I was not able to attend the shootout in Dallas (7 hours away roundtrip from Austin)--although I was tempted.
I would love to hear more remarks from anyone who was able to attend these events. I've seen the cleveland and Dallas comments. Any more?
Fortunately, I was able to attend (on Tuesday) the Pinnacle Roadshow that came through Austin, TX. I was NOT impressed with the demo. Following are my observations:
1) The interface was non-standard. It was clever that the icons were closer to the action, but there was no reason to completely reinvent an interface. I thought it was especially cheesy that they had a portion of the interface that "duplicated" the feel of windows (with a Pinnacle "start" button on the bottom), etc. In contrast, Vegas utilizes all the well-known Windows conventions, which makes it very easy to get up and moving.
2) The text editing used the clunky title decko--which is an external application. It will do some 3D, but clunky. I never liked it when it shipped with Premiere.
3) The customized views are limited and are pre-set from a pick list--unlike Vegas where you can move things around, have them float, re-size forever, etc. Pinnacle purchased this application from a German company and I see it moving toward Window's conventions...although they are trying to position this as a benefit (as I would do if I were in their shoes (as a marketeer)), but it looks shameful.
4) The program did not show sample icons on the timelines. It may have been capable but, like Premiere, it may also bring the program to its knees--unlike Vegas which flys through the graphic icons.
5) No attention at all was paid to sound--which looked very basic.
6) It would not import an Mpeg2 file. They demo guy said that it was because mpeg2 was not a frame based format. I didn't check on mp3, which are not wav based--but Vegas handles it all and presents it to the user transparently--allowing import from just about anything.
7) I liked the background rendering--that was good and something SOFO should emulate. It also supported dual processors (probably for the background rendering). SOFO should respond.
8) The color correction was not graphical, but number based and looked clutzy.
9) I liked the virtual keyboard that you could pop-up to show and re-assign the keyboard shortcuts.
10) I also liked that it used the CPU and also the GPU for select modules. I appreciated that it tried to use every resource possible to increase real-time preview and rendering.
All in all, it seemed capable, and had a lot of Vegas features, but it was a clunkly application and I saw no reason what-so-ever to switch...although I would have switched to Vegas if I had seen each feature demonstrated side-by-side.
Any further comments about the shootout?
P.S. I was one of two that got a t-shirt.
I would love to hear more remarks from anyone who was able to attend these events. I've seen the cleveland and Dallas comments. Any more?
Fortunately, I was able to attend (on Tuesday) the Pinnacle Roadshow that came through Austin, TX. I was NOT impressed with the demo. Following are my observations:
1) The interface was non-standard. It was clever that the icons were closer to the action, but there was no reason to completely reinvent an interface. I thought it was especially cheesy that they had a portion of the interface that "duplicated" the feel of windows (with a Pinnacle "start" button on the bottom), etc. In contrast, Vegas utilizes all the well-known Windows conventions, which makes it very easy to get up and moving.
2) The text editing used the clunky title decko--which is an external application. It will do some 3D, but clunky. I never liked it when it shipped with Premiere.
3) The customized views are limited and are pre-set from a pick list--unlike Vegas where you can move things around, have them float, re-size forever, etc. Pinnacle purchased this application from a German company and I see it moving toward Window's conventions...although they are trying to position this as a benefit (as I would do if I were in their shoes (as a marketeer)), but it looks shameful.
4) The program did not show sample icons on the timelines. It may have been capable but, like Premiere, it may also bring the program to its knees--unlike Vegas which flys through the graphic icons.
5) No attention at all was paid to sound--which looked very basic.
6) It would not import an Mpeg2 file. They demo guy said that it was because mpeg2 was not a frame based format. I didn't check on mp3, which are not wav based--but Vegas handles it all and presents it to the user transparently--allowing import from just about anything.
7) I liked the background rendering--that was good and something SOFO should emulate. It also supported dual processors (probably for the background rendering). SOFO should respond.
8) The color correction was not graphical, but number based and looked clutzy.
9) I liked the virtual keyboard that you could pop-up to show and re-assign the keyboard shortcuts.
10) I also liked that it used the CPU and also the GPU for select modules. I appreciated that it tried to use every resource possible to increase real-time preview and rendering.
All in all, it seemed capable, and had a lot of Vegas features, but it was a clunkly application and I saw no reason what-so-ever to switch...although I would have switched to Vegas if I had seen each feature demonstrated side-by-side.
Any further comments about the shootout?
P.S. I was one of two that got a t-shirt.