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Hey guys, today I thought I’d make a how-to on getting the best quality video using the Pinnacle Dazzle and Pinnacle Studio without buying any extentions.

I’m using Studio 11 so things may vary according to what has changed – layout wise – throughout each version.

Okay so to start off, make sure your dazzle is set up and everything and you have Studio 11 or 12 installed (Studio 10 might work, but I havn’t used it so I’m not sure)

Making the First Recording the Best Quality

What you want to do is open up Pinnacle Studio and go to the ‘Setup’ and click ‘Capture source’ then adjust your settings to look like the following picture.

Now click on the ‘Capture format’ tab and change your settings to match the following picture.

Now click on the ‘Project preferences’ tab and match the settings in the ‘Project format’ box (red arrow) in the picture bellow.

That’s it for making the original recording better, by now the video should be crisp and very well defined.

Removing the Ugly Black Borders

This is the section where I show you how to get rid of the distorted border thing that I get when I use my PAL-60 Tv. I don’t know if HD Tv’s will get this but I’m going to show you how it’s done anyway.

First you’ll need to add your clips to the project (in the ‘Edit’ tab). Now highlight all of the clips in the project and right click one (if they’re highlighted when you right click then it will count for all of the clips) and select ‘Clip properties’

Now click on the icon that lookes like a power plug it’s the video effects menu where you can add effects to video clips. Now click ‘Add New Effect’ and choose the catagory ‘Standard RTFX’ and select the effect called ‘Pan and Zoom’ (see picture bellow)

Now click ‘OK’, you will now be brought to the settings for Pan and Zoom. Now change the zoom to an ammount where the black border is only just gone. For myself I found that 6.74 was best, you may have a different TV or something to me so it may vary depending on that.

And there you go!, the black border should be gone now!

Here is some before and after pics I did.

Before:

After:

Exporting for Youtube

This isn’t just for exporting to Youtube, it’s actually very good quality on your computer aswell.

Okay, first you need to go to the ‘Make Movie’ tab. Then make sure you’re on the ‘Make file from current project’ button .

Now change the file type to ‘MPEG-2′ or if you’ve unlocked it ‘MPEG-4′ (it’s free to unlock if you have an account).

Then set the preset to ‘Full size’ and hit ‘Create file…’ and choose your save location and wait for it to process.

You’re done!, now all you have to do is upload it to youtube or whatever you want to do with it.

Here is a test I made to show you that it really works:

Btw, if you’re uploading to youtube and the quality seams pixelated and crappy after it’s uploaded, just wait a few mins or so because the quality improves after a while because of the way youtube opperates.

And thats it!, I hope that it worked for you and good luck with your videos!, if you have any other problems with the Pinnacle Dazzle/Studio don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments. I’ve had so many problems with it that the chances are – if you’re having the problem now – I already had that problem and solved it, so I’ll be happy to help you.

I hope you liked this post!, I’d love it if you would leave me some comments telling me how it went for you and also how you think I went explaining it, I like to get feedback from people to know how well I’m doing and what kind of posts you prefer so I can make more ones like that. Thanks!