Customer Reviews

Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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.

[...]

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.

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.

Having read good things about this software package, I bought a copy for a relatively good price. The program looks sleek, and works well with standard DV. I was able create a number of non hi-def videos without much problems. I was eager to try out hi-def video as I own a Sony HDR-HC3. It turned out to be a very frustrating experience. I ran into hangs, and crashes with HDV that I did not experience with DV. Vegas Movie Studio always tries to build peaks for the videos that it imports, and that step took forever to finish. Sometimes it never finished; I had to kill the program after half a day of it never getting past some percentage of completion. Also, while the program builds peak, the user can not do much. I have used Pinnacle (up to version 10.5) and Adobe Premiere, and I have to say that when it comes to HDV, Vegas Movie Studio has turned out to be the buggiest product of all. I have run into crashes with Pinnacle during the editing and production phases, but at least I managed to find ways around the problems; not so with Vegas Movie Studio because at times the thing never even finished the building peaks step to allow me to edit the video. It's very ironic considering that the source videos came from a Sony camcorder.

OK, this can't compete with my Adobe Premiere Pro 2 when it comes to editing power. But I bought it because it does at least two things that PP2 can't. It can produce better HD output from my Sony HDR-HC7 for viewing on a PC (or Mac). I like to view the output on my computer (not on a TV). This package does a clearly better job of de-interlacing.

The second nice thing is that it doesn't leave all kinds of setup files and folders for each project. I suppose that is to be expected of a better editor like PP2, but sometimes, I just want to whip out something quick and dirty without leaving a big trail of crumbs behind.

I suppose PP CS3 can equal or better this package when it comes to output for playback on a PC (especially de-interlacing), but it's WAY too expensive for me to upgrade just for that reason.

For the price, this one does what I need it do when I want to whip something out.

I recently bought an AVCHD Sony HDR-CX7 camcorder; and I really enjoy it.

Since I liked the video from the Sony camera so much I figured I'd buy Sony Vegas Platinum since it claims that it supports AVCHD and edits in that format; and so I thought "This should be the best AVCHD editor available, since Pinnacle Studio 11 is the only other thing that claims to do so from start-to-finish." Mind you, nowhere does Vegas ever explicitly state that it does Not create AVCHD projects.

Let me make this clear:
I bought Sony Vegas Platinum 8; it does NOT output AVCHD.
BUYERS BEWARE

I genuinely feel betrayed by Sony for deceiving me ... for saying it edits and supports AVCHD, when it WILL NOT output AVCHD. When making those claims in their advertising, I, as a verbose consumer (not great, but verbose) accepted in good faith that that's what they meant, and I believe the deception was deliberate by the product manager responsible for releasing Vegas; that person should be ashamed.

I was suckered.

That's exactly what happened to me. Most experienced editors, both professional and consumer, will tell you smart-coding is the way to assemble a video project. By ONLY importing AVCHD (not assembling and not outputting in AVCHD) Vegas degrades the source-video quality when it Transcodes it to HDV, MPEG-2 or whatever other HD handling format it Actually edits in.

I want my 100 bucks back!

It would be really hard for me to be more impressed with Sony Movie Studio 8 Platinum. I'm a prepurchase research junkie and wanted to get editing software to go with my first video camera, a Canon HV20 hi def tape based machine. I spent hours on the various user group web sites both professional and consumer and consistently this product seemed to have the edge. Major thanks to Sony for making the free 30 day trail available. It allowed me to thoroughly test and ring out the product to make sure it would do what I wanted. I couldn't give it a higher recommendation. I have NO experience with video editing but after playing with this software for an entire weekend I was able to capture my Hi Def footage of my son's football game, get it into my strong but not "state of the art" laptop via firewire, edit the heck out of it, add transitions, special effects, graphics, titles, captions, and credits. I was able to easily rip music from a couple of CDs and add background music, balance with the recorded sound and best of all write the hi def finished product back to tape so I could present my finished move. The trial does not include the DVD creation software so I can't review that but I did create a web version of the movie without trouble. I don't want to pretend that the software is "point and click" easy to use. Let's face it, working with hi def video is new technology, complex, and I didn't expect a completely intuitive product. You have to do all the "show me hows" which will give you a high level understanding of the feature but then you MUST spend time in the help system and be willing to read a bit to learn how to use the features. For those willing to dig in there and find the info you can create an amazing product for under $100.

I will make this simple. Make sure there is video editing and movie making software that can work with your technology. Not everything works well with MS Vista and hi def video camcorders.

I had tried several products to make my son's football highlight film. My computer was running MS Vista with 2 gigs ram. Since I had never done this before I was looking for a product that was easy to use, could read all kinds of media (pictures, video provided by the high school via CD, and high def video from my Canon HG10). My goal was to create a video that was clean and simple with all forms of media mixed in. Plus, I wanted to add music if necessary and be able to create a video clip for a web site. This turned into a two month task with one software failure after another.

My first choice was the software that came with the Canon HG10 (made by Corel). This product was really made for generating a simple movie from the camera only. So I purchased Corel Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus figuring that Corel would be clued into my Canon camcorder. Everything started alright, but video was pixelating all of the time and would hang up when trying to cut the DVD (after spending weeks creating the video). I called Corel (which is a very tough task) and they only allow one support call (unless you give them your credit card). Corel emailed me a bunch of things to do and none of them worked. Getting smarter I decided to first get a free download, try the software and then perhaps buy. My third choice was Adobe Premiere Elements. This product was not stable and would bomb on a regular basis.

At this point I am in survival mode. I've got to get this kid's video out within two weeks or it will hurt his college possibilities. I walked into a local chain electronics store thinking about changing some of my technology. When sharing my issues with an experienced sales rep (who makes movies) he mentioned Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition. He said it was the best thing for MS based computers that he has used. I down loaded a copy and produced my film in 8 hours. I was so fantastic! I would plug in the hi def camera and it could actually read and import the video clips into the software. I would load a CD on to the computer and again the software would easily import the video. Pictures and music are no problem. I was in awe! Why couldn't the other products do this so easily? Not once did my computer hang up or need to be rebooted.

Now Vegas Movie Studio 8 is not the easiest product to learn, but it does the job, has way more functionality than I will ever need, and there are support people who will gladly help you when you get stuck. I learned a long time ago in the software business that service is 50% of your decision. This experience has reminded me how important it is.

I've used many versions of Ulead, Pinnacle, Adobe Premiere Elements, and one or two others. I've been editing videos for the last 8 years or so. I'm not a professional, and most of my videos are simple without lots of effects.
But I've noticed MOST video editors are not reliable, even for simple editing tasks. Pinnacle was a crashing monster - a disappointment because it is probably the nicest and most approachable editing interface. It's just not reliable however. Ulead was more reliable but not satisfying to work with if you're doing hours of editing. Premiere Elements was okay, but it had some quirks and occasional bugs. Roxio and Nero simply don't have mature video editors - they may work for minor editing, but not robust editing of hours of footage.
The reason I like Vegas, is NOT because it's the easiest interface, but because you CAN count on it. For a video editor on a PC, a program that doesn't crash almost feels like a luxury. But here it is, a program that works.
You do have to LEARN the program. And yes it is not for everyone - not super intuitive. But once you do get to know the basics, you can work fast AND the program won't crash in the middle of a render, it won't crash while editing, it won't crash while saving to mpeg or avi. In other words you can just do your work with confidence. For my purposes, that makes this program stand out in the PC video editing world. It also doesn't hurt that the program has great features, perhaps too many features for most of us. But this program is worth the money AND worth the investment of time to learn it.

I had so much trouble with Pinnacle: Sound not in sync-- transition between scenes hanged--worked with technical support to no avail. Tried this new Sony product and all those issues are resolved--as easy to use, great built in tutorials. Awesome and flawless all the way around. I use a Sony Camera with 30 GB HDD--Pinnacle always "captured" okay when I used digital tape but couldn't handle the HDD--The Sony Movie Studio handles it just perfect.