Pinnacle tutorials:
Analog:
Getting Started
Capture!
Edit!
Movie Time!
Hints and Resources

Digital:
Getting Started
Capture!
Edit!
Movie Time!
Hints and Resources

Video Applied:
The Web
PowerPoint

Elsewhere on this site:
General Instructional Technology
Presentation/Web
Imaging
Sound
Video,
Home

Video: Pinnacle Studio - Movie Time! (Analog and Digital)

We’re now ready for the “Make Movie” tab. You have three choices - shoot back to tape, create a computer file, or create a VideoCD/DVD ("Disc"). If you have captured using "Preview quality," or you intend to produce a file or disk, this last process will require a lot of work by your computer, and sometimes a long time! This process is called “rendering,”—a 5 minute video may take a lot more than 5 minutes to render, and during this time the computer should not be used for any other purpose! It’ll need all the processing power and memory it can get! If you captured at full quality, and don't have a lot of transitions or other editing, the rendering process is quite quick.

Of course, you can return to any part of the process at any time—go back and capture more, do more editing, add or delete scenes, etc.  But any small change requires re-rendering, so one should be confident you’re finished before beginning that process.

If you’re going back to digital tape , you have very little to which to pay attention. Once it is rendered, put a new tape in your camcorder, set it to record, and play your video by clicking on the play button in the view window. That's it!

You can even get Studio to start and stop the "Record" process on your camcorder if you'd like - if you're confident you won't overwrite a tape you didn't want to lose! Go to "Setup" and under "Make Tape" check the "Automatically start and stop recording" box.

If you are using an analog system (non-digital camcorder or VCR), the process is the same - once the project is rendered, it will play back to your recording device. However, with analog, the sound is handled separately through the sound card, so you have some patching you need to do (see Getting Started for patching hints).

.

If you’re going to post the video on the Web, include it in a document such as a PowerPoint Presentation, or simply view it on your computer, you’ll need to make a file. Studio gives four major file formats - MPEG, WMV/Real (under "Stream"), and Windows AVI. For a more complete discussion of these formats, see Video Formats. In general . . . 

Video Setting

Which compression? The chart below should only be a guideline. Length of the video, capture quality, and targeted use all influence the end results, so the only thing you can do is try and test. After choosing your format, select what compression level and go. You can also change frame size for several formats. The "Stream" area will offer to target a connection speed, and Studio works out the other settings for you. Multi-streaming is possible with RealMedia or WMV (choosing more than one connection speed), but you must have a dedicated media server to use this.

Other Settings	Web delivery	LAN delivery
Compression Level	Try 75%, and see how large your file is. 50% is probably a bare minimum before things get pretty hazy, but probably necessary for anything over 20 seconds or so.	100 percent if a short video, 75% otherwise - ultimately, you need to test running the video during peak LAN activity to see how it does.
Dimensions	160 X 120 is fine - the window will be small, but any larger and your file size will be pretty large. If the clip is very short, you can try 320 X 240 and check the resulting file size.	320 X 240 should be fine, unless you really just have to have full screen quality. Remember that Windows Media Player will run at full screen even if it wasn't created that way - with some loss in quality.
Frames per second	10 is fine.	15, to the eye, is pretty close to a full 29.97 fps, which is the broadcast TV standard.
Sound	16 bit mono is fine.	32-bit mono is better - don't worry about stereo unless it's a music video - and even then when you're sure it'll be played through something other than computer speakers.

Workstation delivery: Basically, file size is the only limiting factor here! However, it is rarely necessary to use more than half-size screen (320X240), since most computer screens are much smaller than TVs.

III. Make Disk

You can, of course, make a video file (II above) and then use whatever CD/DVD burning software you use normally. However, if you want your CD/DVD to play in an ordinary DVD player, it's best to use Studio's "Disc" option. You can also create a CD/DVD in a designated hard drive location for burning later. 

If you intend to use ordinary CDR/CDR-W's, the resultant disk will be a "VideoCD," which supports some menu options. A VideoCD will hold about 30 minutes of video, and its quality is about the same as VHS. DVD's will hold a full hour of DVD-quality video content. Pinnacle Studio 9 supports full menus and non-linear access to DVD content.

This process takes longer than any of the others, since the video must first render, and then burn the results to your disk. Burning is particularly unforgiving of multitasking - let the computer work alone!