Sony Vegas Movie Studio + DVD 6 Platinum Edition

Great product, powerful, stable, fun to use!

Strengths: Probably the most powerful home use video editor for the money. Stable, uses hyperthreading and dual core to speed rendering.

Weaknesses: The manuals included talk a lot about individual features but not about how to put them togther to make this package sing.

Summary: 2006-03-21 23:23:16 After trying and failing to get Pinnacle Studio to work (great user interface but a very, very buggy product) it's a joy to use software that does much more AND is very stable.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio is not that difficult to use. Once you understand the the basic user interface it opens the doors and you can quickly do a lot with this package.

Basically you drag videos, pictures, or audio from a windows Explorer tool onto the timeline. If you overlap them slightly it automatically creates a crossfade effect to smoothly transition from one item to another (or use a special effect transition). Cut, copy, paste work too (although there are several modifiers such as Ctrl drag creates a duplicate). You can overlay (composite) text, pictures, and other video clips together which lets you build up more compelling movies.

The real beauty of Vegas is that if you want to do a bit more, it's chomping at the bit and lets you create a wide range of special effects such as,

- "Ken Burns" pan and zoom on still pictures for slideshows

- Video and sound compositing

- Picture in picture

- Color correction

- Chromakeying (layer a video over another image or clip like the weather reporter)

- Text generators

- Tons of filters to modify what's happening

The other good part of this package is that it includes DVD Architect Studio to author custom DVD menu systems, ACID music editing software and extra special effects filters.

There is an active user community from Sony and users alike (look at Sony's user forums and their www.acidplanet.com sites where you share clips and information). If you do need some extra help learning Vegas there are 3rd party tutorials available and a very active user community that shares advice and tips online.

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The best Non-Linear Editor for the price

Strengths: STABILITY - it never crashes! INTUITIVE - I have never read the manual and I was producing DVDs from home videos in a couple of hours.

Weaknesses: HOOKLINES - Some features mentioned in the online help are only available in the professional version. To be fair, it is mentioned as such, but it makes you yearn for its massively pricier brother.

Summary: I evaluated nearly all the competitive products before stumbling upon this gem. I was primarily swayed by the reports of its stability. Having used editors as basic as Windows Movie Maker, I was fed up with projects crashing mid-flow. Video editing can be an intense and involving experience. There really is nothing worse than losing your work after a load of artistic and time-consuming edits.

Contrary to other reports, I found Vegas Movie Studio Platinum to be highly intuitive. The online help and 'Show Me' feature are both very useful for the average novice. I have never read the manual, but a glance through tells me it looks like a pretty comprehensive one.

Once you've brushed the surface of this product, there is much, much more beneath. Being able to reverse a clip, slow-mo or speed it up is fabulous. It's only a shame that only its bigger brother allows for envelopes to be used as such. This is a minor point. There are so many other gems in there that it would take a few pages to describe.

Finally, if you don't believe me regarding this product's stability, take a look at the Sony Media online forums and compare them to the Pinnacle ones (for example). In the Pinnacle forums you'll find lots of angry people moaning about bugs, crashes and freezes. In the Sony forums you'll just find people discussing creative ideas. It's that stark.

Try it - I know you'll love it.

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A little steep on the learning curve, but worth the work

Strengths: Excellent video/audio manipulation, fast rendering.

Weaknesses: Features enabled only in full version of Vegas.

Summary: Been there and did that with Pinnacle Studio since version 4, CyberLink PowerDirector, and MedioVision neoDVD. Vegas Studio will let you do the things you only wish you could do in the others.

I resisted switching to Vegas Studio because it wasn't intuitive, but to do what I wanted to do I had to overcome that and I'm glad I did. For example, I couldn't get titles created in the program to appear in the videos -- solved by simply putting them on a line above the videos. The busy-looking work area is completely flexible so you can work on just the area you want.

The Help is excellent, and once you "get the hang of it" you'll become a believer.

You can even export a theme from DVD architect and aren't limited to what they provide, which is pretty basic.

A trial version is available. Try it, and give it a chance. The editor is very good and the DVD burning is equally good. I won't be going back to my other editors.

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vegas movie studio +dvd 6.o platinum ed

Strengths: exellent video transfer to dvd

Weaknesses: very hard to understand included manual. this program is complicated even for the intermediate

Summary: very disappointed with the difficulty of using this program. i am sure if you are a professional movie maker this is perfect for you, but for the average person, do not buy this.

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