Avid, Pinnacle, and the Race to Video
Until recently, I considered Pinnacle Studio as the top consumer video editing application in the Windows world. Based on the reviews I’ve read, I now believe that Adobe’s Premiere Elements may have stolen that title. But that may be short-lived. Avid, probably the premiere name in broadcast video editing, is moving to acquire Pinnacle.
To be honest, Adobe may not have much to worry about. Consolidating Pinnacle and Avid may indeed pose a threat to those companies engaged in preparing broadcast video products, at least on the Windows side of the house. From my reading, I never get the feeling that many TV studios are into Adobe Premiere, i.e, that it remains the realm of professionals who prepare videos for other venues, like the local wedding videographer. With the advent of non-linear editing on computers, Premiere has also made its way into the hands of serious hobbyists and prosumers. Pinnacle Studio, on the other hand, was primarily the tool of hobbyists and your everyday “I want to make a home movie” enthusiast. For years, I’ve thought it was the best of the bunch of consumer-level home video editing packages out there; but the last couple of versions have looked a bit long in the tooth. With the entrance into the consumer market of Adobe’s Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Studio’s place as PC World magazine’s and my personal favorite is gone.
Avid’s takeover of Pinnacle Studio is unlikely to change that. Unless Avid does some serious work to understand consumer interfaces and rework its products, the takeover may even help Premiere Elements take the same place in home computing that Photoshop Elements already has.
In the Mac world, Pinnacle has never been a player and neither has Avid. Avid tried to make a move in that direction a year or two back by releasing Avid Express, a “lite” version of or commercial video editor. But Avid products have always carried a reputation for having steep learning curves, and their late entry into a market Apple had already saturated with iMovie and Final Cut left them with no toehold to grab onto. iMovie 2 (and beyond) from the start was always as good as Pinnacle Studio, and iMovie’s integration with iDVD made it a Pinnacle Studio killer. I find Final Cut Pro’s interfaces great fun to work with, and it’s hard for me to imagine that Avid could beat Apple in that regard, even if they wanted to. Additionally, my impression of Avid has been that it was a lot like Quark, i.e., it didn’t seem very interested in responding to its customers’ complaints about its products. Taking over Pinnacle won’t help them there. Pinnacle was never known for its great customer service either.
I may not be giving Avid enough credit. Seems to me that when I first started working video (on the Windows platform), I might have been using an Avid product. And liked it. But whether Avid can jump in now and improve Pinnacle Studio to make it the top consumer-level video editing package for Windows remains to be seen. Of course, they may not care. It’s just as likely that Pinnacle Studio will disappear and that Pinnacle’s assets will all be geared toward the broadcast market.
To be honest, Adobe may not have much to worry about. Consolidating Pinnacle and Avid may indeed pose a threat to those companies engaged in preparing broadcast video products, at least on the Windows side of the house. From my reading, I never get the feeling that many TV studios are into Adobe Premiere, i.e, that it remains the realm of professionals who prepare videos for other venues, like the local wedding videographer. With the advent of non-linear editing on computers, Premiere has also made its way into the hands of serious hobbyists and prosumers. Pinnacle Studio, on the other hand, was primarily the tool of hobbyists and your everyday “I want to make a home movie” enthusiast. For years, I’ve thought it was the best of the bunch of consumer-level home video editing packages out there; but the last couple of versions have looked a bit long in the tooth. With the entrance into the consumer market of Adobe’s Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Studio’s place as PC World magazine’s and my personal favorite is gone.
Avid’s takeover of Pinnacle Studio is unlikely to change that. Unless Avid does some serious work to understand consumer interfaces and rework its products, the takeover may even help Premiere Elements take the same place in home computing that Photoshop Elements already has.
In the Mac world, Pinnacle has never been a player and neither has Avid. Avid tried to make a move in that direction a year or two back by releasing Avid Express, a “lite” version of or commercial video editor. But Avid products have always carried a reputation for having steep learning curves, and their late entry into a market Apple had already saturated with iMovie and Final Cut left them with no toehold to grab onto. iMovie 2 (and beyond) from the start was always as good as Pinnacle Studio, and iMovie’s integration with iDVD made it a Pinnacle Studio killer. I find Final Cut Pro’s interfaces great fun to work with, and it’s hard for me to imagine that Avid could beat Apple in that regard, even if they wanted to. Additionally, my impression of Avid has been that it was a lot like Quark, i.e., it didn’t seem very interested in responding to its customers’ complaints about its products. Taking over Pinnacle won’t help them there. Pinnacle was never known for its great customer service either.
I may not be giving Avid enough credit. Seems to me that when I first started working video (on the Windows platform), I might have been using an Avid product. And liked it. But whether Avid can jump in now and improve Pinnacle Studio to make it the top consumer-level video editing package for Windows remains to be seen. Of course, they may not care. It’s just as likely that Pinnacle Studio will disappear and that Pinnacle’s assets will all be geared toward the broadcast market.
posted by Andy Foster at
3:16 PM
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