Chapter 1. Getting Started


Before you launch into this book, it is essential that you familiarize yourself with some of the terms, phrases, and main features found in Liquid Edition. They are simple enough to learn, but obscure enough to seem impenetrable to the absolute beginner or to users migrating from other software programs.

This chapter looks at the interface and, for the benefit of total beginners, some of the basic concepts of nonlinear editing, which is often referred to as NLE. But don't panic, I deal with all of these features in far more depth in the relevant chapters, so you won't have to learn too much too soon. The latter part of this chapter does deal with customizing the interface and saving these customizations as templates, so you can learn some of the basic concepts of customizing your interface to suit your own particular workflow.

General Installation Tips

Setting up and using video editing software can be problematic, and the more you can do to ease this situation, the better. Installation is a good time to start; try to do as many as the following as humanly possible.

  • Make sure Windows XP has the latest patches installed. Use the Windows Update shortcut to check this.

  • Ask yourself how clean this Windows setup is. For instance, do you have a dozen different trial programs that might cause complications? If so, uninstall them before you install Liquid Edition.

  • Turn off all background tasks before you start the Installation wizard; this includes any Messenger programs and any virus-checking programs or software firewalls. Obviously, if you do disable the virus checker and/or firewall, you should also physically disconnect your machine from the Internet. Don't forget to reenable firewalls and virus checkers before you reconnect to the Internet. Rebooting the computer may automatically do this for you.

  • Disable the screensaver and all Windows' power-saving features.

  • Defragment the hard drive. Once all background tasks have been disabled, you should take advantage of this situation and defragment the drive onto which Windows XP is installed. If you are looking for optimal performance, you should also defragment your system hard drive after you've installed the software.

  • Check the system properties of your computer for problems. These will show up as yellow exclamation marks. Make sure you solve these before you install the software.

  • Make sure you are using the most up-to-date drivers for the various components of your PC. That includesand I cannot emphasize this enoughthe chipset drivers for your main board. You can update these via the manufacturer's Web site. You should always update because a large percentage of performance problems experienced with NLE programs can be directly attributed to using an out-of-date chipset driver.

  • Use the Windows XP restore function to create a Restore point before you install the software so that you can roll this installation back if you need to. You might also consider buying a disk image software program to make an image of your hard drive.

  • Once you've completed the installation, don't forget to check the Pinnacle Web site (www.Pinnaclesys.com) for any updates or patches that you may need to install.




Pinnacle Liquid Edition 6 for Windows
Pinnacle Liquid Edition 6 for Windows
ISBN: 0321269160
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 245
Authors: Paul Ekert

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