Product Reviews

Pinnacle's Studio software has been around for a few years, but has always been tied to the company's own capture hardware. With version 7, support for OHCI IEEE-1394 ports and DV in Windows operating systems from 98 SE upwards has removed much of the need for dedicated DV capture cards, allowing software developers to go it alone.

Pinnacle's Studio 7 is one of a small gang of low-cost DV editors to make it onto the shelves as a hardware-independent software package. Its OHCI compliance coincides with new features, such as insert editing and audio splitting - tools which serious editors take for granted but, until very recently, have been absent from the entry-level market.

Installation couldn't be simpler, but assumes that the system has IEEE-1394 hardware support. Launching Studio 7 for the first time presents the user with the main editing interface, packed with sample video clips to use with the manual's tutorials. The interface is clearly laid out, taking the user through three stages - Capture, Edit and Make Movie. Before accessing Studio's capture interface, it's important that the camcorder be connected to the system and switched on to Playback mode. Studio 7 can capture full-quality DV or - if hard disk space is limited - a more compressed format with Indeo 5.1 or PIM1 compression at data rates ranging from 123 to 880Kbytes/sec. Preview-quality video is brought in with timecode, allowing Studio 7 to recapture used footage once an edit is complete. Control of my camcorder - a Sony TRV900 - was flawless and video captured without a hitch at full and draft quality. For each capture, Studio 7 prompts the user to enter a name. If working in Draft mode, this name will be used as the tape name when it comes to recapture full-quality DV.

The editing interface is visual and tactile, encouraging users to play and experiment. Captured video appears to have been split into separate clips at points where the camcorder was paused during shooting.

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No actual division of the original file has taken place, however. Long captures still play in their entirety (and exist as a single DV file) but are represented as separate shots to make them more manageable. Each capture session is given its own library in Studio 7's clip bin. Individual clips can be renamed and retrieved later with the search utility.

Assembly takes place on the Timeline, which can take one of three different formats: a storyboard; a classic timeline with a video track, title track and two audio tracks; or a text list. A pop-up toolbox allows easy frame-accurate trimming of clips on the Timeline, or this can be done directly on the Timeline by clicking and dragging. The toolbox allows live mixing of audio levels during playback, import of CD audio, direct recording of voice over to the Timeline, and has a Sonic SmartSound plug-in, which automatically generates music files to fit a clip.

Video on the Timeline is represented with an audio track, and levels can be altered manually using rubber bands. It's possible to lock the audio and video elements to the Timeline separately, allowing audio splitting (cutting picture and sound at different times). Insert editing can be done by locking an audio track, cutting a chunk from the video and replacing it with another clip.

There's a healthy range of transitions to choose from, and all are viewed in Studio 7's edit monitor as highly compressed video in real-time. For this reason there's no direct IEEE-1394 output from the Timeline until it's time to copy the edit back to tape. Colour correction is possible too, with options for adjusting hue, saturation, brightness and contrast. And there's a small but effective range of video filters - Blur, Mosaic, Emboss and Posterise.

Output options are rich, allowing video to be sent back to tape (provided the camcorder has a working DV input) or encoded as MPEG, AVI, RealVideo or Windows Media. MPEG encoding can be VCD, SVCD or DVD compliant, although in the latter case a fixed (and relatively low) data rate of 2,400Kbits/sec is used. Output to RealVideo or Windows Media is quick, with basic broadband and narrowband options for each. The quality of Windows Media encoded at 230Kbits/sec was excellent.

For the money, Studio 7 is currently the best entry-level video-editing package around. The interface is friendly and self-explanatory, even for the absolute novice, so the learning curve will be almost non-existent. With some quite advanced editing tools and stable performance, Studio 7 is a very worthwhile purchase.