The lower half of the GUI has a simplified version of the familiar video-editing timeline, with tracks for video, the audio from the camera, titles, sound effects and music.Ībove the timeline is a sort of tripartite arrangement.
As Pinnacle notes on its site, “VideoSpin does not have the ability to capture video from tape-based video cameras.” So the video will have to already be imported onto your hard drive (possibly via the software that came with the camera) before you can insert it into VideoSpin’s timeline.
Once installation is complete, the confusing buzzwords go away and you see a graphical user interface (GUI) that’s effortless in its simplicity. (But I guess we can give Pinnacle bonus points for chutzpah: welcome to the harsh reality of video producing – you’ll be learning all sorts of new jargon if you stick with it for any length of time!) It’s not exactly the warmest introduction to the world of video. “Codecs? MPEG-2? MPEG-4? DiVX? Your strange and heretofore-unknown terminology frightens and confuses me!” Maybe the lawyers insisted on displaying this message right at the start of program use, but this message must seem hugely off-putting to the average beginner. (Note: If you have separately purchased Pinnacle codecs, either individually or as part of a product, those codecs will still be usable.)” Below the prompt are the buttons to Purchase Now or Purchase Later those said video codecs for $14.99. If you wish to use these codecs after the 15-day trial, you will need to purchase the Advanced Codecs Pack.
Immediately after installing the program, you see a prompt: “VideoSpin includes a 15-day trial of advanced video codecs (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DiVX).
Given the program’s file size, it may take a few minutes to download, depending on your internet connection, but, if you’ve become captivated by YouTube and other video aggregation sites, it’s a safe bet you already have a download connection.įor a program that prides itself on simplicity, it provides a moment of cognitive dissonance early on in the installation process. It’s a free program, a 148-megabyte download from, logically enough, It’s essentially a stripped-down version of Pinnacle’s popular Studio 11 program. That’s where’s Pinnacle’s VideoSpin comes into play. But there’s also a third group: those who have poked through YouTube, bought a copy or two of Videomaker, know they wanted to get started somehow, but truly feel intimated by how much technical know-how is required to produce a decent video. Then there’s the rest of us, who maybe aren’t the second coming of Stanley Kubrick, but pretty much know what we’re doing in terms of shooting, editing and rendering. They know the ins and outs of alpha tracks and motion stabilization, and they get a killer invisible chromakey every time. They’re intimately familiar with all of the hidden tricks in Adobe After Effects. There are those who somehow, through osmosis perhaps, know everything. Video producers seem to come in three flavors.