Pinnacle Studio for iPad: Record video or Download to Edit - iPad365 - iPad App Show [Video]

Pinnacle studio is no stranger to me. When I first started making Geekazine videos back in 2008, I was using their software to produce shows like “The 5 Tech Things You Should Know.” I since moved on to other software, but still have Pinnacle for “just in case moments”.

Now we have Pinnacle Studio for iPad by Corel Inc. – a video editor software that can rival iMovie. In fact, all video is being post-produced using this software so you know what you are getting.

To start, this is a single-video, multi-audio editor. That means you can’t do layers for video but you can do a picture in picture and layer audio tracks for music and voice-overs.

Lower 3rds can be added via the effects options within the app. You also have some very interesting transitions, too. Like this one:

As you may have guessed, this part of the review is not being recorded from the iPad – which I could easily do. I wanted to show you the ability to import your videos using your favorite cloud device.

This is something that iMovie doesn’t do – connect to Dropbox, Box, or other cloud services to gather video, audio, pictures and more. So I could easily record something on the camera, move it to my iPad in MP4 format and mix down from there.

I could also record everything from the iPad or iPhone camera and mix together. I could have 3-4 people with iPhones recording, then have them move the video to Dropbox where I upload and put into one video.

I can start a project, then save the file to Dropbox where I can then import into the full version of Pinnacle studio and finish the work. That means I can start a project on the road and finalize it when I get back home. iMovie has that same feature, but once again – going through iCloud.

There is a lot of versatility to this software, but it also comes with some annoyances, which we will talk about next.

So if you want to make a simple movie, montage or maybe get some scenes so you can upload as a “Citizen journalist”, Pinnacle studio is a great way to do that. You can record, edit and send final videos in every MP4 video format: from 4:3 to 1080p.

There are a few issues with this software. For one, I found that some MP4 video I imported via Dropbox was refused by the software. It simply said “Not an accepted format by iPad” which I found to be un-informative. Especially since I could download right from the Dropbox app into my device and not have problem.

The outdoor montage I created even had problems importing into the app. I had to close out and go back in to finally have Pinacle recognize it.

By the way – the software is $12.99, but if you want to connect to Dropbox you will need to spend another $4.99 for a companion app that allows you to do that.

The interface is not completely intuitive. This was the big problem I had with their main software, too. The learning curve is easy, but it seemed clunky on how you do certain things such as use the transitions they supply.

If you want to use this software with the desktop companion, then you either need a PC or run Parallels or boot camp on your Mac. The main software is only for Windows.

Nonetheless, if you need something to make quick edits and get it out to a producer or even store for a video podcast or something else, Pinnacle studio is a quick and easy way to get something out.