Pinnacle DV 7

[RappWizard]

Pinnacle Studio 7 got a pretty good review by VideoMaker mag. However, from what I understand it does not capture your video clips in MPEG from your Digital Camcorder. The editing features(especially the preview features) are what gets the good reviews. If my first priority is creating good quality VCD's am I better off just capturing from my Digital Camcorder with a regular firewire card(I-Link 1394 port) which will go to an AVI file and then convert wiTh TEMPEnc into MPEG(which is what I think I would be doing with Pinnacle Studio anyway.)
In other words what is the main advantage to Pinnacle STudio 7, for Digital Cam. Is it the editing or capturing features. If its the editing features is it worth the extra $'s over a regular firewire card(for example Adaptec has a Firewire card with 3 1394 ports and comes with MGI VideoWave)for about $70 vs. Pinnacle Studio which lists for $129. Any advice would be appreciated.

[RappWizard]

I stand corrected. I found out that Dazzle Sudio 7 does come with software that allows for capture in MPEG 2 format. However from the reviews I'm reading the quality of the VCD is lacking. Can somebody give me some feedback here. For quality is it better to capture from your Digital Cam into an AVI file and then reencode with TEMPEnc?

[alkieman]

If you are capturing for video editing you don't want to capture directly to MPEG. The way MPEG works it's a highly compressed format, and it's a huge lossy format too. It's not really suited to editing, adding transitions etc. Almost all the decent capturing applications capture to AVI first, allow you to do all your editing then allow you to encode to MPEG once you come to make the final output. Thats exactly how Studio DV 7 works. It's also the same way MGI Videowave, Adobe Premiere, Uleads MediaStudio & Videostudio and the majority of other applications work. If you have Studio 7 with the latest updates it produces excellent quality MPEG video. I have used MGI Videowave and didn't like it at first, but with the new updates it's actually pretty decent. The main difference between Studio 7 and the other budget editing applications is that Studio 7 wont import MPEG files. It can only import AVI files but of course, can output MPEG quite happily.

[alkieman]

Hello again.

Simple answer is yes. I have a WinTV PVR and in Win98SE it produced fantastic quality MPEG2 files for DVD authoring, but at around 200 UKP it's not cheap.It is fast though, realtime.

For even better quality capture at full DV AVI resolution (720x480 NTSC & 720x576 PAL), do your editing, output the finished AVI and then encode to MPEG with TMPGENC. This is very slow, but produced the best quality output. For MPEG2 output you will need an older version of TMPGENC as well, current versions are limited to 30 days work with MPEG2 only.

The main differences are speed. The AVI --> MPEG route produces the best quality but is very slow, whereas buying an MPEG encoder card is expensive.

[RappWizard]

Thanks for the excellent feedback. As you probably can tell I am not a digital video editing guru but I am determined to at least get a handle on this. I'll see what I can come up with.

[alkieman]

No problem. Although I'm pretty advanced in the computing stakes (I'm a systems analyst)I was pretty new to video editing and DVD authoring too. Sites like this and others helped me an awful lot, and I like to help others out too mainly because I know how frustrating things can be.

Good luck with your editing.

[cnknudson]

Alkieman, I noticed that you got good results with Pinnacle Studio DV 7 when encoding MPEG2. I have not had such luck. At least not with home video...

Using originally filmed Hi8 dubbed to Sony DCR PC100 (miniDV) then captured to AVI, I edited and output as MPEG2 using Studio7 (latest version). Burned DVD+RW using HP burner & DVDit!

Watching DVD on Sony DVP S360 and Wega 32", had to turn sharpness down to 1/4 scale to remove blockiness. Tried every permutation from 352*240 @ 2000kbps to 720*480 @ 6000kbps. No luck. Despite the DVD results, the same edited video output back to my miniDV was excellent, requiring no adjustments to three different TVs on which I tried it. Resorted to outputing AVI at 720*480 & 29.97 fps and then using DVDit! to burn DVD in order to get great results.

I plan on experimenting more with original miniDV footage to see if I get better results.

My sole intention is to disribute home stuff to family members, and the current process I'm using is rather tedious. I'm open to suggestions.

On the whole however, I am duly impressed with the capture and editing capability of Pinnacle Studio DV 7 package.

-Carl

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: cnknudson on 2001-11-10 20:40:04 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: cnknudson on 2001-11-10 20:43:40 ]</font>

[alkieman]

I had crap results orginally. I downloaded the beta updates from the Pinnacle formums which improved things a lot. It took them two or three updates to get decent quality MPEG2. If you use the standard DVD settings though the quality isn't great, if I remember the standard bitrate is only around 4mb/sec. Instead, choose CUSTOM and whack the MPEG2 bitrate settings up to around 6-8mb/sec. Worked for me.

[tr0ss]

Does anyone know if the Pinnacle Studio DV 7 is the version of the software that comes with the Sony EZEditor Digital8 card you can buy at CompUSA? I remember seeing that it was Pinnacle software, but don't remember the exact version number.

Where can you get updates to Studio DV 7?

[agprabhakar]

HI guys,

do you how to capture the DV directly to MPEG-1 or Mpeg-2 using Ulead Video studio 4 or MGI Video wave??

Thanks

[M.I.B.]

studio 7 is same product as sony editor.
sony buys it oem and sells it under their name
card and soft is made by pinnacle
compusa sells studio dv 7 and dv7 + ( last one also has card )

just my cents: MGI videowave is too limited ( but then again this is my opinion not necessarily that of others ) Pinnacle has more features and is just as easy to use as Videowave. But then again it also hgs it limits. None of these tools can mix videostreams , no animated titles ( like scrolling , or path ) , have no matting capabilities.

but for most home users no problemo. great tools. and a lot of bang for the buck.

one word of advice on firewire cards : get one with a TI or Agere ( Lucent ) chipset

My experience is that TI or Lucent based cards work without hiccups with all software out there. Other cards sometimes are not 'liked' by certain software or only work with what is provided.

[jtor]

...in fairness to Videowave (which I don't really liked), she has some features not present in Studio (and I totally agree with M.I.B., Studio is really a nice beginner software). For one, VW has capability to process 2 video layers, as against only 1 for Studio...which would allow you to create 'cool' effects like PiP. And VW4 came out with slow/fast motion. Studio came up with this only in version 7.

Bottomline, it really depends on what the user wants to do. Both software can provide what typical users need.

my 2cents.

[alkieman]

Pinnacle Studio 7 does have scrolling titles, it was one of the new additions to the package over the original Studio software that used to come with their DV cards.

[cuervo]

I use Pinnacle Studio 7 with Hollywood FX transitions to capture and edit, BUT, I always use TMPGEnc to convert the finished project to SVCD(MPEG2) TMPGEnc has the highest quality MPEG generator on the market except for CCE, which costs way too much. Studio 7 is a software solution that works with any OHCI compatible 1394 capture card, you don't need Pinnacle's capture card. The scene detection, transitions and editing capabilities of S7 are really an unbeatable software approach for the price....got 900 bucks for a hardware solution like RT2500?

[M.I.B.]

in reference to scrolling titles : pinnacle only has 2 scroll options. try makeing a 3d scrolling title like the famous starwars start. i was referrgin to pro tools like Premiere and afterFX.

If you want a very very very good title generator get Swish 2.0 . for 25 $ you get a tools that allows you to make all kinds of crazy animations. The tools allows you to create SWF ( shockwave Flash ) and AVI files. tell the tool you want 720*480 pixels and 29 frames per second. ( for NTSC ) or 25 ( for PAL )

when you are satisfied export to AVI file . then mix this title with keying on black ( draw your effects against a black background ). absolutely stunning.

http://www.swishzone.com

as for hardware cards :

take a look at

Vitec DCM http://www.vitecmm.com Hardware MPEG encoder (1 and 2).
or
Canopus Raptor RT. ( make sure you have the RT version )
http://www.canopuscorp.com
or
Pinnacle Pro-One

These are professional real-time effect generators and coders. Most systems are based on a DV bridge chips from either Divio or C-Cube. These chips can mix videostreams ( up to 3 ) in realtime and also add efeects.

cards sit between 400 and 1200 $ .

check out the article on the ultimate DV editing machine on http://www.labdv.com