Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION]

by Sony

Product Features

• Professional-level power for your home studio
• Edit standard and HD video including DV, HDV, and Sony AVCHD
• Export movies directly to your PSP (PlayStation Portable)
• Follow along with Show Me How tutorials, or learn as you go
• Create 5.1 surround soundtracks

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 1 x 8 x 6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000RLQNR6
• Item model number: MSPVMS8000
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,305 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #67 in Software > Video & Music > Digital Video > Video Editing
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com

Vegas Movie Studio+DVD Platinum software offers everything you get with the standard version such as easy drag-and-drop video editing, integrated DVD layout and burning, and Show Me How interactive tutorials. In addition, Platinum Edition provides added features, advanced editing tools, bonus video effects, and comprehensive training to speed you through even the most complex movie projects--from fullscreen DV to widescreen HDV.

Video Editing and DVD Creation Software
Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition software provides the power, features, and advanced tools you need to edit video in nearly any format, including HDV and Sony AVCHD. It includes hundreds of built-in video and audio effects as well as integrated tools for professional-level compositing, color correction, and 5.1 surround mixing. With this software and your creative spark, there are no limits to what you can produce. It's your vision, your way.

Professional-Level Video Editing

• Produce high-quality movies, corporate videos, wedding DVDs, and more
• Edit video in nearly any format including DV, HDV, and Sony AVCHD
• Interactive Show Me How tutorials actually show you what to do

Edit video in the newest HD formats including Sony AVCHD

Drag and drop to add effects, transitions, music, and more

Share your movies on DVD, PSP, on the web, and more

Create Stunning HD Movies

• Everything you need to produce movies in spectacular high-definition
• High-performance engine--see your changes happen in real time
• Export your movie in a variety of HD formats including WMV, AVI, and MPEG

Advanced Video and Audio Editing Tools

• Enhance washed-out footage or make specific colors stand out, and balance differences in video
• Balance differences in video due to camera setup or lighting
• 5.1-channel surround sound mixing and encoding.

Surround Sound Mixing and Encoding

• Import multichannel (5.1) source files from camcorders including Sony DVD and AVCHD Handycam models
• Use the surround sound mixing and panning tools to create surround DVD soundtracks
• Encode AC-3 stereo or 5.1 mixes with the included Dolby Digital AC-3 encoding software

Integrated DVD Creation

• Includes DVD Architect Studio software for DVD authoring
• Create custom menus, buttons, backgrounds, and navigation
• Includes 44 high-quality DVD themes

Product Description

Vegas Movie Studio software is the easiest way to create captivating movies and slideshows to share with friends and family or online. Integrated DVD authoring.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I like this video editor, but you can download a free trial first, September 2, 2007

By 

sircyberdawg "sircyberdawg" (Pensacola, FL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

This video editor is able to read .VOB file from DVD's created from VCR tapes, making it great for editing the old family videos. The display is quite customizable and easy to spread over two monitors. There is a small learning curve, but the "Show Me How" help a lot. The only things that detract from this is (1) the lack of a comprehensive noise reduction facility (Sony has this as a pricey plug-in, but then, none of the other video editors in this price range has this feature), and (2) the DVD creation software is not integrated in with the editor (although it is included in the package). But don't buy this software just on our say-so, download the 30 day free trial from the Sony web site and make sure it works for you before you buy.

[...]

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice feature set, great stability, August 31, 2007

By 

J. W. (Chandler, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

After too many system crashes with Pinnacle Studio (especially after hours of rendering), I decided to upgrade to a better software. I've been using Movie Studio since version 3, had upgraded to version 7, and now version 8, and have rarely had the software crash on me. The major reason to upgrade to version 8 was because the new computer I bought came with Windows Vista, which the previous versions did not support.

Movie Studio provides a nice set of tools that allow transitions, zooming, lighting controls, video edits/adjustments, etc. Video effects applied to your clips can be customized for very amazing results if the user takes time to learn how to use them. One of the features I especially like is to be able to render all the clips as one MPEG file with chapter marks included, so that DVD Architect will read the chapter marks and automatically generate a scene menu. This way one can ensure that transition effects are smooth from one clip to the next, yet scene selection is available for ease of navigating through the resulting DVD.

Update: Another use for Movie Studio is to transcode video to MP4 for playback on IPOD or other video players (Blackberry Curve, for example). For example, you can take a non-encripted DVD (not copy protected), rename the video file to have mpg extension (mpeg 2), select the entire movie or a particular portion, and render as MP4 to be transferred to your portable player. Quality is excellent. While one can find free encoders out there, Movie Studio is the best if you want more control.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great value with some caveats, June 23, 2008

By 

Robert Kosinski (Ocean City, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

Casual observers looking at Amazon ratings for Sony Vegas will be inevitably confused by the wide spread of scores, and I attribute this partly to varying expectations. For starters, Sony Vegas is not:

1) paint-by-numbers production software suitable for family vacation memories. For this, look to Ulead and Pinnacle; their software, while less powerful, covers 80% of what most people need in a more convenient fashion.

2) serious competition to Final Cut Pro and Premiere. Though Vegas has much of the functionality, one can't expect top end software for $60-$100.

3) a complete solution. I'd be surprised if many were completely satisfied with Vegas Premium out of the box. Luckily, some of most powerful add-ons cost nothing.

I researched and purchased Sony Vegas for professional use at my employer, a small time media company that wants professional video production but only has a few hundred dollars to throw toward it. Vegas is the best compromise between features, price, and compatibility. In particular, it was one of the few pieces of software compatible with AVCHD at the time of purchase (for anyone confused by Internet discussions, Vegas is indeed compatible with Canon's VIXIA).

Though priced and marketed as a consumer product, Vegas is definitely "prosumer" and has a feature set less like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker and more reminiscent of professional products like Premiere and Final Cut. Vegas includes independent multi-track editing, scrubbing, and even compositing effects. Its interface is definitely finicky and wants a user to do things its way. Once one discovers what Vegas wants in order to function efficiently, movies can be quickly cut and produced.

Reading the reviews, it seems AVCHD output is a highly desired feature, but it is not to be found in Vegas Platinum. One needs the more expensive Vegas Move Studio for that. We output our videos in lossless FFV1 to maintain maximum quality and perform the lossy step separately from Vegas, so this limitation does not affect us. Note that the basic Vegas package does not handle AVCHD at all!

Another common complaint I see revolves around low compatibility with standard formats. Luckily, Vegas respects the standard Video for Windows interface, meaning that it'll more or less accept any codec Windows recognizes. A simple solution to cover the gamut of MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 part 2/ASP (DivX), and MPEG4 part 10/AVC (H.264) is to install ffdshow, a freely available most-in-one codec interface. After that, one should be able to read and encode to nearly any commonly used format (at least in Microsoft's AVI container), with the exception of Quicktime, which is best handled by Apple's own product or the "gray market" Quicktime Alternative.

Vegas is far from the best tool for video encoding. If your needs are advanced, research into a dedicated encoding tool is appropriate. I suggest one based on the freely available ffmpeg or mencoder, such as frontends like meGUI or SUPER.

Additionally, Vegas is apparently picky about which analog capture cards it accepts and has been for its entire history. Unfortunately ours is unsupported, so we use VirtualDub to capture video from our analog video cameras before passing it to Vegas. This process is not completely compatible: at times, Vegas stops updating the video preview when handling an AVI from VirtualDub. Nothing outside a reboot resolves it, and even then the issue may return. Fortunately, analog video editing was a temporary stopgap for us while we researched and budgeted more advanced options. Internet forums claim Canopus is the best option for Vegas compatibility. DV capture works the same as any other application I've tried.

In conclusion, Vegas is most suitable for high end consumer or low end professional work. It's not an all-in-one solution, but research and (mostly free) companion programs can pole vault over most of its important shortcomings. Vegas is an unbeatable value at its current price point.