Pinnacle Studio 14 Owner's manual

Pinnacle Studio

Version 14

Including Studio, Studio Ultimate

and Studio Ultimate Collection

Your Life in Movies

ii Pinnacle Studio

Documentation by Nick Sullivan

Please respect the Rights of Artists and Creators. Content such as music,

photos, video and celebrity images are protected by the laws of many

countries. You may not use other people’s content unless you own the

rights or have the permission of the owner.

This product or portions thereof are protected under one or more of the

following United States patents: 5,495,291; 5,946,445 6,469,711;

6,532,043; 6,678,461; 6,901,211; 6,907,191 7,124,366; 7,165,219;

7,286,131; 7,301,092; and 7,467,244. Other patents are pending.

tured under license from Dolby Laboratories. This product contains one or

more programs protected under international and U.S. copyright laws as

unpublished works. They are confidential and proprietary to Dolby

Laboratories. Their reproduction or disclosure, in whole or in part, or the

production of derivative works therefrom without the express permission of

technology licensed from Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson Multimedia. 

imaging code owned and copyrighted by Pegasus Imaging Corporation,

Corp.  This product contains a YouTube API.

No part of this manual may be copied or distributed, transmitted,

transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any human or

computer language, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical,

magnetic, manual, or otherwise, without the express written permission of

Pinnacle Systems, Inc.

280 North Bernardo Avenue

Mountain View, CA 94943

Printed in the USA.

Table of contents iii

Table of contents

BEFORE YOU START .................................................. XI

Equipment requirements ........................................................................ xii

Abbreviations and conventions ............................................................. xiv

On-line help .......................................................................................... xvi

CHAPTER 1: USING STUDIO ....................................... 1

Undo, Redo, Help, Support and Premium ............................................... 2

Setting options ......................................................................................... 3

Edit mode .................................................................................................... 4

The Player ................................................................................................ 5

Playback controls ..................................................................................... 8

Further editing topics ............................................................................. 11

Expanding Studio .................................................................................. 12

CHAPTER 2: CAPTURING AND IMPORTING MEDIA 17

The Studio Import Wizard ..................................................................... 18

Import Wizard panels .............................................................................. 19

The Import From panel .......................................................................... 20

The Import To panel .............................................................................. 23

The Mode panel ..................................................................................... 27

The Compression Options window ....................................................... 30

The Scene Detection Options window ................................................... 31

The Filename panel ............................................................................... 32

iv Pinnacle Studio

Selecting media for import ...................................................................... 34

Import from file-based media ................................................................ 35

Import from DV or HDV camera .......................................................... 42

Import from analog sources ................................................................... 47

Import from DVD or Blu-ray Disc ........................................................ 48

Import from digital cameras .................................................................. 49

Stop motion ........................................................................................... 49

Snapshot ................................................................................................ 52

CHAPTER 3: THE ALBUM .......................................... 57

The Videos section .................................................................................... 63

Opening a video file .............................................................................. 67

Viewing video ....................................................................................... 71

Selecting scenes and files ...................................................................... 72

Displaying scene and file information ................................................... 73

Comment view ....................................................................................... 74

Combining and subdividing scenes ....................................................... 75

Redetecting scenes ................................................................................. 77

The Transitions section ............................................................................ 78

The Montage® Themes section ................................................................ 80

The Titles section ...................................................................................... 81

The Still Images section ........................................................................... 82

The Disc Menus section ............................................................................ 83

The Sound Effects section ........................................................................ 84

The Music section ..................................................................................... 85

The Project Bin ......................................................................................... 86

CHAPTER 4: THE MOVIE WINDOW ........................... 91

Movie Window views................................................................................ 95

Storyboard view ..................................................................................... 95

Timeline view ........................................................................................ 96

Text view ............................................................................................. 102

Table of contents v

The toolboxes .......................................................................................... 102

The Video toolbox ............................................................................... 104

The Audio toolbox ............................................................................... 106

CHAPTER 5: VIDEO CLIPS ...................................... 109

Video clip basics ..................................................................................... 110

Adding video clips to your movie ....................................................... 110

Working with multiple capture files .................................................... 111

The project video format ..................................................................... 112

Interface features ................................................................................. 115

Trimming video clips .............................................................................. 117

Trimming on the Timeline using handles ............................................ 117

Clip-trimming tips ............................................................................... 121

Trimming with the Clip properties tool ............................................... 122

Resetting trimmed clips ....................................................................... 124

Splitting and combining clips ................................................................ 125

Advanced Timeline editing .................................................................... 126

Insert editing ........................................................................................ 128

Split editing ......................................................................................... 130

The SmartMovie music video tool ......................................................... 134

CHAPTER 6: THEMES AND THEME EDITING ........ 139

Using themes ........................................................................................... 141

The Themes section of the Album ....................................................... 143

Creating theme clips ............................................................................ 143

Working with theme clips on the Timeline ......................................... 145

Anatomy of a theme ............................................................................ 147

Opening the Theme Editor tool............................................................ 150

Using the Theme Editor tool ................................................................ 151

CHAPTER 7: VIDEO EFFECTS ................................. 155

Working with the effects list................................................................ 156

Changing effect parameters ................................................................. 158

Keyframing .......................................................................................... 160

Using keyframing ................................................................................ 163

Previewing and rendering .................................................................... 166

vi Pinnacle Studio

Video effects library ............................................................................... 166

Standard effects ...................................................................................... 168

Auto color correction ........................................................................... 169

Dream glow ......................................................................................... 169

Noise reduction .................................................................................... 170

Rotate ................................................................................................... 170

Stabilize ............................................................................................... 170

Speed ................................................................................................... 171

Ultimate effects ....................................................................................... 172

Blur ...................................................................................................... 173

Emboss ................................................................................................ 173

Old film ............................................................................................... 173

Soften ................................................................................................... 174

Stained glass ........................................................................................ 174

Luma key ............................................................................................. 175

2D Editor ............................................................................................. 175

Earthquake ........................................................................................... 175

Lens flare ............................................................................................. 176

Magnify ............................................................................................... 176

Motion blur .......................................................................................... 176

Water drop ........................................................................................... 177

Water wave .......................................................................................... 177

Black and white ................................................................................... 177

Color correction ................................................................................... 177

Color map ............................................................................................ 178

Invert ................................................................................................... 178

Lighting ............................................................................................... 179

Posterize .............................................................................................. 179

RGB color balance............................................................................... 179

Sepia .................................................................................................... 180

White balance ...................................................................................... 180

CHAPTER 8: TWO-TRACK EDITING ....................... 181

Introducing the overlay track ............................................................... 181

A/B editing .......................................................................................... 183

The Picture-in-picture tool ................................................................... 184

The Chroma key tool ........................................................................... 190

Selecting colors ................................................................................... 196

Table of contents vii

CHAPTER 9: TRANSITIONS ..................................... 199

Transition types and their uses ............................................................ 201

Previewing transitions in your movie .................................................. 204

Audio transitions ................................................................................. 204

The Ripple Transition command ......................................................... 205

Trimming transitions ............................................................................. 206

Trimming with the Clip properties tool ............................................... 207

CHAPTER 10: STILL IMAGES .................................. 209

Editing still images ................................................................................. 211

Editing image clip properties ............................................................... 212

The Frame Grabber ............................................................................... 219

The Frame grabber tool ....................................................................... 219

CHAPTER 11: DISC MENUS ..................................... 221

Disc authoring in Studio ...................................................................... 223

Using menus from the Album .............................................................. 224

The DVD Player Control ..................................................................... 226

Editing menus on the Timeline ............................................................ 228

Editing with the Clip properties tool ................................................... 230

The Disc menu tool .............................................................................. 235

CHAPTER 12: THE CLASSIC TITLE EDITOR .......... 237

Launching the Classic Title Editor ...................................................... 238

The Classic Title Editor controls ........................................................... 239

Title-type buttons ................................................................................. 239

Object toolbox ..................................................................................... 240

Editing-mode selection buttons ........................................................... 243

Object layout buttons ........................................................................... 245

Clipboard and delete buttons ............................................................... 247

Text-styling controls ............................................................................ 247

The Classic Title Editor Album ............................................................. 249

The Looks Browser ............................................................................. 249

The Backgrounds section ..................................................................... 251

The Pictures section ............................................................................. 253

The Buttons section ............................................................................. 254

viii Pinnacle Studio

CHAPTER 13: THE MOTION TITLER ....................... 257

Launching (and leaving) the titler ........................................................ 259

File operations ..................................................................................... 261

The Motion Titler Album ...................................................................... 262

The Videos section .............................................................................. 264

The Photos section ............................................................................... 265

The Objects section ............................................................................. 266

The Looks section ................................................................................ 267

The Motions section ............................................................................ 272

Creating and editing Motion Titles ....................................................... 275

The Background Panel ......................................................................... 277

The Edit window ................................................................................. 279

Working with text ................................................................................ 282

Working with the Layer List................................................................ 286

Working with layer groups .................................................................. 293

CHAPTER 14: SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC ........ 297

The Timeline audio tracks ................................................................... 300

The CD audio tool ............................................................................... 302

The Background music tool ................................................................. 303

The Voice-over tool ............................................................................. 305

Trimming audio clips ............................................................................. 308

Trimming with the Clip properties tool ............................................... 308

Audio volume and mixing ...................................................................... 310

Anatomy of an audio clip .................................................................... 311

Adjusting audio on the Timeline ......................................................... 313

Transitions on the audio tracks ............................................................ 315

The Volume and balance tool .............................................................. 316

CHAPTER 15: AUDIO EFFECTS .............................. 323

Noise reduction .................................................................................... 324

Ultimate effects ....................................................................................... 326

ChannelTool ........................................................................................ 326

Chorus ................................................................................................. 326

DeEsser ................................................................................................ 327

Equalizer .............................................................................................. 327

Table of contents ix

Grungelizer .......................................................................................... 328

Leveler ................................................................................................. 329

Reverb ................................................................................................. 329

Stereo Echo .......................................................................................... 330

Stereo Spread ....................................................................................... 330

CHAPTER 16: MAKING YOUR MOVIE ..................... 331

Output to disc media .............................................................................. 334

Output to file ........................................................................................... 338

Output to tape ......................................................................................... 346

Configuring the camera or video recorder... ........................................ 346

Output your movie to videotape .......................................................... 348

Output to the web ................................................................................... 349

APPENDIX A: SETUP OPTIONS .............................. 351

Project preferences .............................................................................. 352

Video and audio preferences ............................................................... 355

Make Disc settings .............................................................................. 360

Make File settings ................................................................................ 365

Make Real Media file settings ............................................................. 369

Make Windows Media file settings ..................................................... 372

Make tape settings ............................................................................... 374

APPENDIX B: TIPS AND TRICKS ............................ 377

Hardware ............................................................................................. 377

Graphics card settings .......................................................................... 379

Studio and computer animation ........................................................... 380

APPENDIX C: TROUBLESHOOTING ....................... 381

Technical help on-line ............................................................................ 382

Top support issues .................................................................................. 384

Errors or crashes during installation .................................................... 385

Studio crashes in Edit mode ................................................................ 386

x Pinnacle Studio

Studio hangs when rendering ............................................................... 391

Studio hangs on launch or does not launch .......................................... 394

“Burning failed” error appears in Make Movie ................................... 396

DVDs created by Studio do not play back, or appear blank. ............... 398

APPENDIX D: VIDEOGRAPHY TIPS ........................ 399

Creating a shooting plan ...................................................................... 399

Editing ................................................................................................. 400

Rules of thumb for video editing ......................................................... 404

Soundtrack production ......................................................................... 406

Title ..................................................................................................... 407

APPENDIX E: GLOSSARY ........................................ 409

APPENDIX F: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ................ 427

INDEX ........................................................................ 431

Before you start xi

Before you start

Thank you for purchasing Pinnacle Studio. We hope

you enjoy using the software.

This manual covers all versions of Studio, including

Studio Ultimate and Studio Ultimate Collection.

Differences between versions will be noted as

applicable. Most of the time, the word “Studio” will be

used generically to refer to all versions. Similarly,

references to “Studio Ultimate” apply also to Studio

Ultimate Collection unless otherwise stated.

If you have not used Studio before, we recommend that

you keep the manual handy for reference even if you

don’t actually read it all the way through.

In order to ensure that your Studio experience gets off

on the right foot, please review the three topics below

before continuing to Chapter 1: Using Studio.

Also highly recommended to new users is the Studio

Tutorial. To launch the Tutorial, click its link on the

“splash” screen when you start Studio, or use the Help

¾ Guided Tour menu command within the application

itself.

xii Pinnacle Studio

Equipment requirements

In addition to your Studio software, an efficient Studio

editing system requires certain levels of hardware

performance as noted in this section. Remember too

that while specifications are important, they do not tell

the whole story: the proper functioning of hardware

devices can also depend on manufacturer-supplied

driver software. Checking the maker’s web-site for

driver updates and support information can often be

helpful in solving problems with graphics cards, sound

cards and other devices.

Note: Some features mentioned here require free or

paid “activation” via the Internet, depending on your

version of Studio.

Computer

• Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon 1.8 GHz or higher

(2.4 GHz or higher recommended). Intel Core™ 2 or

i7 2.4 GHz required for AVCHD editing (2.66 GHz

for AVCHD 1920)

• 1 GB system memory recommended, 2 GB required

for AVCHD editing

• Windows® 7, Windows Vista® with SP2, or

Windows XP with SP3

• DirectX 9 or 10 compatible graphics card with 64

MB (128 MB or higher recommended); 256 MB for

HD and AVCHD editing

• DirectX 9 or higher compatible sound card

• 3.2 GB of disk space (plug-ins extra)

• DVD-ROM drive to install software.

Before you start xiii

The following items are optional:

• CD-R(W) burner for creating VideoCDs (VCDs) or

Super VideoCDs (SVCDs).

• DVD-/+R(W) burner for creating DVD, HD DVD

and AVCHD discs.

• Blu-ray burner for creating Blu-ray discs (Studio

Ultimate).

• Sound card with surround-sound output for preview

of surround-sound mixes.

The hard drive

Your hard drive must be capable of sustained reading

and writing at 4 MB/sec. Most drives are capable of

this. The first time you capture, Studio will test your

drive to make sure it is fast enough. Video in the DV

format occupies 3.6 MB of hard drive space per

second, so just four and a half minutes of DV video

will consume a full gigabyte on the drive.

Tip: For capture from video tape, we recommend using

a separate hard drive in order to avoid competition

between Studio and other software, including

Windows, for use of the drive during capture.

Video capture hardware

Studio can capture video from a variety of digital and

analog sources. Please see “The Import From panel” on

page 20.

Video output hardware

Studio can output video to:

• Any HDV, DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR. This

requires an OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394 (FireWire)

xiv Pinnacle Studio

port (as provided by Pinnacle Studio DV). The

camcorder must be set up to record from DV Input.

• Any analog (8mm, Hi8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C or

SVHS-C) camcorder or VCR. This requires Pinnacle

Studio USB-700, PCI-500, PCI-700, or another

Pinnacle device with analog outputs. Output to

analog camcorders or VCRs is also possible using a

Pinnacle Studio DV or other OHCI-compliant 1394

port if your DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR can

pass a DV signal through to its analog outputs (see

your camcorder manual and Chapter 16: Making

your movie, for more information).

Abbreviations and conventions

This guide uses the following conventions to help

organize the material.

Terminology

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 Studio.

DV: The term “DV” refers to DV and Digital8

camcorders, VCRs and tapes.

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.

Before you start xv

1394: The term “1394” refers to OHCI-compliant

IEEE-1394, FireWire, DV or i.LINK interfaces, ports

and cables.

Analog: The term “analog” refers 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 items are written

in italics to distinguish them from the surrounding text,

whereas window and dialog names are written with

initial capital letters. For example:

Click the Edit menu button to open your menu in the

Classic Title Editor.

Choosing menu commands

The right arrowhead symbol (¾) denotes the path for

hierarchical menu items. For example:

Select Toolbox ¾ Generate Background Music.

Keyboard conventions

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.

Mouse clicks

When a mouse click is required, the default is always a

left-click unless otherwise specified:

Right-click and select Go to Title/Menu Editor.

xvi Pinnacle Studio

On-line help

Two kinds of immediate help are always available

while you are working in Studio:

• Help file: Click the help button in the Studio

main menu bar, or select the Help ¾ Help topics

menu, or press F1 to open Studio’s help file.

• Tool tips: To find out what a button or other Studio

control does, pause your mouse pointer over it. A

“tool tip” appears explaining its function.

Chapter 1: Using Studio 1

CHAPTER 1:

Using Studio

Creating movies with Studio is a three-step process:

1. Import: Import source video material – your “raw

footage” – to your PC hard drive. Possible sources

include analog videotape (8mm, VHS etc.), digital

videotape (HDV, DV, Digital8), memory cards and

other file-based media, and live video from a video

camera, camcorder or webcam.

Import mode is covered in Chapter 2: Capturing and

importing media.

2. Edit: Arrange your video material as desired by

reordering scenes and discarding unwanted footage.

Add visuals, such as transitions, titles and graphics, and

supplementary audio, such as sound effects and

background music. For DVD, Blu-ray Disc and VCD

authoring, create interactive menus that give your

audience a customized viewing experience.

Edit mode is the arena for most of your work in Studio.

See “Edit mode” later in this chapter (page 4) for a

fuller introduction.

Availability: Blu-ray Disc authoring is supported in Studio Ultimate

and Studio Ultimate Collection only.

2 Pinnacle Studio

3. Make movie: When your project is complete,

generate a finished movie in your choice of format and

storage medium: tape, VCD, S-VCD, DVD, AVI,

MPEG, RealVideo, Windows Media and more.

Make Movie mode is covered in Chapter 16: Making

your movie.

Setting the mode

Select which step of the movie-making process you

want to work on by clicking one of the three mode

buttons at the top left of the Studio window:

When you switch modes, the Studio screen changes to

display the controls needed for the new mode.

Undo, Redo, Help, Support and Premium

The Undo, Redo, Help,

Support and Premium

buttons are always to be found in the top right corner

of the Studio window, no matter which of the three

modes you are currently working in.

• Undo allows you to back out of any changes you

have made to your project during the current session,

one step at a time.

• Redo reinstates the changes one by one if you undo

too far.

• The Help button launches Studio’s built-in help

system.

Chapter 1: Using Studio 3

• The Support button opens Studio’s technical support

site in your web browser.

• The Premium button lets you expand Studio by

purchasing and installing premium content. (See

page 12 for details.)

All other controls on the Studio screen are dedicated

to tasks within the current mode.

Setting options

Most options in Studio are set using two tabbed dialog

boxes.

The first lets you control options related to Edit mode.

It has two tabs:

The other dialog box is concerned with options relating

to Make Movie mode. It has three tabs, one for each of

the three movie output types:

Each panel of both dialog boxes can be opened

individually with a corresponding command on the

Setup menu (e.g. Setup ¾ Project preferences). Once

either dialog box is open, however, all of its panels are

available through the tabs.

4 Pinnacle Studio

For simplicity, we generally refer to the different

options panels independently, as in “the Project

preferences options panel”.

Detailed explanations of the options in both dialog

boxes are contained in Appendix A: Setup Options.

Additional options for importing are provided on the

Mode panel of the Import Wizard. The options

available depend on the type of media you plan to

import, as explained under “The Mode panel” on page

27.

EDIT MODE

Studio opens in Edit mode each time it is launched,

because that is the mode you use most often. The Edit

mode display includes three main areas.

The Album stores resources you will use in your

movies, including your captured video scenes.

The Movie Window is where you create your edited

movie by arranging video and sound clips, and by

applying transitions and effects.

The Player provides playback and previewing for

whichever item is currently selected in Studio. That

may be an Album resource – such as a video scene, title

or sound effect – or your edited movie, complete with

transitions, titles, effects and several audio tracks. The

Player is covered below.

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Pinnacle Studio 14 Owner's manual

Pinnacle Studio 14 Owner's manual

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