Chapter 2. Introduction to Studio 10

Though generally straightforward, Pinnacle Systems' Studio 10 has a few nooks and crannies that aren't obvious at first glance. Fortunately, Studio includes a comprehensive guided tour to get you familiar with the landscape fast. This chapter starts by showing you how to take the tour and then quickly introduces you to Studio's primary modes: Capture, Edit, and Make Movie. It also shows you how to undo or redo your work, use online help, and name and save your project files.

Studio 10 is a very accessible program, so it's tempting just to just in and get started. Still, for each project, a few options should be set beforehand. For example, you should choose the location for your captured video and auxiliary files, and you should perform a disk performance test to see if your system is up to the rigors of video editing. Most of these options are "set 'em and forget 'em": Studio will maintain them from project to project until you manually change them.

Note that Studio displays housekeeping options, such as file location settings, in the same dialog boxes that display configuration options such as capturing and transition rendering. This chapter focuses mainly on the housekeeping options; other options that you don't see in this chapter are covered later in this book.