Pinnacle STUDIO 9 User Manual
Studio 9
Professional Quality Movie-Making
Special thanks to Mike Iampietro, William Chien, Richard Edgley,
Ivan Maltz, Jon McGowan, Keith Thomson, Jörg Weselmann, and
Chris Zamara.
Documentation: Nick Sullivan
Copyright © 2003 Pinnacle Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Pinnacle Systems is a registered trademark, and Pinnacle Studio,
SmartCapture, SmartMovie, Hollywood FX, RTFx and VST are
trademarks, of Pinnacle Systems, Inc.
QDesign MPEG-1 Layer 2 Fast Encoder/Decoder copyright © 19962002 by QDesign Corporation. The RealProducer is included under
license from RealNetworks, Inc. RealProducer version 8.0.
copyright 1995-2002, RealNetworks Inc. “RealProducer”,
“RealVideo”, “RealServer”, and “Real” logo are trademarks or
registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. All rights reserved.
SmartSound is a registered trademark of SmartSound Inc. Pro Logic
is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories Inc. Windows Media
is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are
the property of their respective owners. You agree not to remove any
product identification or notices of the property restrictions from
Pinnacle Systems' products or manuals.
No part of this manual may be copied or distributed, transmitted,
transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any human
or computer language, in any form by any means, electronic,
mechanical, magnetic, manual, or otherwise, without the express
written permission of Pinnacle Systems, Inc.
Pinnacle Systems, Inc.
280 North Bernardo Avenue
Mountain View, CA 94943
Printed in the USA.
ii Studio 9
Table of contents
BEFORE YOU START..................................................XI
Equipment requirements......................................................................... xi
Abbreviations and conventions.............................................................xiii
On-line help...........................................................................................xv
CHAPTER 1: USING STUDIO ....................................... 1
Undo, Redo and Help .............................................................................. 2
Setting options.........................................................................................4
Edit mode .................................................................................................... 5
The Player................................................................................................ 6
Playback controls..................................................................................... 8
Further editing topics............................................................................. 11
CHAPTER 2: CAPTURING VIDEO.............................. 13
The Capture mode interface.................................................................... 14
The Diskometer ..................................................................................... 16
The Camcorder Controller..................................................................... 18
The capture process..................................................................................19
Capture hardware...................................................................................19
Capture step-by-step..............................................................................21
Scene detection......................................................................................23
Table of contents iii
Digital capture .......................................................................................... 25
SmartCapture: Preview-quality capture................................................. 26
Full-quality capture................................................................................28
Audio and video levels – digital ............................................................29
Analog capture..........................................................................................30
Capture quality options.......................................................................... 31
Audio and video levels – analog............................................................ 31
CHAPTER 3: THE ALBUM .......................................... 33
The Video Scenes section ......................................................................... 36
Opening a captured video file................................................................ 38
Viewing captured video......................................................................... 42
Selecting scenes and files ...................................................................... 43
Displaying scene and file information...................................................44
Comment view.......................................................................................45
Combining and subdividing scenes .......................................................46
Redetecting scenes................................................................................. 49
The Transitions section............................................................................50
The Titles section......................................................................................51
The Still Images section ...........................................................................52
The Sound Effects section........................................................................53
The Disc Menus section............................................................................ 54
CHAPTER 4: THE MOVIE WINDOW........................... 55
Movie Window views................................................................................57
Storyboard view.....................................................................................58
Timeline view........................................................................................58
Text view...............................................................................................62
The toolboxes ............................................................................................ 62
The Video toolbox.................................................................................64
The Audio toolbox................................................................................. 66
iv Studio 9
CHAPTER 5: VIDEO CLIPS ........................................ 69
Video clip basics .......................................................................................70
Adding video clips to your movie .........................................................70
Working with multiple capture files......................................................71
Interface features ...................................................................................72
Trimming video clips................................................................................73
Trimming on the Timeline using handles.............................................. 74
Clip-trimming tips ................................................................................. 77
Trimming with the Clip properties tool................................................. 78
Resetting trimmed clips.........................................................................80
Splitting and combining clips .................................................................. 81
Advanced Timeline editing ......................................................................82
Insert editing..........................................................................................83
Split editing ...........................................................................................86
Using video effects .................................................................................... 90
Working with the effects list..................................................................91
Changing effect parameters...................................................................92
Fading effects in and out .......................................................................94
Previewing and rendering...................................................................... 94
Video effects – the basic set......................................................................95
Cleaning effects......................................................................................... 96
Auto color correct.................................................................................. 97
Noise reduction...................................................................................... 97
Stabilize .................................................................................................98
Time effects ............................................................................................... 99
Strobe.....................................................................................................99
Speed ................................................................................................... 100
Color effects ............................................................................................ 101
Black and white ................................................................................... 101
Color correction................................................................................... 101
Posterize ..............................................................................................102
Sepia .................................................................................................... 102
Table of contents v
Fun effects ...............................................................................................103
Lens flare.............................................................................................103
Noise.................................................................................................... 104
Water drop...........................................................................................104
Style effects..............................................................................................105
Blur......................................................................................................105
Emboss ................................................................................................106
Mosaic ................................................................................................. 107
Old film ...............................................................................................107
The SmartMovie music video tool.........................................................108
CHAPTER 6: TRANSITIONS..................................... 111
Transition types and their uses ............................................................112
Previewing transitions in your movie..................................................115
Audio transitions .................................................................................116
The Ripple Transition command ......................................................... 117
Trimming transitions ............................................................................. 118
Trimming with the Clip properties tool............................................... 118
CHAPTER 7: STILL IMAGES .................................... 121
Editing still images .................................................................................124
Trimming with the Clip properties tool............................................... 125
The Frame Grabber ............................................................................... 125
The Frame grabber tool ....................................................................... 126
CHAPTER 8: DISC MENUS....................................... 129
Disc authoring in Studio......................................................................131
Using menus from the Album..............................................................133
The DVD Player Control.....................................................................135
Editing menus on the Timeline............................................................ 136
Editing with the Clip properties tool ................................................... 138
The Disc menu tool.............................................................................. 144
vi Studio 9
CHAPTER 9: THE TITLE EDITOR ............................ 145
Launching the Title Editor................................................................... 146
The Title Editor controls .......................................................................147
Title-type buttons................................................................................. 147
Object toolbox ..................................................................................... 148
Editing-mode selection buttons ........................................................... 151
Object layout buttons........................................................................... 153
Clipboard and delete buttons ............................................................... 155
Text-styling controls............................................................................ 155
The Title Editor Album .........................................................................157
The Looks Browser .............................................................................157
The Backgrounds section..................................................................... 160
The Pictures section............................................................................. 161
The Buttons section ............................................................................. 161
CHAPTER 10: SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC........ 165
The Timeline audio tracks ...................................................................167
The CD audio tool...............................................................................168
The SmartSound tool ........................................................................... 170
The Voice-over tool ............................................................................. 172
Trimming audio clips ............................................................................. 175
Trimming with the Clip properties tool............................................... 175
Audio volume and mixing...................................................................... 177
Anatomy of an audio clip .................................................................... 178
Adjusting audio on the Timeline ......................................................... 180
The Volume and balance tool.............................................................. 182
Audio effects............................................................................................187
Noise reduction.................................................................................... 188
Equalizer.............................................................................................. 190
Leveler.................................................................................................191
Reverb .................................................................................................191
CHAPTER 11: MAKING YOUR MOVIE..................... 193
Outputting to a camera or video recorder... .........................................195
Output your movie to videotape ..........................................................197
Save your movie as an AVI file........................................................... 199
Table of contents vii
Save your movie as an MPEG file....................................................... 202
Save as RealVideo or Windows Media ...............................................203
Share your movie via the Internet........................................................ 205
Output your movie to DVD, VCD or S-VCD......................................207
Copying an AVI file to tape.................................................................210
APPENDIX A: SETUP OPTIONS .............................. 211
Capture source settings........................................................................212
Capture format settings........................................................................ 216
Edit settings ......................................................................................... 221
CD and voice-over settings.................................................................. 225
Make tape settings ............................................................................... 226
Make AVI file settings ........................................................................228
Make MPEG file settings ....................................................................230
Make RealVideo file settings...............................................................232
Make Windows Media file settings ..................................................... 235
Make disc settings ...............................................................................236
APPENDIX B: TIPS AND TRICKS ............................ 239
Hardware ............................................................................................. 239
Software............................................................................................... 242
Increasing the frame rate ..................................................................... 244
Studio and computer animation...........................................................245
Smart Capture Tips (DV only) ............................................................245
APPENDIX C: TROUBLESHOOTING ....................... 247
Technical help on-line ............................................................................ 248
Studio crashes in Edit mode ................................................................ 251
Capture error occurs on starting capture.............................................. 256
Studio hangs when rendering...............................................................259
CD or DVD burner is not detected ......................................................262
Studio hangs on launch or does not launch..........................................263
HollywoodFX transitions are still watermarked after upgrading......... 264
“Cannot initialize the DV capture device” error appears in Capture mode
............................................................................................................. 265
Installation problems .............................................................................269
Operation problems ...............................................................................270
viii Studio 9
APPENDIX D: VIDEOGRAPHY TIPS ........................ 277
Creating a shooting plan......................................................................278
Editing ................................................................................................. 279
Rules of thumb for video editing.........................................................282
Soundtrack production......................................................................... 284
Title .....................................................................................................286
APPENDIX E: GLOSSARY........................................ 287
APPENDIX F: LICENSE AGREEMENT .................... 303
APPENDIX G: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS................ 307
INDEX ........................................................................ 311
Table of contents ix
Before you start
Thank you for purchasing Pinnacle Studio. We hope
you enjoy using the software.
If you have not used Studio before, we recommend that
you keep the manual handy for reference even if you
don’t actually read it all the way through.
In order to ensure that your Studio experience gets off
on the right foot, please review the three topics below
before continuing to Chapter 1: Using Studio.
Equipment requirements
In addition to your Studio software, here is what you
need to make a Studio editing system.
Computer
• Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon 800 MHz or higher
(1.5 GHz or higher recommended)
• Microsoft Windows 98 SE, Windows “Millennium”,
Windows 2000 or Windows XP (recommended)
• DirectX-compatible graphics card (ATI Radeon or
NVIDIA GeForce 2 or higher recommended)
Before you start xi
• DirectX-compatible sound card
• 256 MB of RAM (512 MB recommended)
• CD-ROM drive
• Speakers
• Mouse
• A microphone, if you want to record voice-overs
• 300 MB of free hard drive space to install software
• Optional CD burner for creating VideoCDs (VCDs)
or Super-VideoCDs (S-VCDs)
• Optional DVD burner for creating DVDs
The hard drive
Your hard drive must be capable of sustained reading
and writing at 4 MB/sec. All SCSI and most UDMA
drives are capable of this. The first time you capture at
full quality, Studio will test your drive to make sure it
is fast enough. Video in the DV format occupies
3.6 MB of hard drive space for every second of video,
so four and a half minutes of DV video consume a full
gigabyte of hard drive space.
If disk space is a concern with your DV captures, use
SmartCapture to capture your video at preview quality
(see “SmartCapture: Preview-quality capture” on page
26). This feature uses much less disk space. An entire
tape can fit in as little as 360 MB.
Tip: We recommend using a separate hard drive
dedicated to video capture. This avoids competition
between Studio and other software, including
Windows, for use of the drive during capture.
xii Studio 9
Video capture hardware
Studio can capture video from a variety of digital and
analog sources. Please see “Capture hardware” on page
19.
Video equipment
Studio can output video to:
• Any DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR. This
requires an OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394 (FireWire)
port (as provided by Pinnacle Studio DV). The
camcorder must be set up to record from DV Input.
• Any analog (8mm, Hi8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C or
SVHS-C) camcorder or VCR. This requires Pinnacle
Studio DC10plus, Studio AV, or another Pinnacle
card with analog outputs. Output to analog
camcorders or VCRs is also possible using a
Pinnacle Studio DV or other OHCI-compliant 1394
port if your DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR can
pass a DV signal through to its analog outputs (see
your camcorder manual and Chapter 11: Making
your movie, for more information).
Abbreviations and conventions
This guide uses the following conventions to help
organize the material.
Terminology
Studio: “Studio” refers to the editing software.
DV: The term “DV” refers to DV and Digital8
camcorders, VCRs, and tapes.
Before you start xiii
1394: The term “1394” refers to OHCI-compliant
IEEE-1394, FireWire, DV or i.LINK interfaces, ports
and cables.
Analog: The term “analog” refers to 8mm, Hi8, VHS,
SVHS, VHS-C or SVHS-C camcorders, VCRs and
tapes, and to Composite/RCA and S-Video cables and
connectors.
Buttons, menus, dialog boxes and windows
Names of buttons, menus and related items are written
in italics to distinguish them from the surrounding text,
whereas window and dialog names are written with
initial capital letters. For example:
Click the Edit menu button to open your menu in the
Title Editor.
Choosing menu commands
The right arrowhead symbol (¾) denotes the path for
hierarchical menu items. For example:
Select Toolbox ¾ Generate Background Music.
Keyboard conventions
Key names are spelled with an initial capital and are
underlined. A plus sign denotes a key combination. For
example:
Press Ctrl+A to select all the clips on the Timeline.
Mouse clicks
When a mouse click is required, the default is always a
left-click unless otherwise specified:
Right-click and select Go to Title/Menu Editor.
xiv Studio 9
On-line help
Two kinds of immediate help are always available
while you are working in Studio:
• On-line help: Click the help button in the Studio
main menu bar, or select the Help ¾ Help topics
menu, or press F1 to open Studio’s on-line help file.
• Tool tips: To find out what a button or other Studio
control does, pause your mouse pointer over it. A
“tool tip” appears explaining its function.
Before you start xv
CHAPTER 1:
Using Studio
Creating movies with Studio is a three-step process:
1. Capture: Import source video material to your PC
hard drive. Possible sources include analog videotape
(8mm, VHS etc.), digital videotape (DV, Digital8), and
live video from a video camera, camcorder or webcam.
Capture mode is covered in Chapter 2: Capturing
video.
2. Edit: Arrange your video material as desired by
reordering scenes and discarding unwanted footage.
Add visuals, such as transitions, titles and graphics, and
supplementary audio, such as sound effects and
background music. For DVD and VCD authoring,
create interactive menus that give your audience a
customized viewing experience.
Edit mode is the arena for most of your work in Studio.
See “Edit mode” later in this chapter (page 5) for a
fuller introduction.
3. Make movie: When your project is complete,
generate a finished movie in your choice of format and
storage medium: tape, VCD, S-VCD, DVD, AVI,
MPEG, RealVideo or Windows Media.
Make Movie mode is covered in Chapter 11: Making
your movie.
Chapter 1: Using Studio 1
Setting the mode
Select which step of the movie-making process you
want to work on by clicking one of the three mode
buttons at the top left of the Studio window:
When you switch modes, the Studio screen changes to
display the controls needed for the new mode.
Undo, Redo and Help
The Undo, Redo and Help buttons are
always to be found in the top right
corner of the Studio window, no matter which of the
three modes you are currently working in.
• Undo allows you to back out of any changes you
have made to your project during the current session,
one step at a time.
• Redo reinstates the changes one by one if you undo
too far.
• The Help button launches Studio’s on-line help
system.
All other controls on the Studio screen are dedicated
to tasks within the current mode.
2 Studio 9
Chapter 1: Using Studio 3
Setting options
Most options in Studio are set using two tabbed dialog
boxes.
The first lets you control options related to Capture
mode and Edit mode. It has four tabs:
The other dialog box is concerned with options relating
to Make Movie mode. It has six tabs, one for each of
the six movie output types:
Each panel of both dialog boxes can be opened
individually with a corresponding command on the
Setup menu (e.g. Setup ¾ Capture Source). Once either
dialog box is open, however, all of its panels are
available through the tabs.
For simplicity, we generally refer to the different
options panels independently, as in “the Capture
source options panel”.
Detailed explanations of the options in both dialog
boxes are contained in Appendix A: Setup Options.
4 Studio 9
EDIT MODE
Studio opens in Edit mode each time it is launched,
because that is the mode you use most often. The Edit
mode display includes three main areas.
The Album stores resources you will use in your
movies, including your captured video scenes.
The Movie Window is where you create your edited
movie by arranging video and sound clips, and by
applying transitions and effects.
The Player provides playback and previewing for
whichever item is currently selected in Studio. That
may be an Album resource – such as a video scene,
title or sound effect – or your edited movie, complete
with transitions, titles, effects and three audio tracks.
The Player is covered below.
See Chapter 3: The Album and Chapter 4: The Movie
Window for detailed information on those topics.
Chapter 1: Using Studio 5
The Player
The Player displays a preview of your edited movie, or
of the item currently selected in the Album.
It consists of two main areas: a preview window and
playback controls. The preview window displays video
images. The playback controls allow you to play the
video, or go to an exact position within it. These
controls come in two formats: standard and DVD.
Standard mode
The standard playback controls are similar to those on a
camcorder or VCR. They are used for viewing ordinary
video.
DVD mode
The DVD playback controls emulate the navigation
controls on a DVD player or remote control. Use them
for previewing your DVD, VCD or S-VCD disc
productions, including menu interaction.
6 Studio 9
The preview window
This is a point of focus in Studio because you use it so
often, especially for previewing your movie. It can also
be used to display:
• Any type of Album content.
• Still images or titles from your movie.
• Changes to video effects in real time while you
adjust the parameter controls for the effects.
• Still frames from your video.
When viewing a still frame, you can advance by a
single frame in either direction with the “jog”
controls.
Note: When 16:9 (widescreen) video is previewed, the
Player is proportioned somewhat differently than in our
illustrations, but its general appearance is the same.
The DVD toggle button
Switch between the two playback modes with
the DVD toggle button at the bottom right-hand
corner of the Player. This button is only available when
your edited movie contains at least one menu.
Chapter 1: Using Studio 7
Playback controls
The Player presents either of two sets of playback
controls depending on the playback mode you choose.
When you play your movie back as ordinary video, you
will be using the standard playback controls. If your
movie uses disc menu navigation, you can play it back
as an optical disc with interactive on-screen menus by
using the DVD playback controls. Both groups of
controls are covered below.
The full-screen preview button: This button, just
below the bottom right-hand corner of the
preview window, switches to a full-screen preview. It
is available in both playback modes. The full-screen
display ends when your movie ends, or you doubleclick the screen or press the Esc key.
Standard playback controls
These buttons control playback in the Player.
Play / Pause: The Play button previews the
movie from the current position. Once preview
begins, Play becomes Pause. When playback is
paused, the Album scene or Movie Window clip
at which previewing stopped remains selected.
The [Space] key can also be used to start and stop
playback.
Fast reverse, Fast forward: These buttons let
you preview your movie at two, four or ten times
the normal speed, in either direction. Use them to
scan for a particular piece of video you want to
work with. Click the buttons repeatedly to loop through
the speed factors.
8 Studio 9
Go to beginning: This button halts playback and
skips back to the first frame of the material being
previewed.
Jog buttons: This pair of controls lets you step
your movie forward and backward by one frame
at a time.
The Player scrubber
Use the Player scrubber to quickly traverse your
captured video or edited movie in either direction. The
scrubber position corresponds to the position of the
current frame in the captured video file (not just the
current scene) or in the edited movie (not just the
current clip). Thus the scrubber bar always represents
the entire length of the content being viewed.
As you move the scrubber, the preview window shows
the current frame.
The ability of the preview to keep up with the scrubber
depends on the speed of your computer. If you move
the Player scrubber slowly, the preview display
responds smoothly. As you increase the rate at which
you move the scrubber, the preview will jump frames.
The point at which it does so depends on your
hardware. The smoothness of the preview also
diminishes as the overall length of the material being
scrubbed increases.
The counter
The counter displays the current
playback position in hours, minutes,
seconds and frames. You can directly
modify the counter fields to select an
Chapter 1: Using Studio 9
exact frame to view or at which to start playback.
Simply click on the number you wish to change and
type a new value. After you click within the counter,
you can also control it from the keyboard:
• Step through the fields: Tab, Shift+Tab, Left, Right
• Raise and lower field values: Up and Down. Hold
the key down to continuously change the value.
The master volume slider
This control sets the overall audio volume during
preview playback. It is equivalent to turning up the
master volume on your sound card using the system
volume tool. It does not affect the volume of the final
movie Studio creates in Make Movie mode.
The small loudspeaker icon at the right of the control
serves as a master mute button during playback.
DVD playback controls
These controls include the four
standard transport buttons
detailed above (Play/Pause, Fast
reverse, Fast forward, Go to
beginning) plus the DVD Player
Control, which is described under “The DVD Player
Control” on page 135.
10 Studio 9
Further editing topics
Please see the following for details on specific editing
topics:
• Chapter 5: Video clips
• Chapter 6: Transitions
• Chapter 7: Still images
• Chapter 8: Disc menus
• Chapter 9: The Title Editor
• Chapter 10: Sound effects and music
Chapter 1: Using Studio 11
CHAPTER 2:
Capturing video
Capture is the process of importing video from a video
source such as a camcorder to a file on your PC’s hard
drive. Clips from this “capture file” can then be used in
Studio as ingredients of your edited movies. You can
open capture files into the Album in Studio’s Edit
mode (see Chapter 3: The Album).
Capture is the first step in using your video footage.
Studio is able to capture from both digital (DV,
MicroMV) and analog video sources. See “Capture
hardware” on page 19 for details on configuring Studio
to capture from your equipment.
Switching to Capture mode
The very first step in capturing is to switch into
Studio’s Capture mode by clicking the Capture button
at the top of the screen.
Chapter 2: Capturing video 13
This opens the Capture mode interface, enabling you to
set up and carry out video capture. The details of the
interface are somewhat different for analog than for
digital video sources.
Topics in this chapter
• “The Capture mode interface” (below) introduces the
controls and displays for both analog and digital
captures.
• “The Capture Process” (page 19) covers setting up
for your hardware, gives step-by-step capturing
instructions, and describes the automatic scene
detection feature.
• “Digital capture” (page 25) and “Analog capture”
(page 30) cover topics specific to each type of source.
THE CAPTURE MODE INTERFACE
The tools and controls you see in Capture mode are
different depending on whether your capture hardware
is digital or analog.
Digital capture
If your video source is digital, your Capture mode
screen will look like the illustration on the opposite
page.
The Album, at the top left of the screen, displays icons
representing the video scenes as they are captured. The
Player, at top right, lets you view the incoming video
14 Studio 9
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