Video Editing for $250: Pinnacle Studio DV Plus

Put To The Test: Pinnacle Studio DV Plus

Genuine video freaks are in any case skeptical towards this card: a DV board with fire-wire in/outputs and a D/A converter for analogue reproduction for just under $250? Keep in mind that the card does not need any real time effects which nobody would miss, anyhow.

The Studio DV Plus is delivered in a rather functional package and contains, in addition to the card itself, a fire-wire cable, an audio adapter cable (jack plug and socket) and the software package on CD-ROM. In view of the reasonable price, one can hardly expect professional editing software a la Adobe Premiere or Ulead Video Studio as a bundle. The recording and editing software "Studio DV", a program package developed by Pinnacle, is included; it even includes a simple title generator.

View of the card's ports: in addition to two fire-wire interfaces, the Studio DV Plus also has an analogue audio and video output for connecting a monitor or a video recorder.

The installation of the card should not pose too many problems. We tested the Studio DV Plus on two different PC systems: on one hand, the card functioned without complaints in an Athlon PC with 1000 MHz, based on a main board with a set of VIA-KT133 chips. A second computer was equipped with a Pentium III/733 and a board with a set of Intel 815 chips. Likewise, this system also functioned perfectly during the entire testing period.