I bought this editing software as an upgrade from Windows Movie Maker for machinima purposes.  I'm still a beginner with creating my own videos and movies, so the drag-n-drop concept in Pinnacle has really been user-friendly and lifesaving.  But I'm experiencing some issues with it.  So if someone could address these I'd be most appreciative!

 

1. When I make slideshows and or movies they are always poor quality when previewed.  Text and images are choppy and blurry.  Why?

2. When I transfer gameplay footage into Pinnacle it previews on hyper-speed.  So I manually slow it down using video effects.  Why does it do this?

3. The preview window on the upper right corner is really small and practically useless.  But when enlarged, the preview quality is many times worse!  Is there another preview window size that would view better?  How is this fixed?

 

Thanks for your time :]

In your project setups there's a place to check for full quality preview. This will help greatly. The quality won't be as good as the rendered finished product, but it should be adequate. This should help your full screen resolution.

As for the jumping video, again go to the setup, I think in the project section, and turn on background rendering. You will see a different color appear above the areas that are being processed. When this is complete, the video should play smoothly. Background rendering tends to slow down the editing process, so if you have this problem, you can turn it off while editing.

Don

Thank you so much for your response!

 

It cleaned up my preview window resolution a ton!

 

Don

Just to expand on what Don has Posted:

1) Go to: Setup / Video and Audio Preferences / Video Preview / Enable  Full Resolution Preview.

   That will give you better quality Preview. However that is still Preview & your finished Project will be better quality than that, when Rendered     to  DVD & viewed on TV.

2) The Preview Window is small, to conserve System Resources. However if you have S11 (I think), but certainly S12 & have your Desktop Screen Resolution set to 1280 x 1024, a slider bar will appear above the Preview Screen, which you can move, to increase it's size. 

3) If you want to Render & view Video Effects in Real-Time, go to: Setup / Video and Audio Preferences / Background Rendering / Ehable Background Rendering.

With Background Rendering Enabled, the 1st Scene Timeline Bar will turn dark green, with light green progress bar. When that Scene has been Rendered, the bar will turn-back again to orange/brown.

If you don't have Background Rendering Enabled, Rendering takes place in the Make Movie Tab, with a blank Preview Screen, untill the whole Project has been Rendered. The Preview Screen Image will appear when the Final File is being written. 

4) Someone such as Jeff (jjn), might be able to give you an explanation re: Gameplay. 

ADDED - Bit slow in typing & Posting.

Thank you both for your help :]

 

How do I readjust my desktop screen resolution to 1280x1024?  Is this changed by going into my control panel and selecting "desktop preferences"?  I gave it a shot but the recommended resolution was not an available option.  By doing this, it will allow me to adjust my preview screen with a slider bar?

 

I'm using Pinnacle Studio Plus 12.

How do I readjust my desktop screen resolution to 1280x1024?

Right-Click on Desktop / Properties / Display Properties / Settings / Display / Screen Resoluton / Move the Slider to 1280 x 1024. Then you will see the Slider bar in S12. It may be that you can increase the Preview Screen Size with a smaller Desktop Resolution. Try it & see, anyway.

The above Route is for XP. Don't know what it is for Vista. However, your Monitor may not support 1280 x 1024, in which case S12 slider might not show. You need to experiment.

And welcome to the Forum, BTW 

You can also preview in full screen by double-clicking the preview window. Pause and play with the spacebar. You can advance one frame at a time using the Ctrl and up/down arrow keys. To return to normal, press esc.