Posted by Mr. Tapeguy on 11/27/05 00:53

nappY Si wrote:
> "THE PROGRAM IS BARELY OUT ON THE SHELF
> AND WE'RE UP TO THREE PATCHES SO FAR"...
>
>
> Pinnacle Systems is the Leader
> in Digital Video


You're really looking at a number of issues here and of course, what
kind of work you do will be doing and your budget have to figure in.

Historically (and I mean in recent years) Pinnacle has been the
acknowledged leader in inexpensive consumer editing software for the
PC. For the average Windows guy who wanted to spend less than a
hundred bucks it was probably the only decent game in town. Once
people tried to start doing anything more elaborate (and unfortunately
as indicated by the posts here and beyond) all too often before that,
bugs would emerge. The next step for Pinnacle was the Liquid Edition
series and for the money, seemed to have a good range of tools and has
been a popular choice among independent videographers and the like but
not a real contender for any kind of serious post-production work, an
arena dominated by parent-company-to-be Avid and more recently Apple
and Final Cut Studio.

Pinnacle also had a range of broadcast products which I never heard
anything about except complaints. The guys I knew from Time Warner
facilities (who had chosen Pinnacle corporate-wide for their 24-hour
news channels) were pretty much uniformly miserable.

So at least 2 of 3 of Pinnacle's main product groupings had significant
discontent and the third has been used by producers, who, with no
disrespect intended, have been working on less complicated projects.

The second issue is not relegated to Pinnacle - it has more to do with
Windows. There is no doubt that Final Cut Studio has taken over a huge
share of the marketplace and the range of users is very broad - from
indie filmmakers to large studios in L.A. Part of this is because is
Final Cut Studio is a great package at almost any price but it is also
not much more than Liquid Edition or Avid Express and does a lot more.
But it also relates largely to the fact that Apple products have
provided far greater stability and far fewer bugs than any software for
PC and that isn't really Pinnacle or Avid's fault. And, if your simply
a guy who wants to edit some home movies well, iMovie HD is pretty
handy and also, well...free.

Finally you have the whole Pinnacle-Avid merger thing. Clearly Avid
wanted into the consumer marketplace. The question was, why did they
want in there with Pinnacle? How will the two separate streams of
software be merged (or weeded out) at the various levels of the
marketplace. Right now, who knows?

We have been a dealer for Pinnacle for a few years and where people
have traditionally been committed to PC the software has remained of
some interest. However, with people jumping to FCS in droves, even
some of the more loyal PC customers have had to take a serious look at
Mac.

If you aren't a professional videographer then you can't look at just
the video software as a decision for buying a machine. Of course there
again, Apple is (finally) winning people over with greater ease of use,
fewer hardware failures, fewer problems with viruses and spyware and
the like and greater overall durability and customer satisfaction.
That is not to say that a Mac is for everyone. If you enjoy putting
together you're own PC and/or you're a gamer or you're looking strictly
for the lowest up-front cost, a Mac is not yet for you. However, if
you're a multimedia professional or serious hobbyist and you're
looking for powerful industry-standard tools which are used not only by
other independents but also by major studios all over the world, it
would be worth your time to look seriously at a Mac and Final Cut.

cb

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