home video editing

mary h

I am looking for lessons in video editing using pinnacle studio 14. want to make fairly basic dvds with stills, movies and music. want to record hd from canon 7d camera. Anyone in leinster area would be good.

stunt_penguin

Hi Mary,

if you're going to put time or money into lessons you should carefully consider using something like the very excellent Adobe Premiere elements. Pinnacle studio is a barely adequate way of making videos and your skills and time are much better invested in something like Premere Elements or even something like iMovie.

Apologies if I sound harsh, but you definitely won't get someone giving you lessons in Pinnacle.... it's just not a worthy piece of software.

mary h

Hi, Thanks for the advice. I have been trying to edit my home videos with very little success for about ten years. It seems every time I buy new software someone recommends something else. If I could get lessons and be sure it would work I would buy a good editing suite but I imagined it would be more for professional people. Any more advice on what to use and approx cost would be very much appreciated.

Splinters

Mary Ill second Premiere Elements. Its close enough to Premiere Pro (one of the more widely used and professional packages) so if you stick with Premiere Elements and learn how to get the most out if you'll have a very easy learning curve if you want to make the move to Premiere Pro. Im a Premiere Pro user and I love it, but if Im being honest quite a lot of what I do could be done just as easily with Elements. Think it goes for 70 or 80 euro so it wont break the bank. Another advnatage of it is thats its widely used you'll find a ton of tutorials and resources for it online (youtube tutorials etc). Hope thats some help anyway.

mary h

thanks for that Splinters, I'll look into it

Freddie59

stunt_penguin wrote: »

Hi Mary,

if you're going to put time or money into lessons you should carefully consider using something like the very excellent Adobe Premiere elements. Pinnacle studio is a barely adequate way of making videos and your skills and time are much better invested in something like Premere Elements or even something like iMovie.

Apologies if I sound harsh, but you definitely won't get someone giving you lessons in Pinnacle.... it's just not a worthy piece of software.

I can't agree. I would consider myself an experienced home video editor. I used Pinnacle Studio 9 from 2004-2010, prior to purchasing an iMac, which included Final Cut Express. I don't want to repeat myself Mary, so please have a look at THIS THREAD.

Far from being barely adequate, Pinnacle Studio is so user-friendly it's unbelievable. And that's where its strengths lie. No separate burning program. Dozens of fun transitions (FCE is extremely limited in this respect).
Capture stills from a video, etc. Moving chapter thumbnails. Titling. It's endless.

FCE is aimed at the enthusiasts. Pinnacle is tailored for the home user. FCE is not without its issues - particularly in the HD department. Just Google apple discussions and look at the FCE forum. You'll see what I mean.

And you'll need an iMac. Adobe? You'll also need a separate burning program. And this is where a LOT os issue occur. Have a look at this:

http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=6895

But, like any video program, you will need a PC with good specs. Separate 7200rpm drive for the video, lots of RAM, and a fast processor.

Pinnacle can freeze and crash - no two ways about it. FCE just works, but it is extremely basic. I haven't edited any HD yet, but I would gladly show you the ropes for video editing on Pinnacle. You won't look back.

Lastly, is the footage AVCHD or HDV? If it is AVCHD lots of PCs struggle when editing this format (Google it).

I hope that's of help to you.:)

Regards,

Freddie.

mary h

thanks for the advice. I'm getting more confused by the day but will have to choose one and go with it. It's the firs good word I've heard about pinnacle.

Freddie59

THIS ONE is also quite good Mary.

Pinnacle Studio 14 Customer reviews

adobe Premiere Elements 9 Customer Reviews

Cyberlink Power Director Ultra Customer Reviews

All of the above are taken from Amazon.com, where the reviewers pull no punches. They're normal people.

reece

There's usually tutorials for various aspects of the product on youtube. I started out on movie maker (crap), moved to premiere elements, then moved to premiere pro. haven't looked back.