Pinnacle Systems’ Edition DV proves its green credentials

A Pinnacle Systems Edition DV video editor, driven almost entirely by solar power, was the non-linear-editor (NLE) of choice for a five-minute film made at 'The Big Green Gathering', a environmentalist event held in North Somerset in July.
At this festival it was mandatory that everything – the cafes, the exhibition, the stage, the performances – be powered only by sun or wind. So, when independent filmmaker Chris Lovell decided to make a movie he needed equipment that could also be solar powered. The Edition DV was chosen to be part of this because of its reliability.
Lovell explained: “I already had a lightweight, solar-power unit which I used to drive a DV camera and Portadisc on a shoot in Nepal last year, but I still needed a means of editing the film. My little set-up was not powerful enough to provide mains power so I knew I would be limited to a lap-top. Even then, I would only get sufficient charge for one battery each day, each charge giving just over an hour’s editing, so the need was for a solution that was easy to learn and use and could be trusted - with limited power supplies there was no room for mistakes.
“I was familiar with the Pinnacle range of NLEs as I regularly use a Liquid Purple so I decided to use Purple’s ‘little brother’, the Edition DV on a lap-top. Because there wasn't much sun that weekend I made the most of the available power by filming during the day while the laptop charged up and then spent an hour or so editing in the evening. With these restrictions, the absolute reliability of the system was paramount and I’m pleased to report that there were no hiccups whatsoever.”
One important feature of the Edition was the ‘constant save’. This allowed Lovell to ignore the power warnings on the laptop and continue editing until the system died, secure in the knowledge that as soon as he had more power, he could carry on from exactly where he left off.
Lovell successfully completed the edit – with no dropped frames, no crashes, no little glitches - and the final cut was transferred back onto tape. The movie was played out on the ‘Groovy-Movie Solar-Powered Cinema’ on the last night and the audience was so impressed they asked for a replay.
Edition is the new, professional video editor from Pinnacle, built for Windows 2000 and XP. Edition’s exclusive sub-pixel image processing delivers superb picture quality on all effects, filters and keys. Edition is truly multi-tasking with background processing, so you can continue working while effects are finished on the timeline. The industry proven, easy-to-use interface gives you advanced editing tools featuring unlimited timeline tracks, nesting, containers and true project management. Edition is built with DVD output in mind, featuring integrated MPEG-2 encoding and the ability to print straight to SVCD or DVD from the timeline.
(GB)