Customer Reviews

Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm not often inspired to write a review, but this program is exactly what I wanted. I demoed other programs like Showbiz, Pinnacle, VideoWave, and VideoStudio, and each had some impressive features. However, each left me unsatisfied in one way or another, from stability to ease of use to lack of configurability in many of the effects.

The one thing I like best about Screenblast is that you get three general purpose video tracks and three general purpose audio tracks. They come preconfigured with names like "Text", "Overlay", "Music", etc., but you can use them for any media (and even rename them). Overlay and chromakeying effects are a breeze.

The next coolest thing is the Pan/Crop feature, which allows any video or static image to have a starting and ending screen position, zoom, and rotation. This flexibility allows for unlimited creativity in moving picture-in-picture and panning motion for static images. Really cool stuff!

Finally, Screenblast's effect support and library is fantastic. You can apply any number of effects to any clip in any order, and each effect is highly customizable, again optionally with starting and ending settings to achieve timed effects. I can only say "Wow!"

On top of all this, it has not yet crashed (at all!) and the performance is good even on my 900mhz P3 Win2k machine.

The only cons are the fact that some people might prefer a simpler storyboard mode (although most of the features only really make sense in the more generic timeline approach), and you need to play with it for a bit before you can be fully comfortable with all its features. Flexibility often comes at a cost to simplicity, but the final result is almost always a better one.

Five stars. What a great video editor!

So I bought a MiniDV Camcorder with FireWire (IEEE 1394) out and I wanted the best video editing software, but I also wanted something intuitive and fairly easy to use I also wanted something stable that wouldn't lock-up or crash my computer all the time. In my quest for the perfect video editing, burning package I tried Unlead VideoStudio, Sonic MyDVD/Mr. ShowBiz, Pinnacle Studio 8 and then finally ScreenBlast MovieStudio. All the other programs mentioned I found extreemly unstable (save Sonic MyDVD) and while some of them were super easy to use (e.g. Pinnacle Studio 8) that easy of use came at the price of flexability.

For video editing (primary what I was looking for) ScreenBlast Movie studio stood out above the rest with drag and drop video editing, it was the only program I found that took a multi-track approach to video and audio editing, this provides a great iterface for some of its FX (some of which are common only to high-end packages, such as Choma-Keying/bluescreening), the core engine of ScreenBlast MovieStudio is the same of Sony's higher end Vegas 4 product (Vegas 4 is the video editing counterpart to Adobe Photoshop and ProTools in my book, it has no equal for what it does), perhaps a better name for ScreenBlast MovieStudio would have been Vegas 4 Lite, but Sony wanted to make this product target a very specific market.

DVD burning is only average (this is the reason I'm only giving this 4 stars), Screenblast renders the MPEG-2 then hands it over to another program to burn the DVD (Sonic MyDVD actually), so you're limited to the average consumer grade menu editing structure, this is the weak point of this software, but you can always use a seperate program to burn your DVDs and author your menus (I perfer TMPEG DVD Author). This design seems awkward, but it's required because ScreenBlast Movie Studio (like Vegas 4) were designed to be a general multi-track audio/video editing software package, MPEG-2 (DVD preped video) is one of many codecs supported, the reach of this program goes out much further (you can even use it as a multi-track recording studio and ignore the video editing all togeather) the higher end Vegas 4 doesn't even come with DVD authorware unless you buy Vegas 4+DVD, you have to keep in mind these two products are both developed by Sonic Fondary and started off as the same application.

So if you want the most simple all-in one solution and you don't want to spend any time learning you might look elsewhere, if you want real power in the video/audio editing department (beyond cheesy effects) and you don't mind investing a few hours, look no further.

The Screenblast Movie Studio is very easy to use and I had it doing video clips and transitions 10 minutes after opening the box. Installation was very smooth and the tutorial is quick and good enough to get you started. The manual that comes with the software is pretty good, but the HELP menu in the program itself is pretty much the way to go. Everything is drag-and-drop and making changes could not be any easier. I have used Adobe Premiere, Pinnacle 8, and a few other OEM bundled packages and Sony Screenblaster is so much easier to use and in most circumstances, has better looking transitions and effects.

You import video/pictures from any source and move it from the media pool to where you want it on the timeline. You can select transitions and view how each one works prior to incorporating it into your project. Doing that is drag-and-drop, just like everything else. Most of the production is just trial and error...select a transition or effect, drag it where you want it and hit play to see how it actually looks in the view screen. If you don't like it, click on it and delete and try something else. You will rarely need to use the help menu, everything is all laid out in from of you in a very organized and simple manner. I am totally in love with this product. The BAD side is the 3rd party DVD authoring from SonicFoundry. It crashes a lot and locks up everytime I select to burn a DVD straight from the camcorder. I have Nero 6 installed and it is not much better...most of the newer DVD authoring software is full of bugs. (I use Roxio and Nero and neither one works all that good either.)
Sony really has their act together on this product and I have already deleted the Pinnacle 8 program and will use this full time.
The Sony software is 5 stars. Because of the SonicFoundry DVD authoring software they choose to use, which has wasted a few of my blank DVDs, they loose a star for that. This is a great buy.

I've been using this for several weeks after bad experiences with ArcSoft Showbiz and Ulead VideoStudio. I find the interface to be simple and straightforward. I was up and editing very quickly. There are a few quirks but they are easy to live with. It uses only a timeline interface; I think adding a story-board mode would improve it, but I'm doing fine without it.

This editor has a rich feature set. For instance, you can apply video filters to individual clips, groups of clips, or you can just put it on the entire output. (Great for me, I can create one filter that compensates for the low saturation of my camera.) You can also create your own templates for filters, text, etc. It has a very intuitive way of changing the gamma on fades, too. SMS also has better audio capabilities than the other tools I've tried. And you can specify your own external audio editors, film capture tools, etc.

On large projects it can be slow to load, but it's pretty fast once it's going. (Ulead VideoStudio is maddeningly slow all the time.)

This tool uses MyDVD as the DVD authoring tool. It has some limitations but I've worked out a few tricks that keep me happy.

You can only capture as AVI, and when you "create a DVD" it generates AVI. So I use the honestech tool to batch-convert to mpegs (which causes some problems)and I generate mpg files and THEN go to MyDVD. Minor irritations.

Overall I recommend this highly. I downgraded it on Ease of Use because they have a moronic online registration that rarely works. You have to register both the product and the mpeg plug-in, so be ready to call Customer Service twice.

Documentation and tutorials are excellent. Well-integrated and thorough.

Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 is by far the easiest movie and picture editing program. Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 has a wide range of editing tool to help you make a great presentation, and if you get stumped just click on Show Me How and an interactive help screen comes on. I do recommend you read through the very easy to read and helpful manual.
I had used Windows Movie Maker, I felt it was too limited, and the biggest disaster of all was Pinnacle Studio 8, it is the lemon of video editing programs, it looks pretty, but don't let the glitter blind you. I tried Pinnacle on two different high powered computer one was an IBM 3ghz with 512meg Ram and the other was a Tiger Direct Systemax 3ghz with 1g of Ram and the program still would cause the computer to lock up and mess up my presentation.
With Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 I did the same presentation without any problem.
The one thing I wish Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 would be able to do is to accept the Windows AVI files. I'm able to get around that by converting them to MPEG-2 or avi file extension as opposed to AVI.
I still love Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 for its flawless running ability and ease of use.
I give Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 Five Stars.

as an editing program movie studio can't be beat. i am constantly amazed at the feature set, and what is possible to do. it is very stable and never crashes. i rate the editing part of the package (the movie studio software itself) 5 stars. very good value for the money.

the dvd authoring is another story. despite the advertisements, authoring is not integrated and is handled by sonic mydvd v4.5, a very limited and disappointing program. that's why i marked the overall package 4 stars.

movie studio can almost handle 16:9 editing. all of the needed features for 16:9 are available during the editing process, the only hitch comes when encoding to mpeg-2 in order to create a dvd. this requires a workaround involving a free program called dvdpatcher to set the correct aspect ratio on the mpeg file before authoring. this only takes a second so it isn't a big deal.

i honestly think movie studio is the best "consumer" (under $100) editing program available.

I tried the demo of Pinnacle before settling on Screenblast. Screenblast is much more stable and easy to do the basics. Although Pinnicle seemed to have a few features that Screenblast did not have, most of them are really not important. (For example, Pinnacle can do storyboarding, were Screenblast can not.)

The biggest plus that I saw (besides the fact that it does not crash every 5 minutes like Pinnacle) was the Pan and crop feature. This allows you to pan/crop a shot. This is great for adding 'animation' to your still photos, as well as other effects for video.

The biggest draw back is clearly the DVD creation. My Studio 4.5 is included and is a very weak software. The two are not integrated, so if you want to creat a DVD with multiple chapters, you have to go back through the camera. It is very disappointing.

Overall, this is a decent product compared to its peers, but still has a few holes.

I think this is the best video product for the price. I've done a lot of searching and reading and most people agree. It has terrific video effects, including zooming in on your videos, cropping them and text with shadows. And of course all the nifty fades and warps and such.

Its interface is simple and effective once you get used to the timeline approach rather than the storyboard approach used in other programs. It takes some reading to get used to it because their aren't many intuitive, pretty buttons like some programs, but in the end you'll be glad because it helps you focus on the main content, your videos.

It comes with very useful tutorials that allow you to actually do the tutorial within the program rather than watch it.

I have one big complaint that made this a 4-star review. They force you to register this before you can even use it, both the main program and the MPG1 and MPG2 plugin. If you do not have an Internet connection, you have to call them with your serial # and "computer id" and then get an activation code to enter. I had to do this twice over two days, once for the main program and then the next day after I discovered that the MPG plugins also require a separate activation.

To briefly re-state what the previous reviews have correctly stated:
1) Much better than the competition. I've tried them.
2) Has all the features 'that you would probably really use' of the high end programs. It is the same as Sony Vegas with a couple of the features that most people would never use chopped out. A couple of the messages still say 'Vegas' in them.
3) Very stable. Has never crashed over multiple large projects
4) You are easily able to take out or lower the volume on a little part of the sound track (if there is an unwanted sound or somebody says a few words that you want to take out).
5) It comes with Sonic MyDVD which is a piece of junk but it does work if you want ugly menus. The latest CD version of Screenblast 3.0 comes with MyDVD 5.23 which is the newest version of MyDVD as of today! Earlier reviews said that their Screenblast came with MyDVD 4.5 which is not true anymore.
**
An earlier Amazon reviewer gave this product 1 star because they said: If you take out a picture then you have to move all of the pictures after it manually to fill the hole. That is not true! Just turn on 'Ripple Edit' and everything moves over by itself.
Another reviewer said it was not stable. Those people need to fix their computers. In my experience (and according to all of the reviews around the internet) this is a rock solid stable program with no crashes.
I have not needed customer service for this program but I think that Sony customer service stinks for their other products but that is another story that doesn't go with this review.

Screenblast Movie Studio does a good job capturing video from my DV camcorder and creating MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files for either VCD or DVD production. The program almost never crashes (as opposed to Pinnacle 8 which almost always crashes), so it scores perfect on my scorecard for stability.

(update) - You may encounter problems with internet registration. Seems like the program directs you to an old web address no longer valid for registration. I downloaded update/patch for Movie Studio, then the online registration worked flawlessly.

It is not true that DVD authoring is integrated. Sony provides a separate program MyDVD for that purpose. It is a buggy program, and crashes when it tries to import MPEG-2 files. I am still shopping around for alternative. By the way, the Sonic website (for MyDVD) will allow me to input information describing all my problems, but then give me a server error when I hit 'submit', so according to them I have reported zero problems and the software works perfectly.

If you buy Movie Studio, be prepared to dish out extra money for a DVD authoring program. If you only want to do VCD with MPEG-1, then maybe MyDVD will work for you.