Pinnacle Studio 9

All-to-one video suites were existing from the early days of home video . I remember Ulead Video Studio 4 & VideoWave II as the first products that earned my attention . However I moved to something more pro very soon because:  
- these products had poor editing features, 
- mpeg quality was awful on all products, 
- I had to try hard to find a product that was working OK with your hardware. After many unstable & buggy versions , PS9 overcomes the  "all-in-one are crap" belief ... Working with PS9 makes video editing easier than ever . Features like auto splitting to chapters are not found even in Adobe Premiere and accelerates your job . 

Although Linear video editors looks 'amateur' , they are more suitable for home or other basic video editing . I always liked more Ulead Video Studio than Media Studio , but the lack of some major features (like audio envelope) turned me to UMS . However I was always searching for a full featured linear application .

I knew PS series before version 7 , but until nowdays it was so full of dangerous bugs & crashes I was wondering how can they sell such product .

So I wanted to make another short test of all current popular video editing applications . Here is a brief but interesting comparison ... 

Pinnacle Studio 9 -vs- Adobe Premiere Pro

APP: 

+ Is a Pro solution with much more features (multi-channel , non-lineal etc).
+ Full support of VST audio plugins .
+ Full support of all HFX (old) versions .
+ CCE plugin & FrameServer plugins available .
+ Mpeg2 internal Encoder is very good & supports 2-pass encoding & auto bitrate recalc .
+ Keyboard shortcuts for almost everything .

- Is 7 times more expensive ... Pinnacle promotes Liquid 5.x having APP-like pro features and ... price .
- Title Designer is primitive (you need Adobe After Effects or some other 3rd party products ) . 
- Does not include DVD menu maker (you need Adobe Encore or some other 3rd party products ) .
- Video transitions listing does not preview them  .
- Mpeg2 internal encoder does not support SVCD .
- Does not include anything similar to Smart Movie / Split Chapter etc.
- Unlike AP 6.5 , Premiere Pro does NOT support Direct-X audio plugins . 
- When I 'Export to Tape' my project I face frame loss (even with my PIV/2.6) . I have to produce first a new avi and then to export it .
- Harder to produce a picture from a single frame . 
- Harder to insert , paste or enlarge a clip . 

PS9: 

- NO REVERSE VIDEO (!) .  (Read tip #14)
- Slow motion is not one of the best .
- No option for deinterlace method anywhere .
- Did not succeed to combine my old HFX 4.x with PS9 .
- Becomes very slow with complicated projects (>400 nodes) .
- Reverse MUCH more resources than APP . My 1GB RAM is 75-85% full when I  use PS9 heavily !! .
- Cannot Import , join or something between PS9 projects .
- Although PS9 'looks' cheap , some primary effects like Reverse Video are not included and its too hard to gain them . PS9 Plus looks more descent but even there Reverse is extra !. It's too ironic to include Hollywood Effects and not to have a reverse video .

Conclusion: OK ... Adobe Premiere 6.0 was the first non-linear app that tried to be hybrid . It offered a layer that can be used as linear . However it could not act as a real linear ... For example cutting a movie did not automatically stich all the next chapters to the previous ones . Moreover it was the most expensive application that has so much hardware incompatibilities ... Adobe Premiere Pro can be used more closely like linear (simply work with only one video channel) . I can't say that PS9 it's better  , it's simpler and have more fun working with it !.  However notice all PS9 disadvantages before you decide .

Pinnacle Studio 9 -vs- Ulead Media Studio 7

PS9 

+ Can use VST Audio plugins (although very few actually works). 
+ Full screen preview , many keyboard shortcuts . 
+ Nice Audio filters included (Leverer , Noise Removal etc) . 
+ All modules (Capture, Menu maker, DVD writer) are well integrated into 1 application . 
+ Mpeg2 encoder rocks . SVCD/DVD's have very good quality . So unlike most all-in-1 products you can really do the whole job from this application . PS9 beats TMPGENC (My no.2 favourite Mpeg2 encoder) .
+ Hard to believe that it costs about 100 euros . You need about 3 times more for UMS , plus 20 times more for CCE Pro , plus Nero & NeroVision, thus much more for my next favourite alternative ... Using the Adobe alternative (Premiere + Encore DVD) , you also need much more .

- NON-LINEAR Editor . 
- Not any Deinterlace / Frame type option . This cause serious flicker effects specially when you change the speed .
 - Cannot edit audio envelop into a transition (always cross-fade). 
- When capturing analogue video (from a Video In source) , cannot choose some codecs (like HUFHUV ). 
- Not on the fly mp3 Decode . 
- NO REVERSE VIDEO (!) .
- No audio transitions in 1 audio channel (like cross-fade) .
- Every time you open an existing project , needs some time to render some temporary files again .
- Make movie: Cannot render a selected range . 
- A/V Effects: Cannot save a custom preset . 

Concerning efficiency , PS9 Needs more resources & CPU power when processing  . I felt that my PIV/2.6G was slow when complicated projects (>1000 nodes)  UMS is much faster . However all Ulead absorbs too much CPU when playback . So when selecting or viewing the source PS9 is much more pleasant .

UMS7  

+ LINEAR EDITOR . Many audio , video and / or overlay channels .
 + Can use DirectX Audio plugins (although very few actually works).
+ Free VideoServer Plugin available . 
+ Rolling (animated) titles .

- Jog style controller looks cool but it's still buggy & the whole source windows acts too slow . Forget the source window . It's better to insert the whole video inside your project & work from timeline .
- Cannot produce a picture from a single frame (unless you capture it separately ) . 
- Because of it's A/B linear structure , it's harder to insert or remove a clip after making some work .
- All Ulead Products suffer from bad MPEG2 encoding engine . So you cannot really use it as SVCD / DVD maker .

Conclusion: Ulead Media Studio (5.2 through 7) was my favourite video app from year 2000 until now . However using PS9 I edit faster , finish my job faster and  use only 1 application . What else should I ask for ? .

PS9 -vs- UVS8

 Ulead Video Studio 8: 

+ More Video Filters .
+ 2 Video Channels +1 Overlay (compared to 1+1)
+ on the fly mp3 decoding .

- No audio envelope . 
- Gee ... needs so much more CPU power for playback & editing , I thought I was working on another (slower) PC ... .
- No support of DX / VST audio filters . Very few internal audio filters .
- Not enough toolbars / shortcuts .
- All Ulead Products suffer from bad MPEG2 encoding engine .

Conclusion: The disadvantages of UVS8 are so fatal ... making the decision so easy .

Bugs: 

All bugs reported after installing update v.9.1.2 

1) Make all capturing job before start editing . If you switch to 'Capture' in the middle of editing , it may spoil your project file .

2) MPEG2 video may be distorted at some point with no reason . If you render again the project the corrupted point will be OK (but it may spoil your project somewhere else ...) . Until now It happened only on SVCD's . Haven't find yet any solution . Hope not to see this bug on a DVD .

3) After too many editing , rendering may not be as expected . Delete all auxiliary files & try again .

4) Although that there is a small program claiming that it can install any older version of HFX with PS9 , I couldn't use it with my HFX 4.1 Gold . It's too ironic since they are both Pinnacle products , and I can use HFX 4.1 with the latest versions of APP & UMS ...

5) Sometimes 'Leveler' does not work , muting the channel . I use some alternatives (described above) like FinalPlug4 .

6) DVD Authoring : Although mpeg2 engine is pretty good , I found many incompatibilities when I tried to play my project on my DVD device . If you test it on a PC (with PowerDVD or something) it looks OK but when you try in a real DVD device it might not play OK .

[x] Filter Video: Although this is not critical it applies some blur filtering to your project . Although this is not good for your project fidelity , this is what the Hollywood does , so if you see your project you 'll think that you have too much contrast (the truth is that Hollywood have too less !!) . 
[  ] MPEG Audio: Enabling Mpeg audio does not play OK in my DVD device .
[x] CBR : Using VBR when you display static video (images) you see a quality loss for some tenths of second .

Tips: 

1) Get & install the PS9 update by ASAP ... It solves most of headaches & crashes . 

1b) You 'll notice great performance improvement in large projects if you: Setup -> Edit -> Rendering: 'no background rendering' . Actually - as the readme says - it depends on the graphics card you own . I currently use  GeForceMX 440 .

2) All intermediate & temporary files are saved inside:
<my documents>\Pinnacle Studio\Auxiliary Files\<project filename>\

2a) All SVCD or DVD material are stored there . 

2b) If something rendered wrong feel free to delete the whole dir . You can also do it from the app menu: File -> Delete Auxiliary Files ...

3) Rename your new project from "Untitled" , to whatever , otherwise your temp files will be erased or distorted each time you open another  new project ...

4) In case you have a full HFX version , probably PS9 still use HFX demo . There are some articles at: here or here .

5) If you lock the video channel , you can move the audio to some other track (Sound FX track or Music track) . This way gives you some more tricks like crossfade in a different cut from video cut or some other crossfade games .

6) There is no option to shunt down but I use a small free utility for that , SwitchOff .

7) If you already made some project and the you installed the upgrade , probably HFX free effects looks locked . You have to delete all of the and insert again .

8) PS9 does not include any deinterlace action anywhere . If you captured Still images ( using the 'photo' button of your camera) may not look actually still ... You have to convert it first to grab the picture from the movie and add it again into the timeline .

9) My preferred duration for a crossfade is about 00.08 to 00.12 sec and for a still image is 2 sec . So I made them as default .  Setup -> Edit -> Transitions: 00.08 / 02.00 / 02.00 . This duration also gives a nice audio crossfade result (longer duration does not gives good audio crossfade) .

10) My favourite audio effect is the limiter . Although 'Leveler' works just fine , here are some other VST plugins that are compatible with PS9:  Palancar Brick (free) , mda Limiter (free) , C3  (free) ,Waves FinalPlug4 .

11) Another great wind & noise removal trick: use 'mda MultiBand' audio filter (free) , make the following changes (from top to bottom): 'Output', 300 , 3000 , 0 , 25 , 9 , -20 , 20 , 0 , 40 , 99 , 100 ,  M .

12) Rotating Photos : Suppose when you was shotting you push the 'photo' button in a 90' degree (let's say to shoot a long tower) . Now you want this photo to be placed OK in your video . You can certainly save it as .jpg , open a graphics editing program , rotate it and then save it again , but that's too much ... isn' it ? .
- Grab the picture using the 'Grab a frame...' icon and 'Add to Movie' .
- Use ACDSEE 2.43 or IfranView (free) to navigate through:  
<my documents>\Pinnacle Studio\Auxiliary Files\TemporaryFiles\
- Find that photo (as well as others you want to rotate) and press the proper button (Alt -> for  Acdsee , Shift-J for InfranView ) . 
- You 're ready ! . Double click the photo frame in PS9 to open it in title mode . You will see it rotated now .

13) You can save much of rendering (as well as personal ...) time if you leave music soundtracks for the end .  Prepare cover music externally .  Since PS9 does not render mp3 music on the fly , use Winamp to convert your favourite mp3 to .wav . You can use some free DSP limiters (like SqrSoft , Tomass , etc) to equalize music volume .

14) Reverse Video: I was searching for months to find a solution . I found 2 methods: 
a) PS9 Plus can load a plugin called DziedzicPacks1 . You can find there a reverse video effect .
b) There's a free plugin out there named KHTvReverse11.zip . Here is author's site and you can get it from my site aslo .
NOTICE: None of the above mentioned method can work together with time stretch effect , i.e. you CANNOT have Reverse Video in Slow or Fast motion ! .