Pinnacle Studio 9 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide

This is probably one of the most informative books on video editing that you can buy. The author is an expert in the field and has the ability to not just tell you how to do something, but make you understand what is going on and thereby enabling an intuitive feel for using the program. His "Studio 8 for Windows" carried me from the depths of ignorance to a level of competence that allows me to knock out complicated projects in record time; this new Studio 9 version will do the same for you plus. This book will enable the beginner to successfully edit productions with minimum heartache....but READ before you start clicking madly away.

If you are new to Studio or for that matter new to digital video, this book is for you. Jan starts you out by giving you guidelines for creating watchable video before taking you through the nuts and bolts of the program. Knowing how to apply basic shot composition will help give your videos a more professional look. The book's step-by-step instructions are easy to follow and are often followed up with additional tips and sidebars. In addition, the book is replete with screen captures which really helps if you are a visual learner. The book has been immensely helpful to me and I feel that my money was well spent.

To say that this book covers Studio 9 would be an understatement. It explains everything from the buttons on your screen, right up to expert effects such 'split edits' which will give your videos that professional feel. This book has some good background on video camera features and how to make the most of them (for example, do you know why you shouldn't use digital zoom?). It also explains a handful of basic but effective techniques used to improve your shot composition and produce more "watchable" videos.I also liked how this book starts off simple, and then adds detail to show you how to use Studio 9 to turn your poor-to-average video into something professional. The step-by-step instructions take you from recording your video, through capturing, enhancing and editing, to creating the final product. This book explains how to get the most out of plug-ins, transitions, titles, DVD menus, and all those audio features and special effects. But what really impressed me was the inclusion of a Troubleshooting chapter. Not many books tell you how to minimize problems which are likely to plague your system when you try to run a program as demanding as a nonlinear video editor. It explains things such as how to optimize your system for best capture performance, avoid dropped frames, and where to look for further assistance.This book really is a good investment!

If you're new to video editing, do yourself a favor and buy Mr. Ozer's book. You will not be disappointed. I started using Studio 8 that came preinstalled on my PC to make "finished productions" of my home movies and stills. I was never particularly satisfied since the only documentation supplied was the on-line help and a simple guided tour. Those were helpful but just were not really adequate. I knew there were features available in the software that I probably wanted, but didn't know how to get at. Upon upgrading to Studio 9 I resolved to find some other documentation. Studio 9 does come with a manual (the retail version of S8 probably does too, for all I know) but it is complete junk. It's practically just a list of features and menu options. Worse still, and why I feel justified in calling it junk, is that the index printing is mangled. Sub-sections of the index listings are not indented, making it virtually impossible to find what you're looking for. I'm sure that is just a printing error, but nevertheless, the supplied manual is not worth the space on your bookshelf. Jan Ozer's Visual QuickStart Guide Pinnacle Studio 9 for Windows is great!To start with, the index is excellent; something that's always important for a book like this. If the index is not useful, you won't use the book. This one works: complete; meaningful entries; and formatted properly.The book as a whole is well laid out. Mr. Ozer starts with useful information on shooting good video to start with (composition) and then goes through each of the steps to your finished product. Important and useful tips are given throughout the text, without wasting a lot of time on trivial information. Techniques are demonstrated in step by step form with USEFULL screen shots (zoomed in to demonstrate what is being discussed in the text), complete with call-outs where needed. And to top it off, what's shown in the book actually matches the software! The book is loaded with practical examples and solutions to common problems. The author also explains some of the add-on software available from Pinnacle, such as the Plus and Pro packs, how to use some of those features, and why you might want to use them.Since getting this book, I've seen numerous articles by Jan Ozer in PC Magazine. He obviously knows the subject well and it comes across in this book. This is also my first experience with any of the Visual QuickStart series, and it has been very positive.Highly recommended. Buy this book! If you're using Studio 9, you need this book.

I had just purchase Studio 9, after playing with Studio 8 which was offered free with my camcorder. I was doing a comparison between this book and the manual that came with pinnacle. It seems like the guys over at pinnacle just list out what the software can do but never list why you would want to do things. That's where this book was an amazing help. It actually lists why you would want to do something verses just how to do it. So I figured this was a good time for me to attempt to convert my VHS wedding video to DVD. I had from way back a dazzle component that my VCR hooked up to and converted it from VCR to mpeg on my pc (2 gigs) added menus etc and rendered to dvd. This process took, about 10 hours!! (Pentium 3 800mhz 256 ram Dell) The dvd came out and only played on pc not my home dvd player, plus the audio was like 5 minutes behind my video. Amazingly the solution was in this book! It said to remove menus, render to avi, and then try again. Well, I did that and it turned a 2gig mpeg, to a 26gig avi, I added the avi to my project, added all the menus back (I had written down the chapter and timecode before converting, this made it 10 times faster when adding them back to avi) and worked like a charm. I have to admit, I am very impressed at how much research is done. It seems like this book has come across all the issues that came up and had an answer for them. The Visual Quick Start Guide is a must for those who plan on doing anything with pinnacle 9!!