First impressions of the home NLE (Non-Linear Editing) software from Pinnacle are quite impressive.  The box boasts features which you’d expect to see on more expensive software, such as automatic scene detection, Picture-in Picture, key-frameable real time effects, and the ability to import HD footage. 

Opening the application from the Studio Launcher is a real time saver, eliminating the need to search through the applications in the programme menu.  The application interface is equally intuitive, with a handy ‘album’ layout to organise and access all your captured footage, audio and effects.  Thumbnails and instant previews on a single mouse click put the media at your fingertips for ease of use.  In fact the whole interface has been designed to make the home editor’s tools as simple to use as possible, leaving the focus on the creative process, not the technology. 

This ‘album’ approach differs from professional NLE software, because it acts more like a browser, instead of importing only the clips you wish to use in Adobe Premier Pro or Avid Xpress Pro, for example.  The downside of this is you have to search through the entire contents of a folder in your album each time, rather than a refined selection.  Fine if you only have a few clips in that folder, but a real pain if you have hundreds of uncle Fred’s holiday pics to sift through. 

As far as effects and plug-ins go, you’ll find a comprehensive range of 2D video transitions, sound FX, Title style sheets, DVD menu templates and previews of optional extras you can buy through direct links to the website.  A few of the included features have to be activated over the internet before use, which is a little irritating. 

In keeping with the ease of use throughout the software, the capture window connected effortlessly with my Sony PD170 DV camera via the firewire port.  The camera controls for playback of footage were basic but adequate, with the option of cueing forward and back, fast forwarding and rewinding, and frame advance.  One possible drawback was not being able to read timecode from the DV source tape, which can be useful when logging the footage to capture.  Having said that, the counter could be used as a reference, providing the source tape had been rewound before logging clips. 

Rather impressive is the ability to capture DV footage as MPEG directly, and mix MPEG and DV footage on the timeline. Crucially you can change the drive and folder location for your captured footage.  As a general rule it’s a good idea to keep your media on a separate drive from the operating system to avoid conflicts with disk usage and competition for system resources.

The disk capacity indicator provides a clear visual indication of disk usage, with the estimated remaining hours, minutes and frames available on the target drive, updated as footage is captured.

Creating a sequence couldn’t be simpler.  By dragging the clips you want from the album onto the timeline you can quickly build up a basic edit, with a music track, sound effects and titles.  By default all items (with the exception of the music track) automatically snap to the previous edit, leaving no gaps.  This means that the video keeps in synch with the music track, but you have the option to leave gaps when you need to perform an insert edit. A likely application would be to replace the video only, leaving the audio intact.  A nice feature is the way tracks will fill only the available gap in the timeline, so you can’t over-write the next track by mistake.

There are several ways to quickly navigate sources and edits.  By using the player scrubber in the player window, standard playback controls, or using the position indicator in the timeline.  By accident I also discovered you can use the standard J,K,L keyboard shortcuts for variable speed playback, as you would in many editing applications, a valuable tool.

Rendering of clips and effects will continue in the background, which should allow you to continue editing while it builds the previews.  Although while testing there were some issues with effects not rendering correctly.  This could be down to hardware or configuration problems. The Undo feature with multiple steps works well, but for some reason won’t undo effects, which have to be deleted manually.

DVD creation is where the software gives value for money because you don’t need any additional encoding or DVD authoring applications, you can create and then burn a complete DVD with menus direct from the timeline.  This is something you might expect from a more expensive software bundle.

Creating a DVD this way, is a piece of cake!  Using the title tool (including a good range of included title styles), clicking the menu icon.  You then add a suitable background image, drop in the buttons from those available, save as a menu, and hey-presto, one DVD menu!  To create chapters you simply right-click on the scene in the timeline and click ‘set as chapter’.  That’s the longer way; you could just choose one of the handy menu templates, edit with your own text to very quickly create a professional looking DVD.

You should also be able to create sub-menus, although despite the help file mentioning how they had linked their example menu to a sub-menu, it wasn’t apparent how they achieved this.

Overall Pinnacle’s Studio Plus version 10 Titanium is excellent value for money as an NLE for the home editor, despite a few minor points.  Using a comprehensive range of supplied templates and effects it should be quick and easy to create professional looking home DVDs, or video to playback on various output media, including portable devices. Priced at £63 it represents excellent value for money.

Review by - Tim Lewis

Published - 28/04/2006

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