if an unlocking key is purchased.

Trimming of clips is either done with the razor tool dragging the edge of the clip in the timeline or most precisely by using the Modify Clip tool, which allows frame accurate trimming, and viewing the precise clip. You can not see a frame by frame view in the timeline, only a full clip view. One good feature is that right clicking on the monitor window gives the option of a full screen view of the clip or movie.

Two of my most my popular features

Recording voiceovers. You record directly onto the time line, and can do this in small chunks, editing the sound and deleting as you go. This is how I do voiceovers even for use in Edition – I just open up a fused file of the Edition work, lay down the voiceover and then edit further if necessary in an audio editor, then take it back to Edition to mix with the rest of the audio, though I do take it to an audio editor to tweak as well if I think it needs it.

SmartSound. This is a plug-in which lets you tailor music clips to exactly match video clips, with a beginning and an end. The provided sounds are OK if used appropriately, but you can purchase a wide variety of additional CDs with other styles. It was available with the version of Premiere 6 that I have but it was not as well integrated. A separate review of SmartSound can be found elsewhere on this site.

Outputting the final movie

Once the editing is finished you progress to the Make Movie section, where there is a choice of things to do with it. It can go back out to tape [VHS or miniDV], be saved as an AVI or MPEG, e-mailed, saved as a Windows Media File or Real Video file, or authored as disc for playback as DVD, SVCD or VCD. You can also share your movies over the internet by uploading them to the Pinnacle website..The flyball movie available here (5MB) was edited and then sent out straight from the timeline as a Windows Media File – there is a choice of qualities depending on who you are aiming your video at.

Encoding quality

I like to make videos about agility, a very fast dog sport, where the background, the dog and the camera are all moving quite fast, and in the past, I have found it difficult to get good quality DVD output with a variety of programs, including TMPGenc, Ulead, MyDVD, Premiere 6.1. Studio 8 was no exception. Parts looked as if shot under water. Check out the Agility video (30MB) which was edited in Edition and encoded in Windows Media encoder. The bits which have come out badly in the WMV version are the bits which are also hard to encode to DVD. I have just encoded the same video with Studio 9 plus and also with the new Premiere Elements, as a comparison, as both are in a similar price range. The end results were very similar, both a vast improvement on their predecessors and quite watchable.

Authoring

The authoring process is intuitive, with a large choice of menu styles and backgrounds. Once a menu template has been selected, chapters are easily dropped on the timeline, either automatically or manually. As picons are placed at the start of each clip, it is very simple to locate the beginning of each scene. If you prefer to create your own menu design from scratch, or modify the template, that is possible too with Studio. For normal video, I have been very happy with the encoding, and always found the process quite hassle free.

Conclusions

Studio 9 plus is the ideal entry program for anyone who intends to ultimately progress to Liquid Edition, a professional editing program, as its projects can be directly incorporated into LE, and to some extent the way of working can be developed to accommodate LE’s much more difficult methods.

Overall, I like Studio, and personally have found it stable on my computers, and I find it justifies its place in my video editing toolkit. I can do very quick edits, and projects and files are directly transferable to Edition for the more advanced work. However, it does have a reputation for being very picky about the hardware it runs on. I think it is outstanding for features and usability, but if anyone is considering purchasing it, I would strongly advise going to the support section on the Pinnacle Systems site and checking the compatibility lists to see if there are likely to be any problems with any of your components. There are also extensive FAQ files, and user forums, though do be aware that people are more likely to bother posting complaints than posting if they are satisfied and just getting on with editing.