Saturday, February 19, 2005

Pinnacle Studio

I'll admit it. I'm a fairly lazy person. Whenever I get a new program, I never read the manual. Or in most cases these days, the digital documentation that's included. I just like to fire the sucker right up and dive in. If I find it fairly easy to use, I stick with it. If it's not a simple intuitive program, I quit using it.

Then I delete it off my computer.

Then I throw the CD into the garbage...

...usually broken in two pieces.

So, when I downloaded the trial version of Pinnacle Studio Plus v.9.3, I decided to give it a fair tryout. I clicked on it, downloaded some video into it, and began editing.

Lo and behold, it didn't get turned off, deleted, and eventually destroyed. I actually liked it. Surprise!

(And yes, I used the word "Lo" in the previous paragraph. Who the fuck uses "Lo" these days? Christ, next thing you know I'll be speaking in "ye olde English" like a bastard peasant from the Middle Ages. No more "Lo's" for me!)

...and I'm not too thrilled about the "behold" either, but I'll let it slide for now.

Anyway, I've been working with the program for about 3 weeks now, and I'm finding it both simple to use and full of great features. The inclusion of an overlay track allows easy editing when shooting with two cameras. The chromakey feature is useful and fun. There's lot of transitions and titles included. And it has enough output options to be useful.

For $99 retail, it's worth the money. But of course, I'm going to try to buy a copy online from a software discounter...I'd like to pick it up for around fifty bucks.

Hey, I may be cheap, but I'm not easy!

Okay, I'm easy too! So what?

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