Pinnacle had told us it was planning a facelift for its troubled Studio line of budget video capture, editing and authoring, following the assignment, by new owner Avid, of a new project-development team. More importantly, for users of versions of Studio 8 and upwards, we were promised a more stable and reliable editing platform with fewer bugs and niggles than we’ve become used to in the past. So, does Studio 11 deliver on its promises?

Design and layout

The first thing you notice is that Studio 11 has been given a complete visual makeover; the screen interface now has a light and airy appearance, while retaining the overall layout characteristics of previous versions. Pinnacle has adapted the interface to make it suitable for larger widescreen displays, and it’s a lot easier on the eye. 

The workflow remains the same: the Capture, Edit and Make Movie tabs make navigating around the screen very easy; the horizontal timeline offers two video tracks, one for your video clips and the other for special effects overlays, pan and zoom, etc; a titles track and two separate audio tracks so you can add a commentary or sound effects alongside a music track. Three alternate timeline displays – Timeline Mode, Storyboard or Text Listing – are available as before.

Features

The new Studio 11 line-up contains three basic products: Studio, Studio Plus and Studio Ultimate. The entry version enables users to capture footage from DV camcorders, tidy it up and publish the finished videos to Yahoo! Video for online sharing. It has virtually all of the functionality that a beginner will require, and has simple, no-nonsense workflow through to DVD and beyond. 

In the middle is Studio Plus, which has a few more enhanced features, including support for native HDV and AVCHD HD editing and also HD DVD disc burning. Users can burn discs on a standard DVD burner, using standard DVD discs and, depending on the format, can play them on the latest HD DVD players. We’re told that support for Blu-ray drives will follow as a free update in the very near future.