15 February 2006 0:31 GMT / By Stephen Patrick

If you got a digital video recorder for Christmas you’re probably at that point now where you’ve downloaded hours of footage onto your PC and your wondering how to make the most of it?

The likelihood is you’ll have got a bundled copy of editing software with your recorder and more than not it’ll be from Pinnacle. So, for the asking price of £70, you’re better off making the upgrade to Pinnacle Studio Plus 10.

Designed as the easy solution to editing video and copying to DVD, the program consists of two main features: Studio Launcher and Media Manager. Studio Launcher is the first part you really want to get to grips with as it allows you to import footage from most camcorder sources and turn that footage into a DVD, complete with menus and navigation. The beauty of the program is that, if you want it to, it’ll do all the work.

Media Manager is a neat and simple resource that allows you to keep track of your footage - both raw and edited. It’s not the most exciting of programs but it handles its tasks well.

If you’ve already imported your footage, you can enter Edit mode straight from the desktop and you find your data neatly arranged in scenes at the top left. The interface is based around a time line. Once again, the program takes most of the sting out of editing as getting clips into the right order is simply a case of drag and drop. You can then get down to the business of trimming away the parts you don’t want, even splicing footage together to make it far more linear. You’ll find a host of effects that to add, simply by dragging the effect directly onto the relevant spot, it’s really that easy to get to grips with the basics of editing. For the truly adventurous, you can then move onto the sound section, adding you own commentary track and sound effects.

What good is an editing package without being able to burn it to disc? As so it is with Studio Plus, as at this stage you can choose the level of quality to fit the media your burning too, either DVD or CD. The interface is neat and simple and while it’s not as feature rich as you’ll find in Roxio Creator of Ahead Nero, it’ll get the job done.

Studio Plus 10 isn’t without its problems, though, as DVD editing demands power. If you’re serious about making the most you’ll need a fairly high-end PC - we loaded it onto a machine based around a 3GHz Pentium M with 1GB of RAM and found it ran sluggish. Start using some of the more complex filters and you’ll find things getting even slower.

Verdict

Unless you're obsessed with the nature of movie making, you'll want to just make the most of your home movies and this is what Studio 10 allows you to do. It takes a complicated process but allows even the most basic of users to produce some stunning results. Those's not to say you'll be editing footage within minutes of installing but spend a little time with the package and it's quite amazing how much it'll allow you to do.

Score

Review Recap

Made by

Pinnacle

Price as reviewed

£70

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The good

Simple interface, drag-n-drop functions

The bad

Bulky and power hungry

Quick verdict

Pinnacle plays it nice and easy with a suite designed for the home-user looking for a no-fuss approach to editing video, and succeeds

Score

Winner

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