Product Review: Pinnacle Systems Dazzle Video Creator Platinum

The Studio 10 program is very easy to use and has a handful of help and tutorial additions to guide you along in your video editing. The section of tutorials is called Pinnacle Studio Tutorials, what else, and is available from your Start menu or the Studio Launcher. There are several tutorials that help in all parts of the Dazzle capturing and DVD creation process that guides you along with creating your video using simple lessons showing right on actual program screens.

The tutorial is a nice handy lesson plan that takes you from connecting your Dazzle and DVD, VCR or camcorder to finishing touches of your movie or video like some special effects and audio additions. Studio 10 from Pinnacle is a very basic video editor and does not come with much in the way of special effects or advanced features.

The main emphasis here is easy and simple DVD creation from those old VCR tapes or other media like camcorder videos. Simply install the software which takes about an hour including download time of the updates from Pinnacle. Once installed simply pop in a DVD or VCR tape and connect your device to the Dazzle and the Dazzle to your PC with the USB connection. Press play on VCR/DVD and capture in the Instant DVD Creator or the Studio 10 Quickstart.

The DVD Creator will simply take you through a quick record directly to a DVD from your VCR or DVD player like movies straight from the player. This allows you to copy a DVD or VCR tape straight from one to the other without any problems what so ever. The functions of creating a menu are accomplished simply by a timed feature that inserts a menu at what time interval you tell the program or none at all.

The Studio 10 from Pinnacle allows a bit more flexibility and creativity in creating your home movies and being able to insert menus and some special effects and even correcting things like camera shake or bad audio. The program is not very feature rich but its features do include enough to transform those bleak and unexciting home movies into some jazzed up and fun movies to show off to the friends without them falling asleep at the premiere.

In all the Dazzle Video Creator Platinum is a very good video capture device and the software included makes a nice package for creating videos and DVD's from those old VCR tapes. You can also edit videos, copy movies straight from the player to a DVD and create your own movies using the Studio 10 software program from Pinnacle.