Avid Studio 19.0 User guide

Pinnacle Studio

™

19 User Guide

Including Pinnacle Studio™ Plus and

Pinnacle Studio™ Ultimate

Contents i

Contents

Before you start. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Abbreviations and conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Buttons, menus, dialog boxes and windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Help and Tooltips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Finding your version information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Upgrading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Chapter 1: Using Pinnacle Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Importer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Exporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The central tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The next step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

The Movie Editor and the Disc Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

The media editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Pinnacle Studio Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Chapter 2: The Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Adding assets to a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Correcting media files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Instant gratification: SmartMovie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Understanding the Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

The Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Project Bins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

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Favorites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Managing Library assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

The Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Thumbnails and details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Optional indicators and controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

The Library preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Choosing what to display in the Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Correcting media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Video scene detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

SmartMovie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

The compact Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Previewing in the project editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

The Project Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

The timeline toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

The timeline track header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Editing Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Title Editor, ScoreFitter, voice-over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Deleting clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Clip operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Using the Clipboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Movies within movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Clip effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Clip context menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Chapter 4: Corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Media editing overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Contents iii

Photo editing tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Correcting photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Red-eye. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Correcting video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Video tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Video corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Stabilize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Correcting audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Chapter 5: Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Effects in the media editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Effects on the timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

The Settings panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Working with keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Video and photo effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Working with transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Pan-and-zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Chapter 6: Montage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

The Montage section of the Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Using montage templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Montage clips on the timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Anatomy of a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Montage editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Using the Montage Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Chapter 7: The Title Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Launching (and leaving) the Title Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

The Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

The Presets Selector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Preset Looks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

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Preset Motions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Creating and editing titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Background settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Look settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

The Edit window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Text and text settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Titles and stereoscopic 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

The Layer List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Working with the Layer List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Working with layer groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Chapter 8: Sound and music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

The Audio Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Audio corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Audio effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Audio on the timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Timeline audio functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Audio creation tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

ScoreFitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

The Voice-over tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Using Audio Ducking to automatically adjust volume . . . . . . . . 264

Chapter 9: Disc projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Disc menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Adding disc menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Previewing disc menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Menu editing on the timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Timeline menu markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Authoring tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

The Chapter Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

The Menu Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Contents v

Menu buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

The Disc Simulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Chapter 10: The Importer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Using the Importer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Importer panels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

The Import To panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

The Mode panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

The Compression Options window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

The Scene Detection Options window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

The Metadata panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

The Filename panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Selecting assets for import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Selecting files for Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Customizing the browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Adjusting the import file date and time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Scan for assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Import from DV or HDV camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Import from analog sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Import from DVD or Blu-ray Disc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Import from digital cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Stop motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Chapter 11: The Exporter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Output to disc or memory card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Output to file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Output to cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Output to a device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Output to a MyDVD file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

vi Pinnacle Studio

Chapter 12: Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Watchfolders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Audio device. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Event logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Export and Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Project settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Storage locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Restore purchase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Chapter 13: Screen capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Starting a screen capture project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Recording your screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Chapter 14: Multi-Camera Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

The Multi-Camera Editor workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Basic steps in multi-camera editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Importing video and audio clips into the Multi-Camera Editor . . 380

Synchronizing video and audio clips in multi-camera projects . . 381

Choosing an audio source for your multi-camera project . . . . . . 382

Editing multiple clips to create a multi-camera compilation . . . . 384

Adding picture-in-picture (PIP) in the Multi-Camera Editor. . . . . 387

Managing multi-camera source files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Saving and exporting your multi-camera project . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Using Smart Proxy for a faster, smoother editing experience . . . 390

Appendix A: Troubleshooting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Contacting support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Contents vii

Top support issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Capture hardware compatibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Serial number information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Error or crash while installing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Hangs or crashes while launching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Troubleshooting software crashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

Case 1: Studio crashes randomly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Case 2: Studio crashes after a user action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Case 3: Studio crashes repeatably . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Export problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Disc playback problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Appendix B: Videography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Creating a shooting plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Rules of thumb for video editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Soundtrack production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Appendix C: Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Appendix D: Keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

General shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

Playing and transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Importer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Movie interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Media editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Title Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Appendix E: The installation manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Before you begin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

viii Pinnacle Studio

Upgrade Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Launching the Installation Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Supporting installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

The Welcome Screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Common controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Installing plugs-ins and bonus content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

System requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

Before you start 1

Before you start

Thank you for purchasing Pinnacle Studio™19. We hope you enjoy

using the software.

If you have not used Pinnacle Studio before, we recommend that you

k

eep the user guide handy for reference even if you don’t actually read

it all the way through.

In order to ensure that your movie-making experience gets off on the

r

ight foot, please review the topics.

Note: Not all features described in the user guide are included

in all versions of Pinnacle Studio. For more information, please

visit www.pinnaclesys.com and click Compare.

Abbreviations and conventions

This guide uses the following conventions to help organize the

material.

Common terms

AVCHD: A video data format used by some high-definition

camcorders, and for creating DVD discs that can be read on Blu-ray

players. Successful editing of AVCHD files requires more computing

power than other formats supported by Pinnacle Studio.

DV: This term refers to DV and Digital8 camcorders, VCRs and tapes.

2 Pinnacle Studio User Guide

HDV: A ‘high-definition video’ format that allows video in frame sizes

of 1280x720 or 1440x1080 to be recorded in MPEG-2 format on DV

media.

1394: The term ‘1394’ applies to OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394,

FireWire, DV or i.LINK interfaces, ports and cables.

Analog: The term ‘analog’ applies to 8mm, Hi8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C or

SVHS-C camcorders, VCRs and tapes, and to Composite/RCA and S-

Video cables and connectors.

Buttons, menus, dialog boxes and windows

Names of buttons, menus and related user interface items are written

in bold to distinguish them from the surrounding text.

Choosing menu commands

The right arrowhead symbol (>) denotes the path for hierarchical

menu items. For example:

• Select File > Burn Disc Image.

Context menus

A ‘context menu’ is a pop-up list of commands that appears when you

click with the right mouse-button on certain areas of the application

interface. Depending where you click, a context menu may pertain

either to an editable object (like a clip on an editing timeline), to a

window, or to a zone such as a control panel. Once open, context

menus behave just like the ones on the main menu bar.

Context menus are available in most pa

rts of the Pinnacle Studio

interface. Our documentation generally takes for granted that you

know how to open and use them.

Before you start 3

Mouse clicks

When a mouse click is required, the default is always a left-click unless

otherwise specified, or unless the click is to open a context menu:

Right-click and select

Title Editor

. (Or, one might say, “Select

Title Editor

from the context menu.”)

Key names

Key names are spelled with an initial capital and are underlined. A plus

sign denotes a key combination. For example:

Press

Ctrl+A to select all the clips on the Timeline.

Please refer to

Appendix D: Keyboard shortcuts

for a comprehensive

table of available shortcuts.

Help and Tooltips

Immediate help is available while you are working in Pinnacle Studio

via the Help menu.

Help

The Help menu lets you access a variety of learning resources. Click the

Help button > User Manual to access the Learning Center page with

links t

o video tutorials, the Pinnacle Studio 19 User Guide PDF, and

oth

er community and support links.

Video tutorials

You can access video tutorials from the Learning Center page (Help >

User Manual) or by visiting the following sites directly:

4 Pinnacle Studio User Guide

• YouTube — http://www.youtube.com/user/pinnaclestudiolife

• StudioBacklot.tv — http://www.studiobacklot.tv/studio19

Get a 30-day, all-access pass to StudioB

acklot.tv, featuring brand-

new Pinnacle Studio 19 content, loads of other training and a

royalty-free stock library. (Training is in English only.)

Tool tips

To find out what a button or other Studio control does, pause your

mouse pointer over it. A ‘tool tip’ pops up to explain the control’s

function.

Finding your version information

Whether you are considering upgrading your software or looking for

support, it’s good to know your version information. To check the

version of Pinnacle Studio that you have, click the Help button >

About.

Upgrading

There are different versions of Pinnacle Studio and features vary

depending on the version you have. For more information, please visit

www.pinnaclesys.com and click Compare.

For information about upgrading your softwar

e, click the Help

button > Online Offers & News > Software Offers.

Chapter 1: Using Pinnacle Studio 5

Chapter 1: Using Pinnacle Studio

For a simple outline of the digital movie-making process, you don’t

have to look any further than the central tab group of Pinnacle Studio’s

main

window. The same steps apply to any type of production, from

an unpretentious slideshow with dissolves between each frame to a 3D

extravaganza containing hundreds of carefully-arranged clips and

effects.

Pinnacle Studio’s main control bar summarizes the movie-

making process.

The Importer

Import on the right, is a preparatory step. It involves procedures like

‘capturing’ video from your analog or DV camcorder, bringing in

photos from a digital camera, and copying media files to your local

hard drive from a network location.

The Pinnacle Studio Importer provides tools for these tasks, along with

a Snapshot feature for grabbing frames

from video files, and a Stop

motion tool for building up video frame-by-frame. See “Chapter 10:

The Importer” on page 291 for details.

File menu import commands: Choosing Import from the file menu has

t

he same effect as clicking the Import tab: it opens the Importer. The

m

enu provides three other import-related choices as well. Each of

6 Pinnacle Studio User Guide

these opens a Windows file dialog to permit import of files from a hard

drive or other local storage.

• Import previous Pinnacle Studio Projects lets you load movie

p

rojects created with earlier versions of Studio.

• Import Studio for iPad App Projects lets you bring in projects

exported from Studio’s companion app for the iPad.

• Quick Import lets you directly select ordinary media files—photo,

vide

o, audio and project—for import.

Studio Importer

The Exporter

At the other end of the movie-making process is Export. By the time

you get to this stage, the hard part of the task is behind you. The

creative energy that went into making your movie has paid off in a

production that now lacks only one ingredient—an audience.

Chapter 1: Using Pinnacle Studio 7

Studio Exporter

The Pinnacle Studio Exporter helps you over that last hurdle with tools

for taking your movie to its viewers, whoever and wherever they might

be. Create a digital movie file in the format of your choice, burn a DVD,

or upload directly to destinations in the Cloud like YouTube and Vimeo,

or to your personal Cloud-based storage area.

Like the Importer, the Exporter o

pens in a separate window, and

returns to the main window after its work is done. See “Chapter 11:

The Exporter” on page 337 to learn more.

The central tabs

The three central tabs, Library, Movie and Disc, are where most of your

work in Pinnacle Studio takes place. The first of these opens the main

view of the Library, where you can ‘curate’ your media collections.

8 Pinnacle Studio User Guide

The other tabs open the two project editors, one for digital movies,

and the other for disc projects, which are digital movies enhanced with

interactivity in the form of DVD menus.

The Library

The Library is a cataloging and management tool for all the file-based

resources – or

assets

– that you can draw on when authoring. Almost

all of the materials of your movie – video footage, music and audio

files, and many specialized resources such as transitions and effects –

originate as assets in the Library. Many Library assets are supplied with

Pinnacle Studio, and are available for royalty-free use. These include

p

rofessionally-designed titles, DVD menus, sound effects and more.

The Library uses project bins to organize assets. Project bins are virtual

f

olders for your assets. They are created automatically during import

and you can create them manually to organize your assets according

to your needs (for example, by project).

You can also use watchfolders to a

utomatically monitor and import

media files that are added to the folders you choose to “watch”. For

information about activating watchfolders, see “Watchfolders” on

page 359. When you use watchfolders, a Library Media branch is

added to the Asset Tree in the Library

. You will also see a Library Media

branch if Pinnacle Studio detects a library from a previous version of

Pinnacle Studio (you must enable watchfolders if you want to continue

populating this branch).

Main view

When you click the Library tab, the Library takes over the main window.

This ‘main view’ gives you spacious access to a number of cataloging

and search tools, including those for categorizing assets by means of

ratings and tags, and those for creating user-defined asset collections.

Chapter 1: Using Pinnacle Studio 9

Compact view

The ‘compact view’ of the Library squeezes virtually the whole

functionality of the main view into a panel embedded within certain

other windows, such as the Movie Editor and the Disc Editor. The

primary p

urpose of the compact view is to allow assets to be brought

into a movie or disc project from the Library by drag-and-drop.

The main view of the Library consists of navigation controls

for exploring media assets (left) and a browser for examining

and selecting assets (right).

Player

The tools available from within the Library include the Player, a viewer

that works for all media types handled by the application. When used

from the main view of the Library, the Player opens in a separate

window. When the compact Library is used, an embedded version of

the Player appears in the same window. For more information, see

“The Player” on page 14.

10 Pinnacle Studio User Guide

Previewing a Library video asset in the resizable Player

window, with full transport controls including a shuttle

wheel. You can keep working in the main window while the

pop-up Player is open.

For comprehensive coverage of the Library and its uses, please see

“Chapter 2: The Library” on page 17.

The next step

The next step, once you know your way around the Library and have

made any changes needed to the default set-up, is to start creating a

movie. There are two ways to go about this.

The usual way

If you want to exert detailed control over the way media assets are used

in your production, you will usually start building your movie or disc

project from scratch in one of the two project editors.

These are described below.

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