Family DVDs w/Imaginate & Pinnacle
 

I am a newbie to Imaginate and would just like to ask questions if I may. I just purchased the Imaginate software and have not yet even installed it in my PC. I have also purchased Pinnacle Studio 8 Pro that I should receive today. My plans are to use them together to make family type projects. I have a Dell 2.0 GHz P-IV with a large harddrive, 1/2 G of memory, and a DVD+RW drive. I have a 3.3 Megapixel digital camera that I take lots of photos with. I have made slide shows with the freeware that HP gives you with their cameras and have burned them to DVD and VCD with music in the background for watching on a DVD player, with surround sound. This was all well and good until a friend showed me a DVD that he had made from digital pictures that he had turned into "motion" using Imaginate. He has the very expensive Pinnacle DV500 softare which he uses to create his DVDs with after manipulating his pictures with Imaginate and turning the .jpg files into .avi files.

I am curious to know if I will be successful using the Pinnacle Sudio 8, since I don't have the DV500? I've noticed that Canopus really promotes and pushes the Adobe Premier and even offers plug-ins and links for Adobe, but I don't see that from Canopus for the Pinnacle products. I want to be able to take my digital photos of my grandkids and family and put them "in motion" and then make a DVD with music in the background. I'd like to be able to change songs during a video and to end the song as the last picture displays. I do have a camcorder that I'd like to use as well. It is a Hi8, not a digital, but I have the Capture card and software to pull in the analog videos. I'd like to (in some cases) use a combination of digital photos, photos that have been put in motion using Imaginate, and even combine in some video from my camcorder. In the case of the video clips, I'd like to have the real audio with the video, but go back to the background music as I transition back to the photos and .avi files from Imaginate.

Can you offer your opinion as to whether I'll be able to do what I'm hoping to do or not, with the above software and equipment? Do you know of websites or books that would help me learn more about this kind of projects? Thanks very much for your tme.

Later,
David

Sure. Imaginate generates AVI files. Just import them into Studio 8, as you would with any other video clip.

I'm not sure what questions you are having, exactly....

This may be a bit OT but....is Imaginate any more powerfull than Vegas's Pan/Crop tool?

Hi David.

You'll be able to do all that with Studio 8. It's perfect for a user like you (meaning non pro who wants to go a little further).
I use it for some stages of my work and like it a lot.

Some advice:
1 - Use Windows XP
2 - Go to Pinnacle's web site, download the latest patch for Studio 8/Pro and install it.
3 - When you open Studio, be patient, it can take rather a long time to open.
4 - Sometimes, you may think that it crashed, but in fact it takes a long time to do some tasks.
5 - When you finish the authoring of your DVD (menus, chapters, etc) and you hit the button make disk, go to bed and leave it to work, because that part will take some hours to complete.

Good luck
Arnaldo