What s New?

What's New?

Not much; how 'bout with you?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Actually there's lots new with Studio 10. Here are some highlights.

Most significantly, Pinnacle merged Studio's polished interface with the editing and rendering engine from big sister product Pinnacle Liquid Edition. In addition to providing support for new formats like Microsoft Windows Media video and high definition video (HDV), this professional strength technology delivers additional speed and robustness to the Studio product line.

If you shoot with a DVD camcorder, you'll be happy to hear that Studio can now capture your video, while all producers will appreciate the ability to capture video from non-copy protected DVDs (see Chapter 6 for this last item). Pinnacle also threw in Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder to help you quickly convert analog and digital tapes to DVD (See Chapter 16). Also new is the ability to preview video output on a second monitor or television set, as detailed in Chapter 2, which provides a more accurate preview and more efficient editing workspace.

On the editing front, Pinnacle added the ability to control audio and video effects with keyframes, providing near infinite customizability (Chapter 9). Pinnacle also added several new cleaning effects to improve video quality, and many other audio and video effects.

Other noteworthy features include the ability to "scrub" audio on the Timeline, the ability to output progressive scan DVDs for your new DVD Player, additional SmartMovie styles, and more choices for producing high quality, slow motion effects. If you're producing longer movies, you'll adore the new ability to record to Dual Layer (DL) DVDs.

Overall, when you throw in the additional Overlay track and pan and zoom capabilities introduced in Studio 9 Plus, the jump from Version 9 to Version 10 is both significant and impressive. Most importantly, Pinnacle retained Studio's straightforward, easy to use interface. Much more powerful, but with the same basic interface we've all come to know and love.