Videomaker by Douglas Dixon

Avid Studio is a welcomed step up for advanced video editing enthusiasts chafing at the limitations of consumer tools.

Video editing for consumers is a tricky business, since the software needs to be easy to use for beginners, and yet have enough depth to allow enthusiasts to grow and experiment. There are simple tools to quickly trim clips and upload online, but if you want to make interesting and creative productions then you need something better - a more complete interface with a traditional timeline to assemble and layer video and audio, apply interesting transitions and effects, and enhance with titles and animation.

For example, Avid has updated its venerable Pinnacle Studio HD product line to version 15, with expanded HD format support, performance optimizations, and bundled professional-quality content. The base Studio HD starts at $60; Studio HD Ultimate at $100 adds Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding, Blu-ray authoring, keyframable effects and Motion Titler; and the Studio HD Ultimate Collection for $130 adds more Red Giant plug-ins plus a green screen for creating chroma-key effects.

That's an impressive collection of capabilities and technology, and should be enough to keep enthusiasts happy for quite a while, especially because it's a big step up to professional editing tools starting around $800. Yet consumer tools can cramp your style as you're being creative, especially with a fixed number of tracks and limited support for managing a growing collection of clips and assets.

So Avid has introduced a new product, Avid Studio, which builds on the familiar and friendly look of Pinnacle Studio, but breaks through typical consumer limits to help organize your assets, correct and edit your clips, assemble layers on the unlimited timeline, and enhance with an extensive package of content and plug-ins, yet is still a consumer/enthusiast product at $170 read more...