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Pinnacle Edition

The significance of this announcement goes far beyond "just another press release" for Pinnacle Systems and its competitors.  With Edition, Pinnacle enters a sacred market of high end video editing software solutions, where Avid and Apple have ruled thus far.  Pinnacle now has all the right weaponry to take a good chunk of the pie.  See our commentary.

Pinnacle Systems Announces Pinnacle Edition

New Digital Video Publishing Software Ideal for Corporate and Video Professionals

Data Vitae
SRP US $699
Included - Pinnacle Edition
- TitleDeko RT
- Impression DVD SE
- Edition DV FireWire Card
System Requirements - available PCI slot
- Windows 2000 / XP
- workstation-class system and hard drive
Pros - background rendering
- "InstantSave"
Cons - Requires Pinnacle's own FireWire card
EDITIONdv Product Page
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, 23-May-2002— Pinnacle Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLE) announces Pinnacle Edition, a powerful professional video editing and DVD authoring software. Pinnacle Edition is a software product which provides a complete solution for corporate and event video professionals, educators and dedicated hobbyists who want high quality and comprehensive content creation capabilities.

Pinnacle Edition includes Pinnacle's new non-linear editing software application along with Hollywood FX software for special effects, TitleDeko RT software for graphics and Pinnacle's Impression application for DVD authoring.

"Pinnacle Edition combines professional video editing and DVD authoring in a package of unprecedented value," said Georg Blinn, President of the Personal Web Video Division.  "As a leading supplier of digital video content creation tools for consumers, prosumers, videographers, corporations and educational video producers, we have put it all together in this one product."

Pinnacle Edition uses Pinnacle's new InstantSave technology to protect the user's media. Background processing allows work to continue on the project, scrub the timeline and playback rendered sections while the Pinnacle Edition application renders even the most complex effects. Users have many input options, including the choice of 1394 PCI card, an OHCI-compatible 1394 port on a desktop or laptop system, or it can use Pinnacle's DV500 hardware for analog and digital output. Pinnacle Edition is built on the same broadcast technology that is used by leading broadcasters throughout the world. Users get the power of an advanced sub-pixel processing engine that goes beyond any other desktop video editing product to offer options that guarantee broadcast quality for 2D/3D digital video effects, color correction tools, and slow motion capabilities. Pinnacle Edition can burn play-at-once DVDs, and SVCDs, directly from the timeline.  For more complete DVD authoring, export the timeline as MPEG-2 using the integrated encoder for creation of completed discs in Impression DVD Pro.

Pricing and Availability
Fully compatible with Windows® 2000 and Windows XP Home and Professional, the Pinnacle Edition software will be available through select resellers throughout North America in July. The suggested retail price for Pinnacle Edition is US $699.

About Pinnacle Systems, Inc.
Pinnacle Systems provides cutting-edge digital video creation, storage, streaming and viewing solutions for broadcasters, video professionals and consumers. Pinnacle Systems solutions help enable the creation, management and distribution of video via cable, satellite, video-on-demand (VOD), digital video disks (DVDs) and the Internet, along with consumer editing products for home movie making and DVD creation. The company has won eight Emmy Awards for its technical innovations for broadcast products and carries its commitment throughout all of its product lines. Pinnacle Systems may be reached at (650) 526-1600 or at www.pinnaclesys.com.

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Pinnacle Redefines Itself

Sideline commentary by Alexei Gerulaitis

Pinnacle Edition was launched in Europe on March 13, 2002, a few weeks earlier than in the US, no doubt due to its German heritage.  Edition is a reworked and re-bundled version of Liquid software also known as Studio.DV, originally developed by Fast Electronics, a well-known digital video company based in Germany that was acquired by Pinnacle Systems in 2001.

Liquid won quite a few accolades for a very sleek and easy to use interface.  Industry observers have been wondering about its fate after the acquisition, and now we know this software has a big future at Pinnacle Systems; it will compete with Avid and Apple's flagship products, it will eliminate Pinnacle's dependence on Adobe Premiere and with it, Pinnacle plans to dominate the Digital Content Creation market.

FCP (Final Cut Pro) and Avid Xpress both have something nobody else does - a unified interface across a wide range of solutions.  You can get a DV editing system for under $3K and later a High Definition editing system for $100K and you don't have to re-learn the software.  The interface stays the same.  Film schools can teach FCP or Avid without fear for their students' ability to find a job: "Avid" or "FCP" on a resume do get employers' attention.

This creates a chain that's not easy to penetrate: schools will only teach FCP or Avid because that's what everybody uses, and post houses will only buy Avid or FCP systems because they know they can find experienced editors.

Edition signifies Pinnacle's intention to break that chain. While the software initially is "DV-only", there are other versions of Liquid that cater to the broadcast market, and no doubt these versions will soon become members of the same family where Edition is the first baby.  Sooner or later Pinnacle will fire up its huge marketing machine to deliver the message to the editing masses: learn our software once, and you can handle anything from basic DV and FireWire, all the way to HDTV.  Coming from a very strong company, this message will appeal to schools, post houses, studios, freelancers, independent filmmakers and students.

Competition's shortcomings.

Both Apple and Avid need to address some serious shortcomings if they want to effectively compete with Pinnacle.  Apple is married to Macs, which don't necessarily represent the best products or values.  Windows machines are cheaper, vastly more popular, and allow for many more choices including the Operating System: you don't have to use Windows if so you wish.  Apple has done a great job developing and acquiring software for editing and authoring, yet its limited choices are what makes Apple ultimately incompetitive.

Avid on the other hand cannot come close to Pinnacle's wide range of products nor does it offer web and DVD publishing solutions that are Avid's own.

That leads us to what may be a far reaching, yet obvious conclusion:

Pinnacle Systems is the only company superbly positioned to dominate digital video editing and authoring markets, and Edition DV is a significant step in that direction.