Dealing with Pinnacle Studio Plus Version 9 Problems

I know why you're here. It's desperation. It's why you're probably searching the Internet for anything that will give you answers to your problems with the Pinnacle Studio Plus Version 9 editing software. I know the story. it's a familiar one for independent filmmakers working in the media industry with a shoe-string budget. You probably didn't have much money to shoot your movie, which you hoped to get on television, release it on DVD, or (at the very least) you had high hopes to upload it on You Tube. And all you had was maybe a few hundred bucks, and so you bought this software in hopes that you could fix everything in post production.

My situation was that I had a little money to spend from a good tax return, but chose to spend it on purchasing a quality digital camcorder - a Sony PD-150. My feeling was this - I preferred a better quality image overall than a lower quality image with a better editor. If it was a poor quality digital image, you would have a harder time being taken seriously as a professional. It was the best choice I had prayerfully made. And maxing out a credit card was not a wise thing. The borrower always ends up a slave to the lender. But, thankfully, I had a happy ending. I was able to utilize the Pinnacle Studio Plus Version 9 Software to co-edit a large portion of my compelling and professional 51 minute documentary.

But back to you - here you are now - having all kinds of problems with the Pinnacle Studio Plus Version 9 software. You're infuriated with the computer. You're pulling your hair out! Nothing works. And sadly, you've spent hours feeding your footage into the computer and maybe editing for more hours what looks like a masterpiece and it's all lost or now maybe it's crashed or maybe it just won't work. Well there is hope in this media nightmare.

First, the priority for me getting through the trials of dealing with this software, was to pray. And I'm not joking. As a believer in Yeshua (Jesus, the Messiah), God got me through this.

Yes, I got impatient like you. I got stressed. But I knew that all my hard work, if not blessed by Him... would be in vain. And when trials came (and they did come when I had many nightmares dealing with this editing system) it brought me closer to Him and it strengthened my character and also gave me more insight as an editor.

I also learned that many problems I had were related to mastering the editing software and each of those times I learned something new about the system and the problem would sometimes go away. Remember, I just said, "sometimes go away" Those other times when I had problems and there was nothing I could do other than pray - it truly made me stronger, like I said, and taught me valuable things like perseverance and patience.

The Second thing you need to know is that the problem is probably not Pinnacle Studio Plus Version 9 software. Pinnacle became a division of Avid Technology, Inc. in 2005; and I'm sure you've heard of Avid - they have a very reputable name when it comes to non-linear editing. This Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus software is sold to consumers probably for editing their home video collection. This is how our society has become - even consumers are becoming media saavy. This software is not sold to professionals. And that is the point. This is a very basic edit program and not a bad one. It's good to learn how to edit on. The point I'm making is that it was not designed for editing major motion pictures in the mass media industry. You have to upgrade to bigger and better software for that. Or you have to invest money in a professional editor. The saying is very true that "you get what you pay for". But you still can do a lot with this program.

Thirdly, let's look at what you've got in your computer. You should have two hard drives in your computer if you want to do any serious editing.. First, the one that came with your computer should be fine in order to operate the program (so long as you have a good enough computer - check the manual for what they require). Then you should have an additional hard drive installed with at least 160 gigs because you need lots of space to hold video images - they takes up a lot of hard drive space very quickly. You should also put in a good DVD burner into your computer if you don't have one.

Fourthly, this editing system works best when you do a very short project - maybe 1 to 5 minutes long (with minimal fades and dissolves added). I have also found that it has been able to handle placing an hour worth of video clips footage onto the time line - so long as there are only one or two fades or dissolves - maybe adding a title or two. Anything else is at your own risk. And I say that sincerely from my painful experience.

And now comes the climax of the story. This is where I got wisdom in my times of prayer. What I found when I was editing on the Pinnacle Studio Plus version 9 software was that the system needed to be tricked many times. I found out that this particular Pinnacle Software can not handle doing very many special effects or even fade ins and dissolves. If I tried adding a slow motion effect or taking a still image and having the program do a slow zoom on it I would start having all kinds of problems. The more bells and whistles I added onto the basic project I was editing... it just couldn't handle it.

So here's what I did. I would edit maybe five minutes of my segment with just fades and dissolves only (no other effects) and then I would go into "make movie" and create an AVI file. Then I would take that AVI file which was an actual video clip now and feed it back into my digital camera - and then recapture it into the computer as a video clip. Then I did the same thing for many other segments which the system read as long video clips and pieced them all together. That's how I did it. Any fancy slow motion effect or still image slow zoom effects I would do those separately on the time line as a new project and turn them into an AVI file also and then add them as a video clip. The computer only saw it as a regular clip - so it wasn't overburdened. But there is an even easier way I recently discovered which I wish I was aware of when I edited my film.

What I found out is that whenever you edit something and then go to "make movie" and turn that segment into an AVI file - you can pull that AVI file up and use that as a video clip itself. You don't have to go through the tedious hardship of dumping it back into your camera and recapturing it.

I wish I'd known that because I would have saved time - although, by dumping it back onto a digital tape on my camera - I was creating a back-up which wasn't a bad thing to do. You never know - if you ever lost something (God forbid) at least you would have a back up.

So maybe this will help you, the frustrated filmmaker, as you are going through the trials by fire of editing your project on the Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus. I can't guarantee that this advice will help you, but I know it helped me and if it helped me I'm sure someone out there can be assisted in the insanity of this media nightmare. Sometimes when the Pinnacle Studio Plus version 9 gets all crazy, you have to just turn it off for a little while. Like many filmmakers, a good computer needs some rest, too. And rest is not a bad thing with the kind of hours we filmmakers put into our media projects.