Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Version 12
from: Pinnacle Systems
List Price: $209.24
Prices subject to change.
Your Price: $124.99
You Save: $84.25 (40%)Prices subject to change.
Average Rating: 
Sales Rank: 383
Sales Rank: 383
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Software : Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Version 12 |
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 Pinnacle Studio Ultimate version 12 lets you take advantage of the latest HD video editing technologies, including Blu-ray and AVCHD. |
 Choose from more than a hundred Look presets, all neatly organized into 10 categories, to help set the mood for everything from a wedding to a film festival winner. |
 Watch your memories come alive with Pinnacle Montage. |
 Native HD support means you'll get the same pristine quality from your original source all the way to final output--without transcoding and in real-time |
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Rating:  - * Nice package and easy setup. ... I've noticed there are reviews which have crucified the DV import features and our package came with a note from Pinnacle with an invitation to contact Pinnacle for any reason. Vista Business installation was easy and without hiccups and SP1 compatibility wasn't a question. Friends of ours brought their Sony CX-12 HDV cam and we exported the video from the memory stick using the Sony software functionality then loaded it easily into Studio. The number of effects are ridiculously enormous and gives you more options to stretch and transition frames and scenes in more combinations than most people will ever need. The really nice touch was the green fabric background screen included in the box, this helps the author shape special effects with greatest neutrality and seamless effects. Rating: - * Has alot of Variety in one box ... First off being a Machinema fan. Where you take movies outta your video games and put them together to make a story or something to put on youtube such as with spore creatures or the sims 2. I admit I was getting bored with the regular old Windows Movie maker there was just only so much you can do with that. this add spice to life so to speak. You can add all sorts of special effects to any movie including your home made movies from your digital camera etc. green sheet effect etc. There is even burning software within for dvds and stuff I like it better then my Nero Software for making custom menus etc. After playing around with this for a few days or so I already have determined that this is going ot be my new favorite movie making and dvd burning and labeling software. IT adds so much. IT can almost make a movie director outta anyone even amatures who dont' know what they're doing kind of a thing. Goes great too with making sims 2 movies :) which is what I thought would be fun bout it why I selected it outta the lineup on the newletter this month. I am a real fan of movies made from video game animation aka machinema. Anyhow give this a try its well worth the price thats on the box you get so much outta it . Its lots of fun and great for the creative person. Rating: - * What iMovie '08 Should Have Been ... Let me start off by saying that I'm a Mac guy and I do a lot of video. I generally work with Final Cut Pro but often drop into iMovie '08 for projects that need to be done quickly without the need for precision editing. After spending a few hours with Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12, I'm almost ready to boot my Mac into Windows for those tasks I'd normally edit on iMovie. PROS: 1. Awesome plugins: It's funny, but what I like best about the Studio Ultimate are the parts of it not made by Pinnacle! Included on a second CD are titling effects from Boris and professional-grade color correction from Magic Bullet. Magic Bullet adds a 'film look' to your video as well as a number of other color related effects. Everything renders quickly and looks great. Those two features alone usually cost several hundred bucks a piece (on top of the editing software), so their inclusion in the package certainly adds to its value. 2. Instant conversion from AVCHD. One of my complaints on the Mac side is that AVCHD video needs to be converted to an Apple codec prior to being edited. This usually adds a considerable amount of time to the workflow, as the video is 'ingested' at a rate usually double that of the length of the file (i.e. a ten minute clip takes twenty minutes to import). All Studio Ultimate needs is the drive letter for your card reader and the video is ready to be edited. Very cool. 3. Fast performance and mixed formats: Editing performance is very fast and responsive with fast render times too. Studio Ultimate also allows a mix of formats on the timeline. I tested editing a high definition AVCHD clip along with an included DV movie and all mixed together perfectly. 4. Green screen is included: Pinnacle even throws in a free green screen! It's large and can easily fit two people in front of it. A nice and thoughtful addition to the product. 5. Many export options: Outputting the video to something playable beyond the PC is very smartly implemented. Presets for basic exports (like YouTube and DVD) are available as well as fully customizable advanced settings into a variety of formats. 6. Multi-track video editing: Unlike iMovie '08 there are two video tracks that can be used for video overlays, etc. CONs 1. Slightly complex: The developers tried their best to keep it simple and organized, but there is some complexity involved with doing anything beyond the basics. It's nothing that's not impossible to learn, but there are a few layers of menuing necessary to accomplish some effects tasks (like chroma keying or using a plugin). Additionally, the plugins (like the magic bullet software) all have their own interfaces separate from the studio interface. They also don't install themselves automatically, so you'll need to insert the second disc on your own to get access to them. 2. File management is confusing: Studio Ultimate forgoes the standard Windows file management routines and adds a multi-paged navigation to find items on your hard disk. Not very efficient and sometimes difficult to navigate back to where you started. It would be much easier to find files based on the standard windows file open dialog. When I did import an AVCHD file, it did not show up on the 'my movies' option on the file navigation window. I'm not sure exactly where it ended up! 3. AVCHD import follows a different workflow: The developers spent a lot of time with three simple top level tabs: Capture, edit, and "make movie." Unfortunately bringing AVCHD video in does not follow that same convention. It would be nice to have the AVCHD import options in the same place as the DV/HDV imports. CONCLUSION: Video editing is a very complex task and many products have tried and failed to make the process fast and easy. Pinnacle Studio Ultimate is probably the best of breed for consumer video editing apps on any platform. It is a little more complex than iMovie on the Mac, but it also adds considerably more creative options that rival professional-grade applications. It will import footage from cameras as old as Digital 8 (and even VHS with added hardware) and mix that footage with the latest AVCHD offerings very efficiently. Overall Pinnacle has an impressive offering that I highly recommended to Windows users. This Mac user is just a tad bit jealous. Rating:  - * Definately not for a beginner ... Warnings before you buy this product: - not for amateurs in that it is not an intuitive product - to use the blu-ray features then you need to have a blu-ray burner, which in 2008 prices mean a $600 additional expense as most current computers do not come with blu-ray burners we found loading the software easy enough, but then we tried to load a HD movie from a panasonic pocket camera and we started having problems and errors alert. At first, the program did not recognize the format, but if you leave it running then the program renders the format into edit mode. Then to burn the dvd was relatively easy, pending on the speed of your computer. We use the idvid and imovie from Apple alot and found the former a lot more user friendly and sleaker than pinnacle product. In fact we found a lot of the available formats looked 'dated' in pinnacle - as much as 3 years ago. Pinnacle may have come up with an improved product, but it is still far behind from a slick format and functionalities. We believe this product would work for an advanced home user with a PC; any semi pro to pros would be using Apple and not this product. Rating:  - * A complete solution for all your home video editing needs ... Let me first start by saying that I have dabbled with Adobe Premier (another video editing software) and have been overly frustrated with the complexity of that software. When I had the chance to review Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate I was concerned that this product too might be a little too complex for the average home user. The installation went smooth on my Vista 64-bit machine and was up pulling in videos from my Sony HD Camera in no time. Here's a quick summary of what I experienced: PROS: - Intuitive user menus (everything seemed to have a logical flow to it) - Burning to a DVD was simple and didn't require any outside program (i.e. Nero, etc.) - I played around with the output to IPOD feature and although the resulting file size was pretty big, it did transfer to my IPOD CONS: - I found the included green sheet to be a little gimicky for a home user. I can't imagine anyone hanging a 5'x5' sheet to use the Chroma Key effects. Maybe in a school or something. - This program takes a beast of a machine to run. The requirements are pretty hefty. Make sure you have at least 3GB of RAM and a Core 2 Duo or Quad Core processor if you're even going to think about HD video editing. - Although expected with the "Ultimate" edition, there are more features and tools available than the average home user would ever possibly need. Some features border on advanced even for a full-time studio(i.e. Chroma Key and Vitascene) All in all, this is definitely a one-stop solution to HD video editing and I definitely think that it is much more intuitive and easier to use out of the box than Adobe Premier. |
Where the NBA Dynasty series (the other initial entry is the slightly meatier Los Angeles Lakers: The Complete History) outdoes Ultimate Jordan is in the six playoff games--one for each year--as they were originally broadcast, minus halftime and commercials. Having the nearly complete game (usually running 90-100 minutes, from the TV introductions to post-game interviews) means you can skip straight to John Paxson's clutch basket or what was expected to be the final shot of Jordan's career. Or you can savor each game in its entirety, all the better to appreciate the artistry of Jordan in his three-pointer barrage against Portland or his "flu game" against Utah. You can see other great players too, of course, including Jordan's teammates--Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Dennis Rodman--and those opponents unfortunate enough to face the Bulls--Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, Karl Malone, and others. Because these are all NBA Finals games, you won't see Jordan's shot over Craig Ehlo or his 63-point coming-out party against Boston, but the 1990s Chicago Bulls were a team for the ages, and merely having their games--some of them all-time classics--available for home viewing is a major milestone in archived sports. --David Horiuchi
While last-minute heroics tend to be the standard by which we define excellence, there are many other moments that have left an indelible impression, many of them highlighted here. The video clips fall into 10 categories: Dunks, Alley-oops, Assists, Steals, Blocks, Teamwork, the Clutch Shot, Moves, Hustle, and Buzzer-Beaters. At the beginning of each section is a brief introduction. Before showing the top 10 dunks of all time, for example, we learn about the evolution of the dunk--from the first slam to the man who could fly, Michael Jordan--and we hear background commentary from NBA legends such as Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Dr. J, and Bill Russell. This video recalls familiar moments of NBA lore that you will want to own for countless repeat viewings. --Jeremy Storey
