Pinnacle targets video market

Shipra Arora / New Delhi

Pinnacle Systems, a provider of digital media creation, storage and playback solutions has said that setting up of a development centre in India is high on its agenda. The company does recognise the cost advantage and availability of a high quality technical workforce that India offers and is therefore considering this option. However, nothing has been finalised on this front as of now. Presently the company has an India liasion office and operates a technical support centre.

Pierre-Francois Catte

Meanwhile, Pinnacle is all set to strengthen its position in the Indian digital media market with the launch of its new version of video editing and DVD authoring software with enhanced features. For the first time, the company is launching two variants of its editing software in India. These are Edition Pro version 5 and Wedding Pro5. The variant, Wedding Pro5, is an attempt to specifically leverage the wedding video market in India. The products are likely to be shipped in early June this year.

While Edition Pro Version 5 is the same as the one launched across the world, Wedding Pro 5 is specifically designed and customised for the Indian market. This includes local effects for the market here. In fact Pinnacle has incorporated 300 effects specific to Indian traditions. All the customisation has been done in India itself. Apart from this, both the products are essentially the same. According to Patrick Beaulieu, product manager at Pinnacle Systems, the company is packaging, positioning and marketing the two products very distinctly as they are targeting separate market segments altogether. On what warranted the need for addressing the professional wedding video market separately, Beaulieu pointed out, “We realised that there was a latent demand among the community of professional videographers catering to the wedding market. This being a voluminous business, the key for them is to take up as many assignments as possible, which presently they are incapable of handling owing to time taken in computing and rendering the results.” This solution, the company claimed, provides high computing speeds for faster processing of the video as the time taken to produce and create the video is reduced by almost a factor of ten. On the other hand Edition Pro Version 5 will be targeted at advertising agencies for applications like concept creation, news channels, educational institutions, etc. It is also being targeted at corporate houses for applications like training and for annual events.

One of the biggest advantages of the latest version of Edition Pro version 5 is that it provides real-time capabilities such as real-time editing and DVD authoring. For this the software leverages processing power from the PC’s central and graphics processor units (CPU and GPU respectively). It utilises the PC’s processors and AGP architecture for integrated video editing and DVD authoring. Pinnacle Systems is working with Intel to develop software products, which take advantage of Intel’s hyper-threading technology. “Speed is very critical so we are trying to optimise the products for Intel hyper-threading technology,” explains Beaulieu. Edition Pro version 5, priced at around Rs 59,000, will be available through the company’s distributor, Aditya Infotech and major video equipment resellers.