First I tried MP4 files...didn't work.

Then I tried .mts (AVCHD) files...didn't work.

You'd think that Pinnacle could deal with these kinds of files. What good is buying an HD camera if the HD editing software is so finicky?

 CJ

My Studio 12 works with them, altho its not enabled out of the box.  I did not know S14 was even out yet - i'll take a look at it.

cjwonder:

First I tried MP4 files...didn't work.

Then I tried .mts (AVCHD) files...didn't work.

You'd think that Pinnacle could deal with these kinds of files. What good is buying an HD camera if the HD editing software is so finicky?

 CJ

Studio Ultimate CAN import and handle HD media content.  Here is a link to a comparison table for the different flavours of Studio:  http://www.pinnaclesys.com/images/redesign/comparison/Studio.html

AVCHD is a variant of MPEG4 (in a different wrapper?), so maybe the exact source of your video has something to do with the problem.  There is still no actual standard defining AVCHD and some equipment manufacturers use their own version, so maybe your inability to import it is due to the type of MPEG4 that you have.

We need more information about what you are doing, the video source, your computer specs (your profile is empty) and any other workflow information that can help others on this forum to diagnose what the problem might be.  Others seem to be able to import and work with AVCHD from their camcorders, however AVCHD is very resource hungry and does require a powerful and fast computer.

Thanks, Igor...

 I've updated my profile and here are the specs of my computer.

Gateway
3.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
1022 Megabytes Installed Memory

The problem could be that I don't have enough resources but I upgraded to Studio 14 because I bought an HD camera...most recently the Canon and thought I could just import and edit the way I did with my old regular DV camera and Pinnacle 9.4. That works great and maybe I should have just stayed with that. 

As far as converting, I would hate to think I have to convert all the video I shoot before I can edit with it. Kind of defeats the purpose of upgrading camera and editing (I also just upgraded the video card because the one that came with my computer couldn't handle Pinnacle 14). I have Super but that doesn't seem to work with .mts files. I will try FF and see if that does it.  

Thanks again. I'm going to try to call Pinnacle on Monday to see if they can help.

CJ

 

Sorry to tell you the bad news but your computer is not close to be able to edit AVCHD material,

AVCHD is a highly compressed format and Studios minimum requirements is a Intel Core 2 QUAD (4 cores, you have 1core) @ 2,66Ghz (per core),

 

Link: http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=224409&Hilite=avchd

Also take a look at the highly compressed AVCHD format at wikipedia.. 

 

cheers  

cjwonder:

Thanks, Igor...

 I've updated my profile and here are the specs of my computer.

Gateway
3.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
1022 Megabytes Installed Memory

The problem could be that I don't have enough resources but I upgraded to Studio 14 because I bought an HD camera...most recently the Canon and thought I could just import and edit the way I did with my old regular DV camera and Pinnacle 9.4. That works great and maybe I should have just stayed with that. 

As far as converting, I would hate to think I have to convert all the video I shoot before I can edit with it. Kind of defeats the purpose of upgrading camera and editing (I also just upgraded the video card because the one that came with my computer couldn't handle Pinnacle 14). I have Super but that doesn't seem to work with .mts files. I will try FF and see if that does it.  

Thanks again. I'm going to try to call Pinnacle on Monday to see if they can help.

CJ

Don't call Pinnacle but read the Specifications for Studio 14 first. If you call they will laugh for several minutes .... Buying a HD camera is one, buying a very fast multi core PC with 4 GB of memory and a heavy graphic card is a necessary 2nd investment you have to do.

Good luck,
Bernd

Thanks to you and Bernd. I thought it might be that. Playing around with it I discovered I could make mpeg-2 files through Pinnacle and those work pretty well, but that seems to defeat the purpose of using the camera I have. Not ready to upgrade the computer yet so will return the camera and go back to my old non-hd Canon camera and at least use the titles and effects that come with 14 Ultimate. Then, when I'm ready to buy a new computer I'll revisit buying an HD camera. Of course, byt then there will be a whole new set of problems.

 

CJ

cjwonder:

Thanks to you and Bernd. I thought it might be that. Playing around with it I discovered I could make mpeg-2 files through Pinnacle and those work pretty well, but that seems to defeat the purpose of using the camera I have.

CJ

Don't think of having to convert your video files as "defeating the purpose", but rather as a simple workaround for your underpowered computer.  You can also shoot in SD with your new camera and edit the SD media directly in Studio until you get a faster computer.

The conversion does not take long and I have not seen any noticeable drop in resolution.  The conversion programs are free, so give it a try before you return the camera.  You just may find it worthwhile to do the extra step of conversion and keep creating HD material for the time being.

Thanks, Igor. Good advice that I will take into consideration. I also have a friend who has a Canon HV40 and I might get that since it outputs in mpeg2. Even with my computer I think I should be able to work with this? 

cj

Canon's usually can't shoot in SD format. My HF10 is strictly HiDef.

cjwonder:

Thanks, Igor. Good advice that I will take into consideration. I also have a friend who has a Canon HV40 and I might get that since it outputs in mpeg2. Even with my computer I think I should be able to work with this? 

cj

I am afraid that your computer probably won't work well with HDV (MPEG2) media.  My computer was a P4 (2.8 GHz) with Hyperthreading and it was very slow with HD material from my new (at the time) Sony HC7, an HDV tape camera similar to the Canon HV40.  I could only get one layer of HD and even that was slow.  I had to upgrade to a Quad CPU in order to edit HDV at a reasonable speed.  Check out the specs for Studio, but don't go by the "minimum", rather go with the "recommended" listing for the computer components, and use that as the minimum requirement.

Basically, the more power in your computer, the happier you will be when handling HD media (import, edit, output).

The worst thing in a long time was when I bought the upgrade for S14 (which in fact is version 13 and it truly shows!!!!!!)

I have tried to install  S13 about 50 times. It freezes in different places but most often at Remove backup files.

I used to have S11 and S12. Now I just have ...cking S13, well OK S14 which I cannot install.

I want my money back.

Okay, based on the advice I got here I decided I need to buy a new computer to handle the world of HD editing. If you had to buy a computer, what would you make sure to have on it?

Here is one I am looking at... http://tinyurl.com/ykfvvyp

CJ

cjwonder:

Okay, based on the advice I got here I decided I need to buy a new computer to handle the world of HD editing. If you had to buy a computer, what would you make sure to have on it?

Here is one I am looking at... http://tinyurl.com/ykfvvyp

CJ

That computer looks OK with the Quad processor and 512 MB video card, but the HDD might give you problems.  First, you need to have two separate hard drives, one for the operating system and the installed programs and a separate one for the media and render files.  Secondly, the drives should be 7200 rpm (or faster).  The 5400 RPM drive mentioned in the computer specs won't be fast enough for streaming HD media.  It sounds like a pretty cheap drive as 5400 RPM drives are not that readily available any more (only in laptops in order to save some battery power).  The specs don't mention the size of the power supply, so make sure that it is adequate.  I have found that typically most prepackaged computers have minimally sized PSU's which can limit your future expansion capability.  I experienced this personally a couple of years ago when I installed an additional drive and the power supply blew, taking a capacitor on the Mother Board with it.  It cost me more to fix the MoBo than the cost of the drive ($69.00 for the HDD and $80.00 to fix the MoBo).  My power supply was a 450 Watt unit and I replaced it with a 650 Watt PSU.  I would say that these days 650 Watts is a minimum requirement as that will allow you to add high power video cards and large HDD's in the future.

I hope Igor doesn't mind me qualifying this

First, you need to have two separate hard drives, one for the operating system and the installed programs and a separate one for the media and render files.

You don't need two drives. Of course it's preferable to have two, but an external USB drive should be fine, even for HD.

If you are going for AVCHD video, I'd look to see if you could get a faster CPU for not much more money - the one in your listing is 2,5Gz, but 3,2Ghz Phenoms are getting cheaper now. Even I've bought one!

jjn:

I hope Igor doesn't mind me qualifying this

First, you need to have two separate hard drives, one for the operating system and the installed programs and a separate one for the media and render files.

You don't need two drives. Of course it's preferable to have two, but an external USB drive should be fine, even for HD.

Jeff,

It's not up to me to keep anyone from adding to a thread.  I don't own the rights just because I have "talked" more than once in it.  I wish I did have the "rights" because then I could charge royalties and make a few bucks

Your point is correct, two HDD's are not mandatory, but having two separate ones (whether external or internal), can make for smoother sailing due to keeping the access for running programs separate from the access for streaming media.  I personally prefer two separate internal drives and use the external one for project back-ups after the project is finished.  The simple reason for this is that when you have a removable drive as part of the project file management system, things can go off track if the drive is disconnected or it might get its drive number changed by the operating system while you are still working on a project.

This one seems to have more of what you guys are talking about...although it does seem to have some drawbacks like the USB ports and slow starting. I also don't see a firewire connection and I like to use that...

 http://tinyurl.com/yk6xxwy

cj

I have to say that I have not had an unpleasant experience with the S14 Ulitmate upgrade. I have done several projects since upgrading and I have not been disappointed in the least. As you can see, I don't have the greatest equipment in the world but other than a bit slow on starting S14, no other hangs to speak of. For the sake of experimenting, I rendered a video in HD for a youtube post and it worked fine. My machine is a bit laggy on the HD but it came out fine as far as I can tell. The only problem I have with Studio (all versions) is the DVD burning abilities. When I have used Studio's packaged DVD burning capabilities I have experienced more glitchy DVD's than not. My solution has been to create ISO images and burn with Nero. Problem solved. For the money I have put out on Studio over the years I would expect better results from the DVD burning feature but I can live with the work around.

To be sure that the new computer will have all the required features to run Studio smoothly, follow Pinnacle's specifications (here is a list on their website: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+Ultimate+Collection+14.htm) and make sure that you follow the "recommended", not just the minimum requirements on that list.

Thanks again for all the great advice.

 

CJ

Okay...last time I'll bother anyone with this.

Based on the great advice I got from this thread I finally found a computer that "I think" has everything I need. Please look at this and tell me if there is some glaring flaw that I am missing. I almost bought it but wanted to double check with the Pinnacle experts here.

 http://tinyurl.com/yljz83u

Thanks again!

CJ

 

Everything looks fine except that it's pre built by Dell and the video card. Take a look at this

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20090728123723_Nvidia_Starts_to_Quietly_Sell_GeForce_GTS_240_on_OEM_Market.html

 

It should still be okay for an overall system. I built an Core i7 860 and I'm using xp right now. I just got my copy of Windows 7 in the mail yesterday and I haven't installed it yet, but as far as I know it should work okay. I'm not using S14 since I don't own it, but the editor I am using works fine on Windows 7. You'll have to test Studio on that system if you get it. I built my system on an Asus P7P55D Pro motherboard which is rock solid and overclocked to 3.68 ghz. I had to put an aftermarket cpu cooler on it because that cpu runs hot when overclocked. Since I don't know what motherboard that system comes with I can't say how stable it will be, but it will be backed up be Dell if you have any problems.

You will need a second hard drive. The best option would be to have an internal drive. It should be at least 500 gig, probably 1 terabyte. You could install this later or order it installed by Dell. The second option would be to have an external USB drive. Not nearly as fast, but workable.

I'm envious. Others may have other suggestions or comments.

Don

I just had to do this to make my 3000 th post.

Don