Pinnacle Plus User's Manual Instruction UM

User Manual: pinnacle Plus - Instruction Manual Free User Guide for Pinnacle Plus Software, Manual

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Pinnacle Plus User’s Manual
1. Launch Studio
a. The Pinnacle Studio Plus 11 window appears.
2. Save and name your project
a. Click [File/Save Project as/ your project name]
3. Set your project preferences
a. Click [Setup/ Project Preferences

b. The Pinnacle Studio Plus Project Preferences window pops up.
c. This window shows you the default values for transitions, titles/ images and
volume fades.
d. If you want different values, change them here.
e. The line: “When adding a disc menu” and its box shows the preference for this
project.
f. Of the two choices we suggest “Don’t create chapters”.
4. Set your Video and audio preferences

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a. Click [Setup/ Video and audio
preferences]

b. The Pinnacle Studio Plus Video and audio preferences window pops up.
c. If your computer has a dual core (or 2 core dual) processor, you can speed up
rendering by clicking “Enable background rendering”.
5. Pinnacle Display
a. Divided into 3 separate screens: Capture, Edit and Make Movie
b. The details of each section are explained in the Help/ Help Topics menu

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6. Capture Screen
c. With camcorder/ camera not connected

i. Message: Video Device Not Found window appears
ii. Message suggests possible remedies
iii. Message contents: If your computer has analog input ports: video, left and
right audio, Pinnacle can capture via this interface

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d. With camcorder/camera connected via “firewire”/ “1394”

i. Capture screen has 4 major sections:
1. Top left: library which shows captured clips
2. Top right: Video Display which shows video frames being captured
along with capture time as hours: minutes: seconds: frames.
3. Bottom left: Drawing of a camcorder showing:
a. Current position of the video tape loaded into the camcorder
b. Controls for manually moving the tape position in the
camcorder
4. Bottom right: Symbols which show:
a. Hard Drive space: used, free and max duration of captured
video clips
b. Type of capture: DV or MPEG
c. Start Capture button and Settings button

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7. Edit Screen

e. Divided into 3 sections:
i. Top Left: Album (Content of selected type),
ii. Top Right: Player (Video display) and
iii. Bottom: Movie Window (Storyboard/ Time line display)
f. Album (Content )section:
i. Displays the contents chosen by icon in left vertical panel
ii. Video camera Icon: shows video clips captured in library
iii. Transitions Icon: shows all of the available transitions
iv. Title Icon: shows all of the titles you have created for this project
v. Image Icon: shows all of the images available for this project
1. These images are those in your “My Picture” folder.
vi. Menus Icon: shows all of the available DVD menus that can be used
when you create your DVD
vii. Sound Effects Icon: shows all of your narration files and/or your sound
effects you will use in this project
1. Pinnacle has a library of sound effects that you can use in this
project.
2. These sound effects, however, will not be useful in most movies.
a. Instead I suggest you use the library that was available in
the SIG meetings.
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viii. Music Icon: shows all of the music (My Music) you have available
/selected for this project
1. Pinnacle provides an extensive music library that you can use in
this project
2. A chosen library music file can be tailored in duration to match your
project.
g. Player (Video) Display
i. The display shows the video under the timeline cursor or the storyboard
frame.
ii. The Controls are used to start, stop, fast forward, fast rewind, pause, stop
and repeat the video in the timeline/ storyboard.
h. Movie Window(Timeline / Storyboard) Display
i. Timeline mode

1. Displays the video clips that have been inserted from the library.
a. The length of a video clip along the timeline is according to
its duration.
b. A thumbnail at the left edge shows the video image at the
beginning of the clip.
c. The audio associated with the clip is displayed at the bottom
of the clip.
i. The audio display does not distinguish between a
stereo and a mono track.
2. Displays the images that have been inserted into the timeline.
a. The default duration of an image is 4 seconds.
b. There is no inherent audio associated with an image clip.
3. Displays the transitions between the clips
a. The transition symbol depicts the transition type.
b. The length of the transition is depicted by its length along the
timeline.
c. The default duration of a transition is 2 seconds.
i. Clicking on the transition symbol causes a properties
window to appear where the user can change the
duration.

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ii. Storyboard mode

1. Displays the video as a thumbnail or an image in a fixed frame.
a. The duration of the video or image clip is not depicted.
2. Displays the transitions as symbols located between two frames.
a. The duration of the transitions is not depicted.
i. The default duration of a transition is 2 sconds.
ii. Clicking on the transition symbol causes a properties
window to appear where the user can change the
duration.
8. Make Movie Screen

a. Divided into 3 sections:
i. Top left, contains the controls for creating a DVD, video file, tape or a web
video.
ii. top right, contains a video display and its controls to show the video
playing
iii. bottom, contains the timeline/ storybook display
b. Top Left
i. [Disc] creation controls
1. Contains windows which show: Disc Type, Video Quality and a
message box:
ii. [File] creation controls
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1. Contains windows which show: file type, Preset and a message
box.
iii. [Tape] Creation controls
1. Contains windows which show: Output type, Device and a message
box.
iv. [Create] button for starting the DVD creation process.
v. [Settings] button to show the settings for this DVD creation project.
vi. Hard Drive space available for this video project plus the preset settings
for the DVD.
c. Top Right
i. Contains a video screen and its controls.
d. Bottom
i. Contains the timeline/ storybook
9. Creating a timeline/ storyboard
a. Inserting clips/ images into the timeline/ storyboard
i. Select the My Video/ My Pictures file that contains your captured video/
image clips
1. These clips will show in the Album (Contents) section
2. Drag and drop your video clips from the Album (Contents) section
into the timeline/ storyboard in the order according to your story.
3. The user can drag and drop the video clips into the timeline/
storyboard either one at a time or as a selected group.
4. Any clips added to the timeline will marked with a “check”.
5. Video clips added in this fashion will result in the clips in the
timeline touching each other.
a. I. E. there is no space between the clips; and you cannot
create space by attempting to move them.
b. Insert Editing
i. This editing method allows the user to insert a video clip into the timeline
while retaining the original audio.
ii. Click the audio track “lock box” to lock the audio track.

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iii. Using the mouse right click “Split Clip/ Scene” clear space on the video
track to accommodate the video clip to be inserted.

iv. Place the new video clip into the video track.
v. The new video clip is now visible and the original audio is heard.
c. J Cut Editing
i. This editing procedure allows the audio on clip “B” to be heard while the
video in clip “A” is visible.
ii. This technique is used extensively in Hollywood to create anticipation.

iii.
iv.
v.
vi.

Move the cursor to the right edge of Clip A (out point).
Drag Clip A’s out point left to the amount of audio overlap desired.
Lock the audio track.
Now drag Clip A’s outpoint to the right to the amount of audio overlap
chosen.
vii. Now unlock the audio track.
viii. The J Cut is now as shown above.
d. Scrubbing a clip
i. A clip’s beginning or ending frame can be changed by a process known as
“scrubbing”.
1. Scrubbing by dragging
a. Scrubbing clip’s beginning
i. Move the cursor (also called an “edit line”) to the
beginning of the clip and a right arrow appears.
ii. Hold down the mouse left button and drag to the right.
a. Scrubbing clip’s ending
i. Move the cursor to the end of a clip
ii. Hold down the mouse left button and drag to the left.
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2. Scrubbing by using the clip edit window
a. Double click on the clip to cause the Clip Edit window to
appear.

i. At the top of the window, the meta data of this clip is
displayed.
1. This window displays a thumbnail of the
beginning and ending frame.
2. It also displays the beginning and ending clip
duration in hours:minutes:seconds:frames.
3. A slider bar allows the editor to view the frames
in the clip,
4. There are also clip movement controls that
allow the user to play/ rewind or fast reverse to
the beginning.
e. Two Track Editing
i. The normal timeline display as shown below has 5 tracks: video, audio,
title, sounds and music.

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ii. When a clip is dragged into the Title track it converts to a second (overlay)
video/audio track.

iii. When playing the resulting video, the video and sound of the overlay track
clip blocks out some of the video and sound of the video track.
f. Picture in Picture Tool
i. When a video or image is placed in the Overlay track its image overlays
the image on the Video track.
ii. This is the feature called “Picture in Picture”.
iii. Click [Toolbox/ Add Video Overly Effects] and the Video Overlay window
pops up.

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iv. The controls in the right side of the Picture-in-picture window are used for
adjusting the border and its shadow. The Video Transparency controls the
opacity of the image. This is a form of image compositing: overlay and
video track images.
v. The bright spots around the image can be used to adjust the size.
vi. This overlay’s size and opacity is constant during the duration of the
overlay image. To offer the ability to change its size, position and opacity
requires “Key Framing”.
vii. Studio Plus has key framing in its video effects but not here. Because of
this limitation, Picture-in-picture is not a useful editing mode in our movies.
g. Adding Still Images to the Video Track
i. Dragging a picture from the picture section of the Album and dropping it
into the middle of a video clip in the Video track inserts the image to the
left of that video clip.
1. The duration of the image is the default value.

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ii. Dragging a picture to the end of the video clips in the video track cause it
to be added to the last video clip.

iii. An image inserted into the video track has no associated audio.

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h. Adding audio to an Image in the Video track

i.

i. Adding audio to an image is achieved by dropping a sound effect from the
sound effect library (preferable from your sound effect library) into the
Sounds track and adjusting its duration to match the image.2
Burns Effect for images
i. Motion can be added to still images by employing the Burns Effect.
ii. To initiate this effect, place the cursor over the image and click [Toolbox/
Modify Clip Properties] (or double click the image) to cause the image
motion window to pop up.

iii. The name shown is the name of the still image with its default duration of
4 seconds.
iv. The image shown in the window is the “10 Ducks Image”.
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v. Panning and/or zooming
1. Click the [Animation from start to end] button.
a. The time indicator line changes from orange to green.
2. Zoom into the image to provide panning space.
3. Move the mouse cursor into the animation window.
a. The cursor symbol changes from an arrow to an animation
symbol.
4. While holding down the left mouse key, move the image to the
beginning of the pan/zoom.
5. Click the [Set End] button.
6. Zoom into the image to the desired degree.
7. Move the image in the animation window to the ending pan/zoom
position.
a. After several seconds, the time indicator line changes from
green to light green moving from left to right.
b. This indicates the rendering process.
8. When the rendering is complete, the color changes to orange and
the Burns Effect has been completed
j. Splitting a clip
i. Move the timeline cursor to the place where you want to split the clip.
ii. Click the “Rasor Blade” icon above the timeline or right click and choose
“Split Clip” from the dropdown menu.
iii. The clip splits with both section showing.
k. Combining two clips in the timeline.
i. Move the timeline cursor to left of the point where the two clips are to be
combined.
ii. Right click and choose “Combine Clips” from the dropdown menu.
iii. The two clips are combined into one clip.
l. Grabbing Video Frames
i. Sometimes it’s desirable to extract a single video frame from a clip.
ii. Play the movie/ move the timeline cursor to the place where you want to
grab a frame.
1. Typically this is the first or last frame of a clip.
2. To “grab” the first/ last frame of a clip, expand the timeline scale
until each tick on the timeline time scale corresponds to one frame
(e.g. 30 ms)
iii. Move the timeline cursor to the left edge of the selected frame.
1. At this scale, the cursor moves one clip at a time.

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iv. Click on [Toolbox/ Grab Video Frame].

1. The Grabber Window appears.
a. The left side shows s Still Capture symbol.
b. The right side shows a [Grab] button and a blank screen.
v. Click on [Grab].
1. The image of the grabbed frame appears in a window above the
grab button.
2. The buttons [Add to Movie] and [Save to Disk] are activated.
vi. Click on [Save to Disk].
1. The “Save As” window appears that provides the means to save
this frame in the “My Pictures” folder.
2. Name the frame other than “Grabbed Frame 1”
3. Choose the image format.
a. “bmp” bit map is the default.
4. The image saved is 480 rows of pixels with 640 pixels per row
5. The resolution is 72 pixels/ inches (std video frame resolution).
m. Adding a transition
i. A transition is a video/ audio effects that is applied between 2 video clips.
ii. No specific transition between 2 video clips is called a “CUT”.
1. One usually uses a CUT between video clips when there has been
no significant passage of time or place.
iii. Transitions can be applied not only to video clips on the “Video” track, but
they can be applied to clips on the “Overlay” and “Title” tracks as well.
iv. The audio transition in normal video transitions is a fade down and fade up
between the two audio tracks.
v. Click on the “Transition” Icon in the left pane of the content section of the
Edit Display.

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vi. The content display shows transitions on pages 1 and 2 of a 3 page
transition library.
vii. Left clicking over a transition symbol, the video display shows what the
transition will look like.
viii. Drag and drop the selected transition to the intersection of two clips.
n. Trimming Transitions
i. There are two methods used in trimming transitions.
1. One is to simply drag either the beginning or ending transition
frame.
a. Since a standard transition uses an equal number of video
frames of both the left and right video clips, dragging the
beginning transition frame to the left increases the transition
duration. The net effect is to reduce the duration of the left
video clip.
2. The other technique is to employ the transition adjustment window.
a. Choose a transition between 2 video clips.
b. Click [Mailbox/ Modify Clip Properties] and the following
window pops up.

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c. The transition type is displayed between the last frame of the
left video clip and the first frame of the right video clip.
d. The duration of this transition is 3 seconds.
e. The controls in the center are used to show the transition as
it plays as well as reducing the duration.
f. The control in the upper right side of the window can be
used to increase the transition duration.
o. Adding narration (also called “Voice Over”)
i. The best method for adding narration to your movie is to write and edit a
script.
ii. Scripting eliminates the “ahhhs” and “ummms”.
iii. Each narration should be less than 10 seconds.
iv. Recording a single narration directly

1. Insert the mike jack of your headset into the mic plug in your
computer.
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2. Insert the ear phone jack of your headset into the earphone jack of
your computer.
3. Position the cursor at the location the narration is to start.
4. Click Toolbox/ Record Voice Over to open the Voice Over window.
a. The window shows an audio waveform drawing and some
controls and display panels.
b. On the right side there is a picture of a microphone with a
[record] button below.
c. To the right of the microphone there is a vertical slider to
provide gain adjustment.
d. The slider is preset to halfway.
e. Click on the record button.
i. A visual timer appears in the box on the upper left
side of this window.
ii. The timer shows 3 then 2 then 1 and finally
“Recording”
f. When “Recording” shows begin your narration.
g. At the end of your narration, click the Stop button.
v. Your narration shows up on the Voice over track.
vi. Recording narration using other audio software such as Adobe
Audition/ Sound Forge or Cakewalk Pyro 5.
1. This method of creating narration is best because it provides the
capability to limit the beginning and ending null times.
2. It also provides the capability to “Normalize” the narration volume.
a. The advantage of Normalizing each narration is that the
volume of all the narrations in the movie is the same.
p. Adding Titles
i. Place the timeline/ storyboard cursor at the location where the title is to be
located.
ii. On the Editing Screen top row, click [Toolbox/ Create Title] to open the
Editing Title window

iii. The Title Window appears showing a window with a grey background.
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iv. There are also two option buttons: [Title Overlay] and [Full Screen Title].
v. Selecting the option [Title Overlay] causes the Editing Title window to
appear.

vi.

vii.

viii.

ix.

1. The image screen in this window shows the video image beneath
the cursor showing.
Selection the option [Full Screen Title] causes the Editing Title window to
appear.
1. The image screen in this window shows a grey blank image.
Editing Title window controls
1. Above the image screen the preset font’s type is preset to “Times
New Roman” and size is “80” pixels.
2. On the right side there are three buttons arranged vertically. These
buttons ([Letters],[ Cactus] and [Windows]) control the content of
the panes to the right.
[Letters]
1. The [Letters] button, when selected, opens the 3 panes Standard,
Custom and Favorites.
a. Standard Pane
This pane offers multiple selections of styles
b. Custom Pane
This pane allows the user to adjust the face, edge and
shadow of the selected style.
c. Favorites
This pane shows styles with preselected features.
[Cactus]
1. The [Cactus] button, when selected, opens a single pane.
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2. At the top of this pane are 5 control buttons.
a. The left top row control button selects the title background as
a solid color.
b. Double clicking the solid square next to this button causes a
color selection matrix to appear.
i. This gives the user multiple choices as to the
background color.
b. The middle top row control button selects the title
background as a gradient of colors.
i. Double clicking the solid square next to this button
causes a small window to appear which provides the
user to adjust the gradient colors.
c. The right top row control button selects the title background
as the video image beneath the cursor.
d. The bottom row left button, when selected provides the user
with multiple choices for custom title backgrounds.
e. The [Window] button, when selected, opens a single pane to
allow the user to select a background image from the image
library.
x. Letter Box
1. Double clicking anywhere in the image screen causes a small letter
box to appear.
2. Select your chosen font, size and style.
a. There is no user option to change the color of the letter style
chosen.
3. Type your title.
a. The letter box expands as needed to contain your title.
1.
The letter box can be molded to contain your
title on one line or multiple lines.
4. Select the Arrow icon at the bottom of the Editing Title window,
move the title to the desired position.
q. Adding background music
i. Select the Music Icon in the contents section of the Edit Screen.
ii. The user has three options for creating background music: select music:
from a music CD, from My Music file and from the Pinnacle Music library.

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iii. Pinnacle Music Library
1. Pinnacle offers extensive choices of background music.
2. On the Editing Screen top row, select [Toolbox/Generate
Background Music].

3. The background music window appears.
a. The user is offered multiple styles, multiple songs within a
selected style and multiple version of a selected song.
b. The preset duration of any music selection is 30 seconds.
4. Place the timeline/storybook cursor at the point where the music is
to start.
5. Select a choice of music.
6. Clicking [Add to Movie] places the music in the music track at the
cursor location.
7. The user then has the option to extend the music by dragging the
end of the music file showing in the timeline/storyboard to the
desired location.
a. The Scorefitter software automatically scores the chosen
music to fit the chosen time segment.
iv. Music CD
1. Insert a music CD into the CD drive.
2. On the Editing Screen top row, select [Toolbox] Add CD Music.
3. Typically a message appears.
a. Pinnacle Plus does not recognize the CD.
2. Use Windows CD player to enter title and track names.
a. The bottom line is that music tracks from a CD must be
“ripped” into My Music file before they can be used in your
project.
v. Music from a My Music File
1. Click on the Music Icon in the Contents section
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2. Using the up one level icon, select the folder containing your music
tracks in the My Music folder.
3. Drag and drop your selection into the Timeline/ storybook music
track.
4. Adjusting the length of the music clip
a. The music clip can be adjusted by the same method used in
scrubbing a video clip.
b. Double click the music track
i. The music window appears.
ii. The “[“ and “]” brackets can be used to select the start
and stop times.
c. There is no provision within Pinnacle for music fade in and
fade out.
r. Special Features
i. Video Effects
1. Studio offers a library of video effects.
2. In general, these will not be useful to you because they rarely add
to your story.
s. Chroma Key
i. The Chroma Key Effect
1. This effect consists of shooting video of a person in front of a green
or blue background.
2. In the editing process, the green/ blue background becomes
invisible and the background image appears.
a. You see this effect every day when you watch the “weather”
person tell you what the weather forecast is for your
community today.
3. This is useful in TV studios but not in our stories.
t. Importing Video from a video DVD
i. Insert the video DVD to be copied into the computer.
ii. Select [File/Import DVD Titles]

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1. The “Import DVD Titles” menu opens
a. The left pane shows a portion of the computer’s organization
with the DVD optical drive highlighted.
i. The standard three folders of the video DVD are
showing.
b. The right pane contains a video preview screen with its
controls that enable the user to preview the DVD.
c. The center section contains controls and screens.
d. Designate a destination folder for the imported video/audio.
i. The default folder is: My Videos
e. Type a name for the video file.
i. Typically this will be the name of the DVD
f. Check the “Title O1” box.
i. This action activates the preview pane
g. Click [Import] to begin the capture process.
i. The “Importing DVD Titles” window appears
1. A progress bar shows the progress in the
capture process.
h. When the capture process has completed, the Album
windows shows the captured file.

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