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| All those black binders hold many a CD and DVD from years gone by! |
The honest answer is two-fold:
- It's really not worth the effort to go through and clean them out
- And every now and then, they have something that comes in useful
The latter one definitely happened today.
Time to start editing video again
A client called me up and said he has some video he wants me to edit for him. He wants me to tighten up some training clips we created a few years ago (and, I think, update the titles and some text). Not a problem. I've done it before and I can do it again.
But of course, when I did that for him, it was on my old i5 laptop, and it was a little slow processing the video and converting it from HD down to something that can stream on the Web. So, it's time to move this project over to my new laptop, which is an i7 powerhouse with 32 GB of RAM.
Over the years, I've used a few different video editors, and of course one of the very best is Adobe Premier. But... let's just be honest, it is expensive and has a lot of overhead in terms of space, requirements, and (mostly) cost. I definitely do not use it enough to justify subscribing it it. I mean, yeah, it's awesome, but it's a lot like paying for a Ferrari just so you can drive it to the store to pick up groceries. In other words, it's got more features than I need for the fairly straightforward video editing that I do. I mostly make talking head training videos and convert my father-in-law's VHS tapes to digital (they make FANTASTIC Christmas gifts!).
So, stepping down from the premier tool, I frequently choose Pinnacle Studio. It is a nifty little editor that does 99% of anything I want from it (in fact, there's really only one thing it doesn't do, and I'll cover that at another time with a workaround that can trick it into doing that, too). And it does one thing that Premier doesn't do out of the box (and again, I'll cover this another time).
The latest version is 20.5, and I've been using it since version 9. I recall selecting it because, at the time, it was the first (at least I'd ever heard of" to use a thumbnail/storyboard system for editing, as opposed to the standard timeline. I also recall that – waaaaaay back in the day – it won a technical Emmy award because it was the software of choice for editing America's Funniest Home Videos.
But I digress.
I compared the many versions of this software, and decided that I did want/need the full version with all the bells and whistles: Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 20.5.
I shopped around and found the slightly older version at amazon.com, but decided I'd rather deal directly with Pinnacle and be sure that I get the latest version, rather than something a half version old that requires an upgrade. So, this retails for $129. The sale price today was $99. And the upgrade from my ANCIENT copy of Pinnacle Studio DC 10 knocked off another $20 (yup, I had written the serial number on the product CD that I found in one of my binders -- I had dated it from June 2000).
A quick search online found me a coupon for 15% off that actually worked, making my instant download price only $68.97 (that includes tax, folks).
Not bad for a few minutes of shopping, searching for the old CD and finding the online coupon.
After I get into the project, I'll write talk about the workaround and the cool feature that hinted at today.
Over the years, I've used a few different video editors, and of course one of the very best is Adobe Premier. But... let's just be honest, it is expensive and has a lot of overhead in terms of space, requirements, and (mostly) cost. I definitely do not use it enough to justify subscribing it it. I mean, yeah, it's awesome, but it's a lot like paying for a Ferrari just so you can drive it to the store to pick up groceries. In other words, it's got more features than I need for the fairly straightforward video editing that I do. I mostly make talking head training videos and convert my father-in-law's VHS tapes to digital (they make FANTASTIC Christmas gifts!).
So, stepping down from the premier tool, I frequently choose Pinnacle Studio. It is a nifty little editor that does 99% of anything I want from it (in fact, there's really only one thing it doesn't do, and I'll cover that at another time with a workaround that can trick it into doing that, too). And it does one thing that Premier doesn't do out of the box (and again, I'll cover this another time).
The latest version is 20.5, and I've been using it since version 9. I recall selecting it because, at the time, it was the first (at least I'd ever heard of" to use a thumbnail/storyboard system for editing, as opposed to the standard timeline. I also recall that – waaaaaay back in the day – it won a technical Emmy award because it was the software of choice for editing America's Funniest Home Videos.
But I digress.
I shopped around and found the slightly older version at amazon.com, but decided I'd rather deal directly with Pinnacle and be sure that I get the latest version, rather than something a half version old that requires an upgrade. So, this retails for $129. The sale price today was $99. And the upgrade from my ANCIENT copy of Pinnacle Studio DC 10 knocked off another $20 (yup, I had written the serial number on the product CD that I found in one of my binders -- I had dated it from June 2000).
A quick search online found me a coupon for 15% off that actually worked, making my instant download price only $68.97 (that includes tax, folks).
Not bad for a few minutes of shopping, searching for the old CD and finding the online coupon.
After I get into the project, I'll write talk about the workaround and the cool feature that hinted at today.
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