Reprinted from a Pinnacle press release:
Pinnacle Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLE) today announced the release of Pinnacle Studio 9, the next generation of its family home movie-making hardware and software targeted at camcorder owners who want to quickly and easily create and share entertaining home movies. This latest version of one of the best-selling home movie making family of solutions redefines and simplifies the movie making experience. New advanced features for Studio 9 solutions include automatic editing capabilities and powerful one touch controls for improving old or damaged video. Studio 9 debuts new powerful, creative options including audio tools for producing home cinema-quality movies and support for third party developers to incorporate their audio and video plug-ins.
Pinnacle worked with Intel to take advantage of the power of the Intel Pentium 4 Processor with Hyper-Threading Technology and has delivered an exciting array of new features to restore, enhance, and improve video footage. “Consumers are turning to their computers to enhance, preserve and share their life’s most important memories,” said Brian Fravel, Director of Desktop Platform Marketing. “With the power of the Intel Pentium 4 processor with HT Technology and Studio 9’s ability to add surround-sound and format for wide-screen, consumers are empowered to create engaging, entertaining home movies for today’s home theatre systems.”
“Pinnacle is bringing its unique expertise as a world-leader in supplying video editing systems from beginners to broadcasters to Studio 9’s family of solutions,” noted Bill Loesch, vice president of engineering and product management of Pinnacle’s Business & Consumer division. “Studio 9 will be available in a wide array of options as either standalone software or complete hardware/software solutions. We are offering home movie makers a way to easily connect almost any camcorder and PC for a simple yet powerful experience.”
Fast & Easy Moviemaking with SmartMovie
Video editing is faster and easier than ever with SmartMovie, Studio 9’s automatic movie creator. Users simply select raw video footage, add a favorite song for a soundtrack, and choose an editing style for their finished movie. With one click, Studio will create a professional looking movie–complete with titles, transitions, and special effects–all synchronized to the beat and duration of the music.
Powerful Video & Audio Enhancement Tools
Studio 9 gives users a powerful suite of new audio and video enhancement features that restore and enhance video and audio in a number of ways. These include: automatic color-correction that rescues poorly lit footage or brightens old movies before burning to DVD; image stabilization which steadies shaky footage to produce a rock steady final movie; video cleaning tools to remove snow and video noise often seen on older analog tapes; and noise reduction tools that give users the ability to remove background noises, such as wind, from the finished movie. Studio 9’s open architecture provides support for third party developers to incorporate their video and audio plug-ins, which over time will extend users’ creative options.
Hollywood Creativity with Home Cinema
Studio 9 empowers consumers to create a true home cinema experience through sophisticated audio and video cinematic tools. Surround-sound gives users an intuitive control to place, or move, the movie’s audio elements within the surround sound space, creating scenes with more dramatic audio impact. And for the first time at this price level, consumers who shoot video in wide-screen (16 x 9) can edit and export their movies for wide-screen playback, taking full advantage of their big-screen televisions or HD ready monitors.
As Simple as One, Two, Three: The Studio 9 Movie Making Experience
Studio 9 leverages the familiar Studio intuitive three-step movie making interface used by millions around the world to capture, edit, create and then share their home movies. Studio 9 software is as simple or advanced as a home movie maker needs. Step one, is a fast automated import and logging of raw footage into albums from almost any camcorder. At step two, imported footage is transformed into an entertaining story with one click using the SmartMovie feature. For the more advanced enthusiast, Studio 9 combines a host of creative editing tools and powerful features that include transitions, titles, video and sound effects and automatic or imported music making options. At step three, after a movie is completed, there are many options for preserving and sharing it with family and friends. A Studio 9 movie can be burned onto a disc that can be played back on nearly any DVD player, transferred to tape, saved to the web or even shared across a home network to be viewed on demand!
Pricing and Availability
Pinnacle Studio version 9 is expected to be available in US retail outlets such as Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Gateway, Fry’s Electronics and MicroCenter in February for a suggested retail price of US $99. Pinnacle will offer a family of tightly integrated hardware/software solutions featuring Studio 9 bundled with a variety of analog and digital video capture devices. Special introductory upgrade pricing is also available for Studio 8 owners. For more information and a demonstration on Studio 9 go to www.pinnaclesys.com.
