Studio 8

Studio 8 is a video editing product created by Pinnacle Systems

Contents

Review

by Allen Pilgrim

INTRO

    Studio 8 is simply the easiest video editing software to use on the market. With the addition of Hollywood FX Pro this package is hard to beat.

FEATURES

    SmartSound music creation is one of my favorite features. From the first version of Studio that I used I found this to be a valuable resource. Regardless of the style or length of your clip there is almost certainly something that will make your final project more impressive. The styles that come with it range from Classical, Country, Jazz, Pop, Rock, as well as Hot and Spicy. There are also a number of variations for each of the Styles. You can also purchase more music directly from SmartSound.

CAPTURE

    The capture feature is how you get your video footage from your camcorder to your computer. The method I use is to connect my Sony DCR-TRV720 directly via a FireWire cable to the FireWire card. You can choose whether you want to capture in DV full-quality, MPEG full-quality, or Preview-quality.

    I prefer the DV full-quality. In my opinion there is simply no reason to capture in MPEG. The main reason is that you would be capturing to a greatly compressed format. This causes a certain amount of degradation in the video quality.

    One of the benefits of the Preview-quality mode is that it only takes about 200MB of hard drive space for an hour of video. However, it is in a very poor quality. Once you do all your editing you will need to put in your original tapes so it can find and capture only the clips used in your project. This is time-consuming and increases the wear and tear on your camcorder heads. Drive space is cheap so just buy a bigger capture drive.

EDITING

    The editing capability is truly the greatest strength of Studio 8.

PROBLEMS/BUGS

  There are a number of "known bugs" with Studio 8. The reason I put "known bugs" in quotes is because they are not acknowledged by Pinnacle but they are known to those of us who use the software. Keep in mind that not all people experience these bugs. Here are the ones I know of (as posted by users on the Pinnacle webboard):

    1) Studio closes during rendering with no warning and no error message

    2) Titles end up in the wrong places on the timeline

    3) Red screens appear in the render although the photos show on the timeline

    4) Sometimes can not change duration of titles or graphics

    5) Music added to one project shows up in another (mixes them up)

    6) Music can't be added from CD...must exit and re-enter the program constantly

    7) Renders and re-renders and re-renders in a constant loop...at random

    8) Hangs when changing font selection

FEATURE REQUESTS

    Here you will find a list of the top feature requests that people would like to see in the next version of Studio. They are not necessarily in any order but I will try and put the most requested items near the top:

    1) More video tracks. Most people would like to see at least one more video track; more if possible.

    2) Support for higher resolutions. With larger monitors and many people switching to flat panels there is a desire for resolutions higher than 1024x768 (currently the largest supported by Studio). This one baffles me since this is standard in virtually every software package I've ever used, including every other video editing software.

    3) Ability to get the time and date code for use in video projects.

    While there are many more features people would like to see these are at the top of the list. E-mail us if you have other ideas.

BOTTOM LINE

    Studio 8 is a versatile video editing package that rivals many packages costing a great deal more. Although in its current form it is not as robust as I would like it is still the one I use almost exclusively. Studio 8 is a product that I recommend. If you are serious about video editing I would also recommend getting Hollywood FX Pro. With these 2 products you can do virtually anything you can imagine.

Back to Top

Main Screen

Storyboard View

    The Storyboard View is used to quickly edit your movie. Each scene is represented by showing the first frame of the clip regardless of length. The transitions are shown between each of the clips. You can easily drag a transition between two clips.

Timeline View

    The Timeline View is a more advanced method of editing your video. Clips are represented based on their actual length. This view also gives you the ability to lock the audio track independently of the video track. You can also lock other tracks. This view allows easy access to all of the various audio tracks. This is the preferred view for most editing.

Text View

    The Text View can be used for a couple of reasons. This view gives the exact details of the clip. For example you can see when a clip starts and how long the clip is. It also gives you a name for the clip to aid in organization. The Text View is also helpful to help track down problems in your video. You can also copy everything in the Text View and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet.

Back to Top

DVD Authoring

DVD Menus

DVD Main

DVD Edit

Back to Top

Special Features

Videos

Transitions

Titles

Photos

Sound Effects

Back to Top

Special Effects

Mystical Journey

These are just ideas and you are encouraged to experiment with other options.

Start with your favorite clip. Select the video toolbox

Next select the Vary Playback Speed button

Change the Speed to 3.0x

Set the Strobe to 2

Select the Adjust Color or Add Visual Effects button

Adjust the Hue

Adjust the Saturation. Try a number like 11 for a different effect

Set the Brightness

Set the Contrast

Add a little Blur

Next add your favorite sound effect for this type of video clip. Add a Fade In at the beginning and a Fade Out at the end. Make other changes as desired and then choose Make Movie.

Old Fashioned Movie

Choose Sepia as the Color Type

Set the Blur to 1

Set Strobe to 2

Back to Top

Patches / BETAs

I'm changing my mind about the current patch. Why? Three reasons:

1) Audio dropouts. I just watched a tape that I did and throughout there were audio dropouts.
2) Video glitches. There were some spots where the video started shaking and stuttering. I did not notice this during editing.
3) Extreme slowness during editing. At first I thought there was another explanation and did not attribute it to Studio. Now I'm sure that this version has some serious problems. I will be going back to 8.5.21 tonight. Hopefully I will be able to output my current project without any problems.

If you are experiencing any difficulty with the latest patch try this to see if it resolves your problems. It's also available here.

So far this seems like a good BETA. Pinnacle is getting closer to a new official release with this one.

I do not recommend this BETA as there are so many flaws in it. Click on the above link to go to the BETA download site which explains what issues are addressed in this version. Keep checking back for information on new versions.

Back to Top

Links

Check here for the latest add-ons to Studio 8.

This is a well-designed web site covering Pinnacle's Studio 8. In the words of the creator, Paul Spee, "This is my personal notebook of exploring Studio 8 and as I go along I will be adding my explorations. While I started on the first page, I will be adding new material so please be sure to drop by." I have added this to the top of my hot list because it is so well done and contains a lot of great information.

Back to Top

Copyright Visual Appeal ©2008
Last revised: March 29, 2008