Is Pinnacle Studio 25 ready to take on Adobe and Apple?
Has Adobe Premiere Pro found a worthy rival?
Video editors have seen something of a new focus in the last eighteen months, mainly due to the pandemic. The latest version of Corel’s Pinnacle Studio has been taking this into account, because as more workers are staying at home, there’s even more of a reliance on video projects to be edited and published with ease, regardless of which operating system you use.
While many video editors use Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple’s Final Cut Pro, others have been looking at free editing software or other alternatives, which is where Pinnacle Studio 25 hopes to fill the void.
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Hitting a Pinnacle of video editing
We reviewed the previous version of Pinnacle Studio where we praised the redesigned Title Editor, alongside being able to track people across the frame. In version 25, now available to buy, this is taken one step further, with objects now able to be tracked, so if there’s a hero product that needs to be the focus of a video, this feature can help in droves.
There’s many more improvements here, from 8K and 360 video editing to making sure any unwanted noise is either edited out or compressed, so the viewer can hone in on the right sounds.
“Pinnacle Studio has long been known for its expansive collection of features and effects to empower users to create amazing video productions that are uniquely their own,” says Prakash Channagiri, Director of Product Management for Video at Corel. “With Pinnacle Studio 25 Ultimate, we’ve made it even easier to produce impressive, professional-looking results with features that streamline the editing workflow and enable users to edit with impressive accuracy and control over every part of their video project.”
However, with Pinnacle Studio only available for Windows machines running a 64-bit CPU, the increasing prevalence of ARM-based laptops may mean that it’s time for Corel to look toward making the software available on more machines.
Twisting the ARM
With Apple all in on ARM with its M1 chip, which powers its latest Macs and MacBooks, and Microsoft in heavy testing with Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the same architecture, customers are going to want their favored software to work on these machines sooner rather than later.
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With Adobe already achieving M1 native support on most of the Creative Cloud Suite, it’s also working on Windows ARM compatibility, and already has Lightroom available for it, with more on the way.
However, there’s no Mac version of Pinnacle anywhere to be seen (on either M1 Macs or older Intel-based Macs), and the iOS version is seemingly abandoned, as the latest update is still showcasing iOS 10 support.
Pinnacle Studio has always been an intuitive video editor with features that can make it easy for video enthusiasts to learn the ropes in projects, but with Macs still favored by creatives, it may be high time to see the suite available on other platforms, and the ARM architecture sooner rather than later.
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Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time, he's written a book, 'The Making of Tomb Raider'. His second book, '50 Years of Boss Fights', came out in 2024, with a third book coming in 2025. He also has a newsletter called 'Springboard'. He's usually found playing games old and new on his Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that's about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.