Pinnacle anyone?

[Bsmith]

Since there are no fourms for this..I decided to ask this here....I have been experimenting with different editing software...I have tried Premiere 6.0 (which I own), Vegas 5, and Premiere Pro...so far my choice is 6.0 over the others...I find Vegas to be complicated and cluttered while Pro is just plain messed up ( I prolly just don't know how to use it properly) but the effect controls are just WAY to complicated.

And so wanting to upgrade from premiere 6.0 I went back to researching other programs and I came across Pinnacle Liquid Edition. It costs about the same as everything else and it appears to have a lot of cool features ( I hope they are easier to use).

I was jsut wondering if anyone here has had any experince with this program and what they think? Why do you like it? Why don't you like it?

[Zoomforce]

Tried it.. hated it. And that is why you dont see a forum here.. its total garbage.

[Bsmith]

well what did you hate about it?

[David Jimerson]

It doesn't support 24p and it doesn't handle still photos as well as Vegas, but to say it's "total garbage" is just slander. It will be adding 5.1 surround sound and HD support in its next upgrade later this year.

It probably has the best and most detailed 2D and 3D effects editors of any NLE and will do many of the effects in real time. It has the best color correction tools, hands down (because they were ported over from Pinnacle's ultra-high-end pro systems), and its background rendering is a tool that ALL NLEs should have. The layout is very customizable and its XSend function is excellent; it provides a great level of integration with effects programs like After Effects. There are many respects in which it's superior to Vegas, IMHO.

You can also burn DVDs straight from the timeline.

[Bsmith]

geez...thats a lot of good things...but I'm going to take your word for it and not check it out....Do you have any experience with Avid DV? Avid Pro is just too pricey so I will be staying away from that.

[Zoomforce]

Not Slander.. My personal experience. I tossed out Pinnacle as a capable company years ago even when they didnt offer downloads for drivers, you had to phone them and get a disk sent to you, total nightmare.

24p is the big one, crashes etc. are another. I will give you the 2d 3d thing, but I dont really count that as AE pretty much takes that cake. I dont do effects in any NLE I use, maybe I am just old fashioned. Avid's new suite kicks thier color correction to the curb as well.

As for AVID DV.. thats the only other editor I use besides Vegas. Its pretty much the industry standard alongside of FCP, and on big projects that's what I use because it can output valid CMX EDL files for the audio post guys that Vegas cant really do.

[David Jimerson]

As someone who's conversant with both, these are the chief areas where Liquid Edition is superior to Vegas:

1) *Media management. *A known weak point for Vegas.
2) *The capture/logging tool in Edition blows Sony Capture away.
3) *Keyframing; in Vegas it's mostly done by track and not by clip and must be manually adjusted each time you change the length of the clip. *In LE, it's done by clip and auto-adjusts tp a clip's new length. *The keyframes also stay with the clip if you move it.
4) *Rendering.
a) Background rendering; renders effects automatically while you're still free to work on anything else. *Editing in LE is far, far closer to real-time
b) *Rendered effects stay with clips when you move them.
c) *LE takes advantage of the video card (GPU) for rendering effects

5) *Effects editors; far more detailed and customizable; half of them are real-time
6) *Constant auto-save; nothing is ever lost.
7) *Color-correction tools.
8) *Keying tools.

That having been said, I think Vegas is on balance a better program. *

And yes, Pinnacle's customer support is crap.

It does, however, have detailed video tutorials free on its website; who else does that?

[Zoomforce]

hey you dont need to convince me David... you like it and I dont, to each his own.

Vegas does offloaded network rendering, which is IMHO better than background rendering as it completely free's your system, but doesnt take 4 days like background rendering does. Even though Background rendering isnt an option in Vegas, you can push a button in the last 5 versions of Windows to make it background rendering.

[David Jimerson]

hey you dont need to convince me David... you like it and I dont, to each his own.

Naw, I'm not trying to convince you; just making points germane to the thread if anyone else reads it.


Even though Background rendering isnt an option in Vegas, you can push a button in the last 5 versions of Windows to make it background rendering.

I'm intrigued -- what do you mean?

[Philip]

BSmith, if you're interested, I have a copy of Liquid Edition that I'll sell. It started out as an educational version of Edition 4.5, but I upgraded it to Liquid Edition when that came out (from what I hear, there's a more recent upgrade out now, which you can use my version to upgrade to).

I've got the manuals, Pinnacle firewire card, and I'll even throw in the DVCreators Liquid Edition training DVD. $150.

Email me if you're interested. pboyer@dimasys.com

Philip

[Kidster]

It's funny how one mans trash is another mans treasure. I too have tried Vegas and Liquid Edition. And I think their is no comparison if you are editing 30fps. Liquid Edition wins hands down over Vegas. However, since Liquid doesn't support 24p, if and if you shoot in 24PA, then Vegas wins the battle.
I did hear that in addtion to HD that Liquid (will not actually be called Liquid any longer) will support in a fall release, that it indeed will support 24p and 5.1. At any rate, the future of dv movie making, you got to admit it's getting better all the time.

[Control_Lab]

Hi Bsmith !
Just wondered if you'd seen this ?

http://video.pinnaclesys.com/pbn/movies/premeire to liquid.wmv (about 200Mb)

and this topic :

http://www.dvxuser.com/cgi-bin/DVX2/YaBB.pl?board=Events;action=display;num=1089757043 ;start=0#14

Appart from the lack of full 24p support (although still editable apparently) I'm a bit surprised that Jarred totally dismisses it - I guess he just couldn't get-on with it - fair enough - it does look different to the usual standard NLE's and you might get a culture shock if you're a bit set in your ways !! I've edited video for years now mainly on Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier 6+ ( ugghh ! ) but most recently (last two years) on Edition.
I originally started in the late 1980's on homemade VHS to VHS deck control until pinnacle StudioDV then ver7 - excellent entrylevel program - I teach kids video technique in my sparetime and they pick up Studio9 within minutes !
Anyway - I just think you should have a go with it - plenty of LE 5.5 trial versions around. I love it! - Paul

[Zoomforce]

the only problem here is that it doesnt work with the DVX. and to have a thread for software that isn't compatible with the camera the forum is about, is just silly.