Railfan Technology > Audio/video Editor

Hi all,

I'm looking for a good audio/video editor for my PC. I want to convert some of my 8mm video to dvd and edit a few things out/in to it. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks
FP45-95

I've been using Studio Ver. 8.12.7 by Pinnacle to edit my old 8mm and Hi8 footage into DVD programs, and have had excellent results. This software is about four years old now, and has good editing, titling and audio capabilities. I've read where newer versions of Pinnacle aren't well-liked because they crash too much. No problems at all with my version.

I've also been using Pinnacle Studio 8 for a while now. It was cheap (free with my video card), had a lot more features than MS Movie Maker, and seemed a lot easier and more intuitive to learn than Adobe Premiere. I just bought the upgrade to Pinnacle Studio v. 10.5 (just $30), but I haven't installed it yet. I guess I'll soon see how stable it is.

I originally started out with Pinnacle Studio v.7 and have used v.8,9 & 10. 10 seemed to crash out a lot on me, but 8 and 9 seem to run just fine. Like previously mentioned they are very easy to use, even for beginners and are packed with quite a few features. I worked as a video producer for public access for a year and had a very high-end linear/non-linear system that I grew very accustomed to, but I think the $40K price tag is well above all our "hobby" budgets. For $100, Pinnacle has a very nice product. I've toyed with Adobe Premier and gotten frustrated quickly and stopped.

I use Premier exclusively. Tried some others, but I also like the idea of being able to remove and replace or edit a soundtrack (not sure that Studio 8 does that). More for music video remixing than for railfan stuff, but I still find Premier to be very stable and I like to be able to edit down to the frame. I do use Movie Maker for file conversion and simple editing.

And now I'm installing Studio 8.1.1 on my other computer to see what it really does...

I too, had Premiere, starting in '97 with version 4.7, through Pro 1.5, but I gave up on it. I'd gotten too used to multiple tracks in the timeline, and when Adobe went to one track editing, I could not adapt to it. I can visualize my presentation better with multiple tracks.

Now using Vegas Pro, which also does high def. I can break out the audio track on this, just as Premiere can.

I'm using Premier 6, which still uses multi-track editing. I am used to editing that way. I do a lot of audio production work with multi-track editing. Really seems like the best way to do it.

The single track editing programs are good for quick simple jobs though.

Anyone got a link to the Pinnacle Studio 8 info. Can you download it or do you have to go to Best Buy.

Studio 8 is several years old now, and doubtful you'll find it available for retail sale any more. Might want to try E-bay. Pinnacle is up to v10.5 now....you can read user comments on CNET, and they're not favorable. The Pinnacle website still has support info for the previous versions of Studio, including an update patch for Studio 8.

I have been using Adobe Premier since 1995. I really liked the older versions better as was noted in other messages. I now have Adobe Premier Pro 2 and I am trying to get use to it. The one thing I can suggest is to get a Firewire capture device. I use a Canopus model that runs about $200. I have three of these now, one in Dunsmuir, one in Tehachapi, and one here for editing. I had one go bad and they replaced it with no questions asked. I don't hear great things from our site users about the USB capture devices that are out there. We hear of them dropping frames.

If you plan to encode online there are tools out there. Microsoft has a free encoder for wmv which is pretty good. If you are looking for something good I suggest Cleaner XL for Autodesk. If you are a student or know a student you could get this for a sane price. I bought an older version a few years ago on ebay for $40, then bought an upgrade to the current version.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

God almighty, people, get a Mac, run Final Cut Pro and you'll be so happy and productive you won't believe it. Instead of constantly solving those constant pc problems, you'll just do what you want to do. You'll edit, surf, whatever. I do video for a living and wouldn't use anything else. No comparison. None. Period.