Customer Reviews

Sony Movie Studio HD [Old Version]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Looked like just what I needed to edit and convert AVCHD movie from a Sony camera. The features are there but this product is pretty much unusable. It crashes A LOT, some of the codecs included don't work and others outup video files that are corrupted. Waist of money.

Runing it on a Quad Core, 4 GB and SSD. Editing video from a Sony HDR-CX500V

1 month update - After many forum discussions I found some tweaks one may be able to apply to make this product work. It gets a bit technical but apparently some of the files included in this product are not set to address memeory space over 2 GB. If you have more then 2 GB as soon as your memory ussage exceeds 2 GB, the encoder crashes. There is a 3'rd party freeware you have to download to change the settings of about 6 files in this software and after that the product works much much better. It's unacceptable that Sony can't put out a patch to fix this when others managed to find a solution.

Length:: 1:02 Mins

Update 5/17/2011: Vegas movie studio hd platinum 10 is much better and I have had none of the issues as mentioned below. Check out Sony Imagination Studio 2.0 Suite which has Vegas hd 10, as well as full versions of sound forge, acid music, DVD architect, photo go, and royalty free music, all bundled together for only slightly more than this software. End of update.

Considering the price tag, I can't complain too much. However, it's buggy, shuts down sometimes when trying to import files, and overall I found it user unfriendly (despite Sony's attempt to make it easier with the tutorials). The tutorials are a nice addition, though they were not complete on many occasions and I had to just learn by trial and error.

My main complaint: Uploading Quicktime files was a nightmare until I found the answer after HOURS of searching on Sony's forums for this product. It turns out there is a known issue with Aiptek video files in that when you drag and drop the file into the timeline, the sound does not come over with it. The solution is quite simple to fix: Simply import your video from your camera or card, then rename it as an mp4 file. For example: file0001.mov renamed to file0001.mp4. Yep, that simple. Now drag and drop, and VOILA! there's the sound. It took me hours to find the answer for that, so I hope this helps someone.

The nice thing about this program is that there are tons of plug ins and features to add to your video (after your figure out how to do it), and I'm still in the process of perfecting this. It's definitely not a program with beginner in mind. However, once I look past the fact that it shuts down sometimes when importing, I like the program.

Rendering files as HD is time consuming unless you have a super fast or quad core computer. I have a dual core and it takes approximately 3-15 minutes of rendering per 1 minute of video (you do the math). Once it's rendered though, the video is spectacular. You have several options in which to render a file which is nice: non HD, 720 25fps, 720 30fps, 1080p 30 fps, etc.

Again, for the price tag, I can live with the bugginess. Would I recommend it? Not to a beginner or novice just looking to make simple movies.

Tried various video editors, and by far Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 9 is the stablest of all. For the home user, enough features to do what you want without too much complexity. Fairly quick rendering too, on my 1.7Ghz Pentium laptop running Windows XP SP2.

Is the same product as Movie Studio Platinum but without the DVD Architect. I have another DVD authoring program so no problem there. Again, has never, ever crashed no matter what I put through it.

Windows Movie Maker (free with Windows) is great for simple editing, but there are many things that Windows Movie Maker are just not capable of doing, such as precise cuts and custom color correction. This is where Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD comes in.

I come from the mindset that there is a free, open-source equivalent of nearly every commercial program out there today, so I tried just about every free video software I could find. They are all good at what they do, but none of them were an all-in-one package. The best of the bunch, Wax 2.0e, for example, can produce some awesome visual effects (albeit after a steep learning curve), but can do almost nothing with sound and crashes a lot. Interestingly, the interface for Wax 2.0e looks very similar to Sony Vegas Movie Studio. So, being familiar with Wax 2.0e, I was able to learn how to use Sony Vegas Movie Studio very quickly.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD certainly doesn't have every feature that is possible for video editing software (it still lacks in the sound editing area, but is still way better than Wax 2.0e), but I wouldn't expect it to for the price. But if you're looking for something with a bit more punch than movie maker, check this software out. There's currently a free trial on their website, so you don't have to risk a dime.

Sony Movie Studio HD is Sony's least expensive entry in their Vegas editing line. They currently offer a series of increasingly powerful editing software products, leading up to the pro-level Sony Vegas Pro. That retails for over five hundred dollars, so it's overkill for the average consumer who just wants to edit the family vacation video.

I'm in the latter group. I don't work in the industry, and I'm not even looking to put much on the internet (my cats refuse to sit at the piano and play, sadly), but I am interested in cutting out boring shots of my wife trying to avoid the camera and the shots of the ground I get when I forget to turn off the camcorder.

I've used Windows Movie Maker and Mac's iMovie. I found the free iMovie to be capable and pretty easy to use. To be honest, I think it fulfills my needs about as well as Movie Studio. However, I don't own a Mac, and I wanted something better than Movie Maker, but realistically priced.

Overall, I like the program. It has the capability of laying down two video tracks, two audio tracks, and a separate title track. This is sufficient for most consumer needs, I think. It certainly is for me.

Where this product falls down is the manual. It's available on-line. There is no printed manual in the box for this complicated class of software, so one has to print out the manual. And even then, it's not very complete. This has given rise to expensive, third-party training software, which I think it a failing on Sony's part, in not providing comprehensive product training. The training software can run $50 or more. Expensive for a piece of software that costs less than the training videos.

However, Sony does provide a series of basic videos available on-line. These represent a good, solid foundation that will introduce the user to the software. It's up to the user to become proficient on his own. This isn't a piece of software you're going to load up and start using immediately.

Recommended. There is a learning curve with the software, and potential problems that crop up aren't readily addressed (I had problems even getting a video stored on my hard drive into the program), but Movie Studio is effective and does the job. It also gives one a foundation in the Vegas series of software, if one chooses to later move up to more powerful software.

Three-and-one-half stars for 'Sony Movie Studio HD'.

This software is great for editing up to about 1 minute of HD video, but once any more than that is added to the timeline... *CRASH* Open it again, *CRASH* Try again, *CRASH* and again... *CRASH*

I'm running a Quad core processor and 4GB of RAM, so I know it's not my computer...

Sony failed on this one...

I used Sony Vegas for several years with good results. With my recent upgrade to Windows 7 and a new laptop I didn't have the money to upgrade my full Vegas software so I opted for the Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD. To make a long story short it doesn;t support the MP4 audio codec of my video files from my HD camera. I went to the Sony support site and downloaded an updated .dll file that was supposed to fix the problem...it didn't. The only other solution from Sony is to downgrade your Quicktime software and iTunes to an earlier version. REALLY??? Is that the best Sony can do? I'm very disappointed with this and dare to say this will be my last purchase of Sony Vegas, period.

Bought this movie editor to not be the next James Cameron, but just to make decent-looking, nice videos from my Kodak Zi8 HD video camera, a popular budget camera for us poor folks who want HD video. When I initially see this Sony package it clearly states "Movie Studio HD" on the front of the box. But think again. Video and audio are out of sync, plus the audio is "broken" and lapses quite a bit. My computer far exceeds the minimum requirements to run this software too, so my system is not the problem. The only way to get somewhat decent video edits from this software is to convert your videos to WMV, but then you lose your HD quality! Sony's only response to this obvious defect was to buy their Vegas Platinum 10 HD editor. Forget that. Sleaze.

This is the first video editing software I bought. I know this is the lowest
in the Sony Media series but it serves my purposes. The reason I gave it 5 stars even though it's the lowest version is because of the price. I think it is a good deal.

I would have just used windows movie maker since it comes with windows PCs but I bought a Zoom Q3 video/audio recorder which records in MOV files. I didn't want to go through the hassle of converting every file. This software can open MOV files without any problems. Furthermore, I think this works smoother than movie maker.

Another reason I bought it was that I use Sony Media's audio editor (Sound Forge Pro...highest version) and Acid Pro 7 (loop creation software-highest version) for my music. I was familiar with the menu's and windows so it was easy for me to use. Still learning how to use all the features though!

If you want to see what it can do you can view my Youtube channel, rabbitboi. I created my newer videos with it.

We downloaded the trial and were using it within an hour. We produced a video which we posted on youtube. The product is so easy to use that nearly anyone can do it. If you are familiar with Sony acid pro, then you are familiar with this product even before you get it. Check out the video we created the very first day with this software. [...]