Switching back to Pinnacle

I love video editing. It's something I've been interested in for a long time now, and I've always sought to further educate myself in the field and improve both my skills and equipment. That's why I got a Mac a few years ago. I figured that since Final Cut is one of the most widely used editing programs in the industry, that I would be wise to learn how to use it. So I spent the better part of two years trying to learn Final Cut as throughly as possible and spending all my time using OS X.

It recently occurred to me, though, how much I've been avoiding it. Over the past several months, I've been doing less and less editing and avoiding editing the backlog of videos I have. When I stop and think about it, it's not editing I'm avoiding...it's Final Cut. Not to say that Final Cut is bad or anything, because it's certainly not. It's an incredibly powerful piece of software and one that I'm glad I learned how to use.


But it's not for me. Back when I used Pinnacle Studio (I started with version 7, that's how long ago it was), I was both more productive and more excited about editing. Granted, Pinnacle is far less powerful and featured than Final Cut, but there are certain things about it that are just...better. For example, Pinnacle's text and 3D graphics abilities completely trounce Final Cut and LiveType. On the whole, it's just a far better experience.

For really advanced projects (like 4 or 5 camera shoots that require major color correcting, blur correction, etc), Final Cut is definitely the way to go. But for literally 99 percent of the editing that I do, Pinnacle is not only sufficient, it's superior.

Woot has an excellent deal on the newer version of Pinnacle Studio today and I am this close to buying it. It would allow me to get back into editing on a regular basis and it would mean no more constant switching back and forth between OSX and Windows. That alone might be worth it. :-)

So if I do end up getting it, you can expect considerably more videos from me, many of which will likely appear right here on The Dastardly Report. So stay tuned...we'll see if this ends up working out...

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