Pinnacle Edition 5 Review
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Professional Video Editing Software
Pinnacle Edition 5 [technical
specifications] is a big step up from Pinnacle Edition DV
and is the first major software package for Pinnacle. (The
previous version was just something they acquired in their
corporate expansion). Pinnacle have a lot of eggs in the Edition
5 basket. They plan to introduce a new full version every 12
months and a ".5" version in between. So expect 5.5,
6.0, 6.5 etc in due course.
Talk on the street is that Pinnacle are pulling out of
manufacturing real time video editing cards altogether. It
appears they are going to continue to invest their efforts into
developing just software products for the video editing market.
Perhaps they are counting on the fact that PCs are getting
faster and faster to dispense with the need for any dedicated
hardware to do the real time rendering. But it's a half-way
house at the moment. Pinnacle Edition 5 itself is a pure
software package but they are bundling it with an ATI chipset
graphics card (the old ATI Radeon 8500 with came in
All-In-Wonder versions) under the product name of Pinnacle
Edition Pro i.e. Pinnacle Edition 5 + ATI Radeon 8500
chipset card = Pinnacle
Edition Pro
Major Advantages:
InstantSave - Mirror (RAID 1) type data security without the
extra cost of RAID. Pinnacle Edition 5 keeps saving your data as
you work so should your PC crash on you the theory is that you
won't lose the last 15 hours worth of work. (It works well)
Convenient DVD authoring-from-the-timeline facility. This
saves a lot of switching between applications, or playing the
MPEG2 and then returning to the editing package to make changes.
It's also very easy to use.
Integration with the graphics card allows you to do some of
the rendering on the graphics card itself rather than relying
completely on the PC's processor. There are advantages to using
the wider bandwidth of the graphics card, but this
"feature" also adds some complication to some
otherwise simple tasks.
Pre-emptive Rendering: Unlike Premiere and others Pinnacle's
Edition 5 renders your transition in the background after you've
previewed and configured an effect, thus saving time when you
want to output your project.
Highly configurable workspace and nice clear user interface.
The increase in maximum resolution you can Pinnacle Edition 5 to
is now 1600 x 1200 allowing you to see a lot more of the
interface.
The capture tool is much better and now allows capture by
time code & also open ended capture with scene detection
alongside manual logging and manual capture.
Major Disadvantages:
Slick DVD Authoring from the Timeline but the integrated DVD authoring
capabilities are fairly limited for a "Professional" Video Editing
package.
Steep learning curve. Don't let the manual fall off the shelf, it could cause
some serious damage. The "abbreviated" manual is a couple of hundred
pages in size. But the Quick Reference Card is a handy feature.
No AC3 encoding, no facilities to create or input Dolby Digital quality
sound.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Comparison
of Premiere Pro vs Pinnacle Edition
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