Studio - Feature Requests

Subtitles please!

LindaC — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:29:41 GMT

Pinnacle NEEDS to add a subtitle track at least that at least supports .txt formats. Please make sure it is its own track! There are programs and companies out there that will make the subtitles for you and send you the .txt file...Pinnacle needs to create the track that allows the subtitles to be dropped in!!

Thank you,

Linda

Pinnacle Studio 14 HD lack of CUDA GPU acceleration = slow slow slow!

feathers — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:38:50 GMT

Yes, it's a shame because the software looks quite good in terms of features and effects. Am disappointed to find it lacks CUDA GPU processing (hardware acceleration is not the same). I have an Intel Q6600 CPU overclocked to 3.5ghz and that is nowhere near fast enough for effects like stabilization and noise reduction of 1080 HD video. What's required is CUDA support to leverage the power of an Nvidia GPU. My GPU is a Gigabyte GTX 260 super overclock, with 216 cores. If Studio 14 used the GPU cores for effects rendering then it would make the software much more useable. Cyberlink Powerdirector already has CUDA support. Head over to Nvidia and look at the list of software featuring CUDA acceleration. Using a GPU to process video effects makes a massive difference. What took 44 hours to process on an overclocked quad core takes only 3 hours on an 8800gt (even less on a GTX 260).

TMPGenc also features CUDA acceleration.

So, will Pinnacle support CUDA or will it be left in the dust by Cyberlink and other competition?

Verify Disc after Burning Option

towbar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:41:41 GMT

This would be an excellent option to have in Studio. It could be set as an option in the settings, which would do a bit by bit comparison between the image file and the burned media.

I use this option in an external burning program, and wouldn't think of burning a disc without doing so.

Cloning

G.G — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:03:47 GMT

I have Pinnacle Studio version 12. It is NOT the Plus or Ultimate version. Does my version allow you to clone a person (ie: getting a person and his 'clone' in the same clip together at the same time as if they are talking to each other) or is this only possible with the Ultimate version. If it is possible, can anyone tell me step by step how to do it? Thank you

Use more of Available DRAM, (seems to only use 2 of my 12G)

rgibbons — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:07:35 GMT

Editing seems slow, as the program does a lot of disk swapping. I wish the program would use more of the available DRAM, (I have 12 Gig in my i7 computer, but memory monitor shows Studio 12 never uses more than 2 Gig).

(The time to wait for computer to unfreeze after edit reduced from 3 sec to 1.5 sec when I changed from WD green HDD to Velociraptor for paging file). Russ G.

Make Movie | File | Same as Source

Emuge — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:07:51 GMT

It would be very handy to have the option to skip transcoding and simply insert edits. If the File Type option "same as source" is added it could instruct Make Movie to skip transcoding. This would be great for a couple reasons.

Make Movie process would take very little time to complete
Make Movie process would take very little CPU
It would make high quality transcoding in 3rd party applications possible

Please give it consideration.

Thanks!

Modify video format of an existing project

Lee Gillie — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:35:38 GMT

Since there is no way to copy timeline content between projects of differing formats it would be helpful to modify video format of an existing project. Or at least a project creation affirmation when it is being set by the first clip. It is not easy to see clip formats, and this does not always give you what you want. Often my first clips are from stock footage or CGI, and these can be contrary to the larger body of camera footage. Once you've spent time, and effort on a project, and discover the project format is causing problems it is too late and you are at a start over point. The addition of this feature would help immensely.

Background Render Hot Key please

jjn — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:06:43 GMT

In the next version of Studio, please can you consider including a Hot Key and/or Icon to toggle on and off background rendering? Or at least make it a first level menu command?

Further to that, you could even include "Intelligent" background render that pauses when playing a timeline or clip in the album......

As soon as the hardware caught up sufficeintly to allow real time preview, you've added features like Boris Grafitti.

To render or not to render while editing?

budtow — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:52:58 GMT

It would be nice if there was a button to switch on or off background rendering on the timeline. If there is I missed it in S14.

Buddy

DVD menu editing with full use of "main" and "sub" menus

ehcet — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:38:54 GMT

Hi. spent days and numerous chat with tech.support.Finally I was told that either run my movie/slide show from start to end, or using submenues specify segments, but I can not run the full show and then just select segments to view and return to submenu.Sorry Pinnacle Studio 14 programmers but I can not believe that there is no "trick" to include and force the main menu to run from start to end and then the submenu to do his job.Did something changed since 1982 when I started to write engineering programs with Fortran, and later with all versions of Basic.There were problems which were not possible to solve according to Tech. supports of programs that time.Surprise! it was possible with by tricking the program. No, I do not claime that I am genius, or some uebermench. But excuse me, why did you created the MAIN menu if it is useless?What the Main menu is capable to do now it is possible to do with the Sub menu easily.So could somebody from Pinnacle explain why this menu problem exist. By the way, your datasheet received from tech.support describe on a full page how to view the program from beginning to the end.Gentlemen, it can be done using 3 (three) steps.

Please, today when everything goes to DVD, try to fix this menu problem. I am sure many if not all of your users will be extremly happy.

Sincerely, ehcet

How can I edit AVCHD video with 5.1 sound?

ebros — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:10:16 GMT

In Vegas Movie Studio Platinum and Vegas Pro 8 can handle 5.1 sound (5 different chanels) in the editing line (mode). When I have tied to edit by Pinnacle 12 Ultimate, it downmixes 5.1 souns to the stero in the editing line. How can I get all 5 chanels into the editing line, so that I can edit also my 5.1 sound?

Import Dolby Digital (5.1)

RajGrover — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:18:28 GMT

It is just plan silly that so many consumer cameras have the ability to encode 5.1 and Studio 14 can't import it. AVCHD import downmixes to surround sound.

File names transported to disc menu

matthewglenway — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:46:39 GMT

Why can't...or can you transport your video file names directly to chapters.I make dvd's of 30 or moe homes for sale and it would help greatly to drag and drop my home video files into the time line With the file name intact per chapter instead of me typing it out each time,Old my Dvd studio 10 did this also arcsoft dvd2 can do this.Please can someone look into this for me as I use pinnacle(now 14) for everything else.Help would be greatly appreciated.

Scrolling titles

richard.e.fryer@gmail.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:20:11 GMT

I am pleased that vertically scrolling titles (e.g. end credits) are facilitated.

I have found them helpful in a 'tutorial' video to provide a more lengthy explanation than a series of short one line captions work well for.

A couple of additions would make them significantly more helpful to me.

a) Having a box to click if you want to choose as an option to have the last full page of text to stay on the screen for a readable length of time. (Currently the text scrolls off the top of the screen always, I think.) Holding the last page might require a timer box to tell how many frames or seconds to hold the last screen. This of course would cause the text to scroll faster but we adjust the length for speed already, so that isn't really a complication.

(I know there's a workaround to copy the last page to another title but getting things to line up is dicey and therefor very timestaking.)

b) Having the title pop-up include a recommendation of how long the clip should be for normal 'human factors' reading speed would be a very nice touch. And would probably improve a lot of videos. Easy to ignore if you 'know better' of course.

Date and time stamp for HDV clips

jhilgenberg — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:29:51 GMT

Studio has always preserved the original date and time of each detected scene during capture, and assigned those data to the clip properties. But not now with the Canon HV10 and HV20 hi-def cameras, it seems. Is this a bug in Studio capturing HDV, or is it a bug in the Canon HD camera line? This information can be very important in organizing and editing projects? If it's a Studio bug, please fix it.

Timeline provided when cutting clips

jsmmeyer — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:38:33 GMT

There is no timeline provided when trying to do fine edits to clips. It would make it easier for tracking purposes.

Volume changes in Pin Studio 12

Lenny — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:33:54 GMT

Hi all,

I have noticed that when I want to fade the volume down on a audio track the volume fades down to -00 dB, Is there a way of getting the volume to fade down a couple of dB’s instead of fading down to -00 Db? Or have I missed something somewhere? The only way I have found to do this is do it on the fly and then take out all the handles so I can get the slope down to where I need the volume to go.

Lenny. -

Multi-track editing on both audio and video! PLEASE!!

pennstat — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:32:45 GMT

Once again, I can't purchase the latest version of Studio (14, in this case) because it doesn't offer an optional layout with multi-track audio and video recording that's more in line with competitors' products. So, once again, I'm relegated to using a now obsolete competitor's product for final editing and rendering because it can give me up to 7 video and 7 audio tracks simultaneously. And, once again, I'm here making a request for multi-track functionality which will probably be ignored thus isolating the pro-sumer customer base yet again. Forget that a competitor has already implemented 7-layer video track editing in their latest (yet now 2-year-old) product, which is a direct competitor to Studio, so at least they're halfway there. All they have to do is implement multi-layer audio editing as well and I'm sold.

We've only been begging for this as an option since Studio 10. But, hey, what do the customers know?

(If this actually is available in Studio 14 then by all means let me know, but I saw nothing in the user's manual about it.)

Removing ads from a TV recorded show

dtp220 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:14:28 GMT

I wish there will be a feature for the future version that will remove comercial ads from a tv recorded show.

With this feature, it will save us about 30 minutes (for 2 hour recorded show) not scrolling thru comercial ads pages when converting an TV show's mpeg file into other video formats.

I heard that videoredo plus is one of the best mpeg editor softwares for removing comercial ads.

Capture time limit

jjn — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:44:44 GMT

Please add a "Stop capture after .... minutes" feature to S14. It has been in every version of Studio before and it's a very useful feature when capturing long analogue tapes.

Default title editor when double clicking on Title track

jjn — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:23:50 GMT

Could the title editor that opens automatically when you double click on the title track be the last editor used? Or possibly a wizard?

At the moment you get the motion title editor every time. Although this has motion, it lacks some other funtionality - in particular the ability to align titles to the thirds or even the centre.

I'd like to use the clissic editor until the motion editor is broght up to the same standard of functions.

Widen the application of 'Match Previous Clip'

richard.e.fryer@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:04:07 GMT

I sometimes use Studio to illustrate how something (sometimes abstract) work by using slight animation - AND I sometimes put animated route maps in a travel video, I like to edit a picture in an external photo editor (usually PSP) to add annotation that turns on and off; pointers that come on and move from spot to spot. I save succeeding pictures as .jpg's with a numbering scheme. Not an effort-free solution but it works and is very flexible.

It would be very nice to be able to pan and zoom these diagrams - but 'Match Previous Clip' requires the two adjacent pictures to be multiple instances of the same picture. This can be done by nudging the pan and zoom - or by using the plugins to get the numbers - but both are big overhead efforts compared to working with the same picture as can be done with 'Match'

Why not always let 'Match Previousw Clip' be enabled (to protect the user, you might require that the dimensions be the same to highlight the button).

So far board members haven't come up with a flexible workaround - - through v12 anyway.

Of course letting me link to a more powerful editor (than the title editor anyway) WITHIN Studio could also solve this but that might be a huge change - the 'Match' solution seems like it might be a minor change.

If one of you have a spiffy solution - spank me and send me back to the regular board! *grin* - and thank you.

arrangement of scenes

dan pincu — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:46:09 GMT

I would suggest an improvement to the system to allow you to sort the scenes in order by the description, or alternatively, have a way to capture the scene number and title into a file that can be sorted. In a large file, with over 100 scenes, it is otherwise very difficult to put them in any order other than the original order.

In fact, there is a way to see the title in the Timeline section of the video, but no way I can find to do a sort on the titles. I did find that I can move the scenes in the Timeline section into chronological order, though.

As an aside, a friend had a Mac, and his program allows you to create a short video of each scene, then you can sort them and put them back in the order you wish. Studio should also have this facility!

Frame Decimation - "delete all except every Nth frame"

BobF — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:30:21 GMT

The purpose is to speed up a video sequence, sorta like 2x, 4x, etc fast forward except ability to use any decimation ratio.

I have implemented this using Matlab which has an indexed aviread function. It can then write an avi using only the selected frames. I did try the studio plus 12 "speed" function, but that seems to be very expensive to render. There is some overhead time in taking a video clip to and from Matlab, but the processing is very fast.

Bob

Scene detection on multiple video files

lamsao — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:15:16 GMT

Pinnacle Studio (at least v12, I don't know about about previous versions) can do scene detection on a single file at a time. I have more than 20 video files with 1-2hr long/each. It's tedious to kick off scene detection one file after another. It would be nice if the software can be setup to do scene detection on multiple files.