Saturday, December 24, 2005
Video Editing, update:
Quite by happenstance, I disovered that version 10 of Pinnacle Studio Plus will work on my computer, but if I upgrade to 10.1, which is what they strongly recommend, it no longer works. A case where an upgrade is a downgrade. Only Pinnacle.... I would suggest anybody working with this software, stop after the initial installation and try it out. If it works, then go on to install the upgrade. You "may" find that it ceases working, but at least you will know that you can de-install the whole works, and reinstall 10 alone.
Meanwhile the Adobe Premier world is an odd one. A super-expensive product that is not complete: to actually write DVD's, Adobe Premier 1.5 is insufficient. Adobe makes you buy Encore, another program, yet, to the tune of $200-300. Reviews for Encore are strongly mixed, more negative than positive actually. More to follow.
I'm beginning to wonder, as many have before me, whether there is ANY video editing program out there worth its salt which will actually do what it says and which doesn't drive you to the poor house. What's more, I'm finding that the reviews of the subject are notoriously inconsistent as well as strongly biased. As an example, Pinnacle continues to win editor's approval, but in the same review it is noted that "3 of 5 of our testers could not get the program to install on their computers."
Quite by happenstance, I disovered that version 10 of Pinnacle Studio Plus will work on my computer, but if I upgrade to 10.1, which is what they strongly recommend, it no longer works. A case where an upgrade is a downgrade. Only Pinnacle.... I would suggest anybody working with this software, stop after the initial installation and try it out. If it works, then go on to install the upgrade. You "may" find that it ceases working, but at least you will know that you can de-install the whole works, and reinstall 10 alone.
Meanwhile the Adobe Premier world is an odd one. A super-expensive product that is not complete: to actually write DVD's, Adobe Premier 1.5 is insufficient. Adobe makes you buy Encore, another program, yet, to the tune of $200-300. Reviews for Encore are strongly mixed, more negative than positive actually. More to follow.
I'm beginning to wonder, as many have before me, whether there is ANY video editing program out there worth its salt which will actually do what it says and which doesn't drive you to the poor house. What's more, I'm finding that the reviews of the subject are notoriously inconsistent as well as strongly biased. As an example, Pinnacle continues to win editor's approval, but in the same review it is noted that "3 of 5 of our testers could not get the program to install on their computers."
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Video Editing Not So Smooth....
The reviewers and most users HATE Pinnacle software---so buggy and error-prone as to drive a saint to drink. Most home video editors are driven to profanity. I was a lucky one: up to version 9.4 I was able to use Pinnacle Studio Plus and in general it did what it promised without crashing. Thinking that I was born lucky---or smart---(both wrong, as it turns out), I updated to version 10. The lesson here is "Leave well enough alone." All the promised woes materialized when I tried to run 10. It's never made a movie, even a short one. Their upgrades fail to recognize that I've even installed the program on my computer! (And that's when it's actually there and RUNNING!). To say it's a disaster is a mild call. To add salt to my wounds, after buying their "upgrade" I see on various sites that the price to pay for the same thing, when bought as an original (not an upgrade) is less than I had to pay for the upgrade. If there is a way to alienate even the most loyal user, surely this is it.
With my "upgrade" I purchase an analog-to-digital convertor, in order to make DVD's from some valuable old VHS tapes I've had around for years. It took every machination I could contrive to finally make this work, and WAY too many hours to convert even my first little segment. After days of effort, I produced one usable DVD. The second one looked good, until I tried to play it: then I realized that the video and audio were not synchronized, which is apparently the most common problem of these sort of devices.
This final fiasco has convinced me that I should abandon Pinnacle altogether. I feel ripped off. Adobe will get my money, though I'm not sure I have enough horsepower to run it well. This will be a later report.
The reviewers and most users HATE Pinnacle software---so buggy and error-prone as to drive a saint to drink. Most home video editors are driven to profanity. I was a lucky one: up to version 9.4 I was able to use Pinnacle Studio Plus and in general it did what it promised without crashing. Thinking that I was born lucky---or smart---(both wrong, as it turns out), I updated to version 10. The lesson here is "Leave well enough alone." All the promised woes materialized when I tried to run 10. It's never made a movie, even a short one. Their upgrades fail to recognize that I've even installed the program on my computer! (And that's when it's actually there and RUNNING!). To say it's a disaster is a mild call. To add salt to my wounds, after buying their "upgrade" I see on various sites that the price to pay for the same thing, when bought as an original (not an upgrade) is less than I had to pay for the upgrade. If there is a way to alienate even the most loyal user, surely this is it.
With my "upgrade" I purchase an analog-to-digital convertor, in order to make DVD's from some valuable old VHS tapes I've had around for years. It took every machination I could contrive to finally make this work, and WAY too many hours to convert even my first little segment. After days of effort, I produced one usable DVD. The second one looked good, until I tried to play it: then I realized that the video and audio were not synchronized, which is apparently the most common problem of these sort of devices.
This final fiasco has convinced me that I should abandon Pinnacle altogether. I feel ripped off. Adobe will get my money, though I'm not sure I have enough horsepower to run it well. This will be a later report.
