Top Pinnacle Studio Alternatives

Video Editors are one of the trendy software products nowadays, be it online or offline. For any offline editing of videos, we can use a leading video editor called Pinnacle Studio. Releasing its version since 2005, they are one of the pioneers of many video editing technologies we see today.

Pinnacle Studio Standard packs some powerful video editing tools. As expected, it brings all the basic editing features along with many advanced features.  The editor lets you switch between storyboard and timeline interface. Storyboard lets you have a broader perspective of the movie while timeline enables detailed editing.

Pinnacle Studio bears strong semblance with the advanced, high-end video editors in the way that it offers multi-track editing. However, you can work on only up to 6 tracks at a time. This is why it is not always suited for complex video projects. Pinnacle Studio also supports multi-cam editing but only from two cameras. That is a plus for the beginners but could be a major setback for the more experienced and professional video editors.

Filters and Effects

Pinnacle Studio Standard brings a pretty healthy collection of filters, effects, and templates. Put together, there are more than 1,500 ways you can stylize or enhance your videos using the filters and effects. There are plenty of filters to achieve the desired level of colour grading without having to manually drag the sliders. It also has several tools for automatic colour correction. This saves you a great deal of time. The recently added Stop Motion Animation lets you add visually appealing animations to the videos. There are plenty of options to add the custom titles to your project.

SmartMovie

SmartMovie is a pretty handy tool, especially for the beginners. This tool automates a number of video editing tasks and lets you quickly create movies. This tool is easy to use. You simply need to drag and drop the various elements onto the editor interface and SmartMovie will take care of the rest. While the SmartMovie results may not exactly be desirable all the time, it reduces the efforts and saves you time. If you are not completely satisfied the results, you can edit and customize your movie further in the timeline editor.

User Interface and Ease of Use

Pinnacle Studio has been primarily designed for the beginners. The user interface is very well laid out allowing you incredible ease of use. The placement of the controls on the screen is in accordance with the most common user habits allowing you to easily interact with the application. Readability is good and whether you are working on a laptop with small screen or a larger PC screen, you will find Pinnacle Studio interface user friendly. You can organize multiple clips on the left pane and preview them on the right as they are edited. Almost all the onscreen elements can be resized and adjusted to your comfort. The latest version has replaced slider controls with knob styled controls; another improvement over its predecessors.

Import videos from wide range of devices

Pinnacle Studio has been designed to work with a wide range of video recording devices. Whether you are using a high-end video camera or need to work on the videos shot using mobile phones, Pinnacle Studio supports it all. The most recent iteration of this video editor includes support for the latest HEVC H.265. You can also import and export 4K Ultra HD videos, 3D MVC files, and a lot more. If you have an iPhone or any other recording device that captures VFR Videos, you can use it with Pinnacle Studio.

Audio Editing

Pinnacle Studio lets you edit the audio separate from video on the timeline. With just 6 editing tracks and only one dedicated to audio, you might feel a bit challenged as an experienced user. But, for a beginner it is a good tool to learn audio editing before graduating to a more advanced video editor. Pinnacle Studio also has a pretty decent collection of audio effects to make your audio more dramatic. While the license-free soundtrack collection isn’t too big, you might still find a few good quality tracks. It also has the standard audio-ducking feature that lowers the background sound during narration or dialogue.

Favourites

Pinnacle Studio has an easy to access Favourite section that lets you add the most used features and controls with a right click. This is a big time saver as you don’t have to navigate to the frequently used options again and again. You can also rate your favorites to prioritize them in the list so that you can access more regularly used favorites more quickly.

Sharing and Social Integration

With built-in social media functions, you can easily share your edited videos on various platforms including YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo directly from Pinnacle Studio. This video editor also lets you burn DVD videos directly. Or, you can export your project to popularly used formats like AVI, MPEG-4, Flash, DivX and more. You can create videos for a variety of device platforms as well including Play Station, Xbox, Apple TV, etc.

Pinnacle Studio offers many such advanced video modification tools, that need less advanced system requirements. It supports many file formats in import like MP4, MKV, WMV, MP3, AVI, PNG, JPG, TGA, PSD, etc. As for exporting videos, it supports normal and Blu-ray disks, AVI, WMV, HEVC, MP4, JPEG, TIF, MP3, etc. formats. The product can be registered via Email ID to use freely for 30-days.

Pinnacle Studio Versions and Features

Like every other product, Pinnacle Studio comes in multiple subscriptions. The three base tiers are Pinnacle Studio, Studio Plus, and Pinnacle Studio Ultimate. As we begin from first to last, there is an increase in features. The base version Pinnacle Studio offers more than 1500 templates for effects, title texts, and other special effects. It also supports up to 6 HD video editing tags, with timeline efficiencies.

It has a multi-cam recorder, split-screen video maker, color selection and grading, stop motion animation, and a sleek editing UI. As for Pinnacle Studio Plus, it has all the features of the base version. However, it has 400 new templates and effects with added support for 24 HD tracks. Also, Studio Plus offers clip nesting, GIFs, batch processing, 3/4 point editing, keyframing, motion tracking, lens correction, and advanced audio tools.

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate has extra support with 2k+ preset templates, effects, and 4K video editing. It has added features over Studio Plus like video masking, vectorscope, alpha channel, Audio Essentials, 360° video editing, color grade keyframing, seamless transitions, and many complex editing tools. It has whole new lists of NewBlue effects and morph transitions.

All in all, Pinnacle Studio is a top-class video editor at an affordable price. It offers all range and complexity of video editing in a single interface. The UI is also classy and can be adopted by new users quickly. Yet, it does require a knowledge of many video editing tools beforehand.

Conclusion

Pinnacle Studio Standard is a good video editor, especially for the beginners. You get access to all the basic and important video editing features. It also offers several advanced features to help you get the hang of more involved video editors before you graduate to one. The Standard version offers very limited editing tracks. If you need more functions and advanced tools, you can upgrade to Plus and Ultimate version.