Pinnacle Studio Online

To share digital video content, you need primarily a video capture card to capture the analog feed to the PC, software to edit and mix the video and a means to distribute it (VCD or Internet). This not only involves significant investments, considering you have to buy separate products, but also hardware and software compatibility issues. Pinnacle Studio Online is a solution that provides all essentials in one box for you to start sharing videos on the Internet. It. These include a USB cord, Studio Online video-editing software and a free membership to Pinnacle’s video-sharing website. The USB cord is actually a cable with a tiny box on one end, inside which sits the hardware for capturing audio/video data. This box connects to the USB port on one end, while the other end takes in a composite video and stereo audio inputs. It can capture video at a maximum resolution of 320*240 at a frame rate of 30 fps, without any drops. This is good enough for home videos, as well as for broadcasting over the Internet through Pinnacle’s video-sharing website, which streams videos to visitors once they’re uploaded.

To set it up, install the Studio Online software and plug in all requisite cables from your camcorder or VCR into the USB cable. The accompanying software captures video as an AVI file, and hence takes up a lot of hard-disk space. A pie chart in the software shows the amount of free disk space so that you can capture the video duration in that space. It also does automatic clip detection and separation, making your editing task simpler. Professionals can, however, switch off automatic clip detection and work manually. The software offers a timeline and storyboard view with an easy drag-and-drop to allow you to assemble your movie. To render, choose the output to be MPEG-1 or RealVideo, and share your video as you like.

We found no frame drops even at the maximum resolution it supports. Graphics and video professionals might not be very impressed with this resolution, though. But then, it is not meant for them. At Rs 5,500, it is a steal for those novices who want to capture video quickly and easily.

Ashish Sharma