Customer Reviews

Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 [OLD VERSION]

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

 

 

I have owned this software for about two weeks. My only prior experience with video editing is Movie Maker and InterVideo WinDVD. I was originally going to purchase Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 but then I noticed this version was just released and it has some new features.

After some initial frustration I am happy with the purchase. The learning curve is what is so frustrating especially for a novice like me. I made two coasters (though I admit that was really my fault) and at one point I was considering trying to return it for a refund because I was getting so stressed. I still get frustrated with the fact that you have to use two separate programs: Vegas Movie Studio 9 to make the movie and DVD Architect 4.5 (included) to make the menus and author the disc.

Now that I've been playing with it every day for two weeks, things are better now. It just takes hours and hours of working with the software which in turn makes the user more familiar with how to navigate through it and achieve a desirable result. No more stress. Now that I have made a couple of DVDs successfully I have a whole new appreciation of Sony Vegas. They turned out great! My movies have a beautiful 16:9 widescreen representation, great audio, decent menus, good video FX, and I've had a blast customizing them. The "Show Me How" tutorial is a lifesaver, but it has its limits.

I have experienced no crashes or anything even close to a crash. I'm using a 3-year-old HP Media Center desktop PC, running Windows XP, with Pentium 4 processor, and 2GB of RAM. I give it 4 stars because of the huge amount of information that is presented at first and the trouble it can cause a newbie and I think the average user is not going to use a lot of the advanced features.

Before I say anything else, I'd just like to warn potential buyers that Movie Studio 9 does not do Bezier masking. In other words, you can't cut out one person and put them on a different background unless you use a predefined shape, like a square, circle, etc. If you want Bezier masking and you still want Vegas, then you need to get Vegas Pro.

Otherwise, the product is great. The tutorials are very useful, especially for beginners. There is an amazing number of effects and transitions, especially when compared to Windows Movie Maker. It's great for home movie creation.

I'd say if you're considering it, definitely give it a shot. Sony has free trials on their website, so you really have nothing to lose. Their knowledgebase is pretty extensive and if you can't find the answer to your question, you can always contact their customer service. They give useful answers fairly promptly.

Sorry about the formatting, Amazon is removing all my spaces when I publish even though it looks fine in the editor.

Computer Specs:
Intel Core2 Duo @ 1.86 GHz
2 GB RAM
256 MB Video
32 bit
Windows Vista

My test:
Added 2 videos.
Added image stabilization to one
3D transition between them.
Rendered the project.
AVCHD in and MPG2 out (both in full HD, 1920*1440, Dolby 5.1 if available)
Video length 4 minutes and 20 seconds.


Overall Review:
***** Corel Video Studio Pro X3
***** Cyberlink PowerDirector 8
*** Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro Plus 9
**1/2 Adobe Premiere Elements 8
** Magix Edit Pro 15
* Roxio Creator 2010
* Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 14

Package Options:
My reviews are against the top versions of each product line. You will find that most of the differences between the top versions and the base are Blu-ray export options, and some add some extra sound options. See for yourself the option that suits you at the manufacturer's website in their respective product comparison guides.

Windows 7:
All seemed to work for me in windows 7, 64 bit with 4 GB RAM. I didn't do any tests with it b/c I wanted to use an older machine that would come closer to representing the average computer. This includes Roxio 2009, but not 2010 for reasons stated below.

Final Opinion:
If you want something super easy to use, then I would go with Cyberlink PowerDirector 8. If you want something with a bit more power that you can grow into, I would go with Corel Video Studio Pro X3. Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro plus 9 may very well be good, but I see no reason to purchase it with the power of the Corel package.
If you are a masochist, go with Adobe, Magix, Roxio, or Pinnacle.


DETAILS:
Adobe Premiere Elements 8
65 min render time
Pros:
You can search effects
Layout was good but not great
Interface was pretty straightforward
Cons:
Virtually locked my system
Slow and temporarily froze frequently
Output menu was cumbersome


Corel Video Studio Pro X3
19 min render time
Pros:
Great Output menu
Very fast
Easy to use user interface
Proxy editing*
Autofit for timeline
Cons:
No search function for effects

Cyberlink PowerDirector 8
30 min render time
Pros:
Output menu was nice
Very nice and easy to use layout
Cons:
No Blu-ray output


Magix Edit Pro 15
41 min Render time
Pros:
Simple
Cons:
Poor user interface
Oversimplified (Too simple I think for most people)
Very Cumbersome to use and add effects
Output options were confusing and cumbersome
Extremely limited options for PC output (which is what many will be doing)
A couple of lock ups


Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 14
Pros:
Nice little finished project to see what can be done
Nice interface for editing
Cons:
ONLY SOFTWARE that I was not able to import a video
Locked up my system many times and left errant process running at 80% CPU
Took 50 seconds just to load the import video TAB
When I selected videos to import and hit start import, absolutely nothing happened
Tried one of their movies and went to help to find stabilization and it crashed on me b/c I didn't have enough memory
No Blu-ray output
Cons on install on windows 7 computer:
Failure on export of file on all formats
I actually tried Pinnacle about 10 years ago and had absolutely nothing but problems. Spent many days downloading patches just to get it to work. Then, like a moron, I did an entire project and when I went to burn it, the burn failed every time. I see a decade later, I still can't export a file.


Roxio Creator 2010
Pros:
-----
Cons:
They don't allow a trial download. I contacted them asking them if I could download a trial and even noted that I was a current customer. I personally like the 2009 Roxio. It was a nice "all-purpose" program. They told me that I had to buy it. I was offered a money back guarantee, but to do so, I had to send in a letter of destruction. This is way too much effort on my end to see if your software works for me.
I find it ridiculous in this day and age that you can't have a trial version of something, especially when EVERY ONE of your competitors does. In addition, this is how they were treating an existing customer!
You throw in all the compatibility issues that can occur in software in general and video software in particular, and that leaves me to think they have nothing to hide.
As icing on the cake, the following sentence was in their reply.
"Creator 2010 does support AVCHD software and hasn't been know to have any issues thus far!"
I replied to them about this OUTRIGHT LIE! First, you can read the compatibility issues on Amazon. Second, as a person that writes programs, there is no such thing as bug free software, especially video editing software.


Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro Plus 9
14 minute render time (NO ANTI-SHAKE IN RENDER, see below)
Pros:
Computer stayed pretty responsive during render
Savable packages of effects
How to guide is nice
Cons:
Couldn't search effects
Very, very cumbersome to use
Couldn't find stabilization
The render time approximation stayed at around 1 minute or 2 left the entire time
Here is my issue with Sony Vegas. I have compared its features with many of the other programs and they are all very similar. Now, when compared with Corel Video Studio Pro X3 and Cyberlink PowerDirector, they are virtually identical. I personally think Sony leaves their software cumbersome so that it "looks/seems" more powerful.
I was definitely most disappointed in this product because it was the one that I was looking the most forward to using. When I say that it is cumbersome to use, it doesn't mean that it can't be used. Let me give an example. I am a programmer, and in something like excel, I like the ability to write my own code to create functions and tools that it doesn't offer or to tweak ones that it does. HOWEVER, when I want to enter numbers in boxes, I just want to enter numbers in boxes. I don't want to click in a box, go to a menu or right click, select some gadget and then enter a number. It is ok for complicated things to be complicated, but simple things should not only be simple, but also INTUITIVE.
The main thing that I saw that you could do in Sony Vegas that you couldn't do in the others is change your transitions (both audio and video) ramp as far as how quickly they come in and go out. I am not talking about changing the time, but how your out video accelerates out and how you in video accelerates in during that time. It is a cool feature, but something that 99% of people will only not use, but won't care about either.
Another thing, the image stabilizer should be easy to do, and it may be. However, I did a search in help for stabilize, stabilizer, sta, shake, anti, etc. and could not find out how to do this very simple thing. This worries me greatly that if this isn't readily available in the help docs, then much of the other stuff probably isn't either.


*A note on proxy editing.
Proxy editing is basically you working on a very low def version of your file, but when it comes time to actually render your output, the original file is used. Some view this as a crutch because they say you should be able to optimize the software to work with the high def video. My opinion is that if I can work faster, then I will work faster. Who cares what my resolution is while I am editing. If you have the fastest software out there for HD, and you can do your edits in very low def and it is even faster still, then why would you not want that?

First of - I am an amateur .. I needed to make a small movie to be shown at my parents-in-law's wedding anniversary using raw footage and old snaps ..I decided to use this after playing with Moviemaker, Primiere elements and Vegas .. I still have the trial version .. and am close to finishing my project .. So I am not an expert user - but have figured out quite a bit.

It has a really lots of features .. dedicated volume and panning envelopes for each of the 4 audio tracks - really helps in mixing up tracks .. The software also automatically loaded up all my VST effects that I have for my Music workstation software ...

The video event panning and zoom control is simply too good .. You can do so much with your stills ...make them literally spring to life .. there are many high quality transitions included that you will not find in Windows movie maker ( especially the double blur crossover) which give your movie a nice professional touch.

Media Bins are definite plus - Better way to organize than anything I have seen.

Now for the irritating points:

There is no easy way to order snaps/ clips in the media bin .. even free software Picasa supports drag drop operations to sequence the snaps the way you want ... Ordering snaps in the timeline is too much of a pain.. I would love if Sony would let us use the Media Bin as a staging area rather than just a place to dump related artifacts.

The Trimmer can definitely improved upon.. right now you can select portions of the clip you would like to include ... but on trying to re-trim the clip ..you are back to square one with the Original clip instead on simply having to trim portions of your current clip. .. This wastes my time ... and does irritate me ...

Overall- it is a nice product -- surely worth a shot.

I tried demos of most/all video editors in this price range. This is the only one I found that actually is able to do everything it is supposed to and run without crashing/erroring etc. I was using Windows Movie Maker but wanted some more features like chroma key ("green screen") and multiple video tracks. I think Windows Movie Maker is really intuitive and has a great interface, but it crashes now and then and has some annoying bugs that waste alot of my time trying to work around. At first I found Vegas Movie Studio 9 a bit confusing and it took me a little while to figure out how to do some things, as the interface isn't perfectly intuitive in my opinion. But, after making a couple videos I realized it is a good editor, and am no longer using Windows Movie Maker. I'm quite happy with it. There are features that I don't have a clue what they do, and I don't care, but I just ignore those features I don't use. It does not crash, it runs super fast, and it also works with my 800X600 screen resolution. Windows Movie Maker has the best text/titles IMO, I haven't really worked with text with Vegas yet, although I think I noticed that it does not word-wrap which is a negative for me. Splitting video clips isn't perfect but works better than everything else I've tried, sometimes it splits on the wrong frame, but you just do it over right away and that's it - no more additional fiddling or surprises later. Avi and mp4 type video files do not seem to work well, so I just don't use them, I convert them to wmv. Also video that isn't a standard resolution won't work either. Again, some of the menu items are redundant/convoluted, Sony really should revamp/improve this product but alas, such is the state of low-priced video editors nowadays. Well, it isn't perfect for sure, but it is workable, even if not the best interface/design. Hands down it is the best I've seen so far. I wish Windows would update Movie Maker to have multiple video tracks, no more bugs, no more crashes, and then I'd be in heaven.

it does take a little time to learn, there are a lot of options and things that one can do with this software. it is stable, and very powerful for a product in it's price range. making a decent quality video, dubbing in music or sound effects, fading scenes becomes so easy after using this for a couple weeks.

so far, everything works as it should, i have tried most every option in this software. some say it lacks some features, see other reviews, but i have not personally needed to use those and would not necessarily expect everything in a software version that is this low priced. overall, it is far more capable than expected, pretty much totally awesome. fun to use after getting used to it.

if you are someone who just purchased or received a video camera for a gift and want some good software to go with it, this is the one i would recommend. very good quality results, lots of options even for different types of sound and video compression which translates to it is also very compatible with a lot of different formats. sony does have a free trial that allows you to use all the features for 30 days. i used it for three weeks then knew it was the one.

I've been editing with Sony Vegas for over a year. At first it seemed like the most amazing program ever, but now? I can't even RENDER a 2 minute video (in regular DVD [480p] quality) without it crashing. I could rant on Sony Vegas for hours: all the time I wasted on it, all the frustration, all the finished videos that went lost and never rendered. Save yourself some time and get Cyberlink Power Director 8.

Initially I had a good impression with Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 because the help screens were pretty informative. However when I started using the program I found that it wasn't as user friendly as I had hoped. In this case I was trying to combine 2 videos and burn them to DVD. Adding the video to the timeline was easy. I then inserted a photo at the beginning and in the middle. I wanted the photos to display for about 5 seconds with some text on top of the photos. Extending the play time of a photo to 5 seconds was pretty easy, but when I tried to show text on top of the photo, the text kept being displayed on a black screen prior to the photo being displayed. The text also seemed blurred. It took me awhile to fix that problem. Once I had my video where it played like I wanted in Vegas Movie Studio 9, I had to export it to Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.5 (included on the Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 DVD program disk) in order to burn it to DVD. So I did that and when I burned my DVD I found that the entire video burned to DVD was the 5 seconds of my first picture, not the complete 11 minutes. It was kind a pain to learn how to use a second program just to do the DVD burn. I was mostly just using the defaults, and one of the defaults that I did not like was that the "play" button on the menu kept defaulting to yellow. I also did not like the fact that I could not find a way to change the color of the menu text.

I then decided to add a photo to the end of the video. That was easy enough in Movie Studio 9. But no matter what I did, when I went to DVD Architect Studio and burned the DVD, the new photo was not on the end of the DVD. I spent 2 hours trying to figure out what the problem was. Finally, based on something I had seen earlier, I went to the DVD Burn folder and erased everything in that folder. Then burning the DVD included the last photo. But I should not have had to have searched for a folder and deleted the folder contents in order to burn the current Movie Studio 9 project to DVD.

I had been impressed with the ease of doing this same project in Roxio Creator 2010. I liked the DVD menus that Roxio created much better. Roxio also made it easy to play some music while the DVD menus are being displayed. So I thought I would try to do the same with the Sony software. After all, Sony includes the Cinescore Studio soundtrack composer on the DVD. So I installed the Cinescore Studio software as well as the sample themes. I did not receive any errors in the installation process. However when I went to Start, All Programs to look for the Cinescore software, all I found in the Cinescore folder was a ReadMe file. There was no Cinescore program on my Start menu. Using the DVD Architect help function, I searched for Cinescore and it gave a link to the Cinescore Studio software. When I clicked on the link, nothing happened. So I decided to try to just use a music file from my hard drive. I looked at the DVD Architect help file, and it said that to set the DVD introduction (first play) media, use the Insert Introduction Media option to choose a media file to use as your DVD start item. It showed a picture of the icon to look for, but I could not find that icon on my screen. So I thought I would just use the Insert menu, but I discovered that there was no "Introduction Media" option on the Insert menu. I tried the Insert Media option, but all it did was add another menu item on DVD menu for playing the media file I selected. This was not what I wanted. I wanted the music to play when the DVD menu was displayed, not a menu option to play music while displaying a black screen.

My conclusion about Sony Movie Studio 9 was that it was just too unfriendly.

Quick and not difficult to use. Works well with Windows XP but not with Windows Vista when a language other than English is involved.

Customer support still has not answered questions regarding foreign language use with Windows Vista.

I own a Sony Vaio with all the bells and whistles. I can run virtually anything. I use MS Picture It for simply photo editing and it's wonderful. I needed a movie editing piece of software and couldn't find much. I picked up this one because it was made by Sony: no quirks right. Wrong. It worked for a while, but Vista did some sort of update and it will no longer allow the program to boot-up. I checked on-line for Vista updates: that wasn't the problem. I checked on-line for Sony Movie Studio updates: problem. The update didn't fix a thing. Crash city. This is why folks bang their heads on the wall and flee MS for Mac. I bought software specifically made for my machine and it no longer works. Okay, when it did work, how was it? Fair. Not very intuitive. You really have to hunt for various options and it's a bear pulling from home digital movies and isolating portions. Inserting transitions is confusing and very little is simple. I wish MS made a version. I'm stuck. I now have to pull this mess off my computer and throw the disk away. Wasted money, wasted money, wasted money. So, in short, if you buy this not-so-cheap piece of software, don't count on it being as cool as what you see on the box. It may stop working, and if it does, it's not intuitive and you waste hours trying to figure things out--even with the "helpful" tutorials. MS, please make a move studio piece of software. Sony, get out of the software business.