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I use the Movie Studio a lot and I really like it. Without the themes, it really isn't that useful. However, while the Cinescore is still available as a download link from sonycreativesoftware, Sony has discontinued support for the Cinescore product and no longer is selling the Cinescore themes. The themes provided different music for different movie types. They have not provided existing customers any replacement solution. Extremely poor customer relations from Sony on the cinescore product.
I used to use Ulead's Video Studio 11.5. It works smoothly and I've not experienced any system crashes while editing. I had multiple problems with system crashes, and when video clips were split the audio portion was distorted occasionally with annoying pops. I decided to switch to Sony Movie Studio and love it. There are a ton of training videos on YouTube that can quickly help you get started that go beyond the video training provided by Sony with this product.If you would like to compare the output of this version compared to video Studio just go to YouTube and search for "egg harbor campground 2009" for the Ulead output or look at "happy birthday holly dad 4squarehi" for the output from Sony. I would highly recommend Sony Vegas for doing your video editing project.
It's also a piece of cake to remove unwanted second/s or portions of a second of video clip with a simple click/drag/click highlight and then press the delete key.Also very impressive: the online help wizard. There was no slowdown working with regular and high def video. The display of the different tracks [different tracks for multiple video, audio, or stills] and the preview window is nicely laid out. Since Quicktime/.mov is nearly as popular as.wmv formats, I'm surprised it rendered like that or that it even had issues. There's a reason why professional movie studios spend more time editing/cutting/etc film than actually filming the movie. Never seen anything like it before. Despite not having an artistic bone in my body, the videos look very good.I've read many of the comments/reviews here. Actually, some options I tried to render in Quicktime made the product abend.
Here are my thoughts on this product.For the price, this is an AMAZING product. This is my first real movie editing software and thus have no basis for comparison. While its intuitive, there's a lot you can do when creating videos. Thus, video editing software is naturally much more complex than a word processor like MS~Word. There's only so much real estate on the screen.3] Go through the tutorials and gain familiarity with the product.
Slick. Don't expect to be an expert on this product in 5 minutes or even a day.4] Rendering [the creation of the actual video you craft] is slow, 40 minutes for a 10 minute video. I created a bunch of videos for my son's school applications. Rather than just text and pictures to read, it actually navigates on the screen, on your project, and has the user do the actual clicks and moves. It makes it so easy and intuitive to work with videos and audio tracks.
For example, a 12 minute video which rendered to 816 meg [720x480] as a.wmv file, rendered to 18.2 gig in Quicktime [.mov] format. I can't say rendering speed is a negative, just something to be aware of. This is largely dependent on your PC [I have a newish dual core/2.00 ghz/4 meg ram laptop]. If a product costing less than a hundred bucks can do this, I'd love to see and be further amazed by what the professional studios have.This product really made video creation a lot of fun, which I had initially dreaded. If you struggle somewhat with using MS~Word's many features then you'll definitely struggle with a true video editing software.2] A big screen will help a lot. Yes, that's 18 gig for a 12 minute video.
However, I'm a computer application developer and work with user interfaces. I found one annoying glitch: the size of the Quicktime [.mov] file it creates is ridiculous. Newer/faster PC, the better.I only gave this product a 4 instead of a 5. It plays, but obviously at that size its unusable.So.I rendered to.wmv format, and purchased a separate video format converter from AVS4YOU to convert the.WMV to Quicktime.
No problems in any other format. Either one big monitor or two smaller monitors; one monitor to edit and the other for the preview screen. Grabbing clips, images, sound tracks, transitions, etc., was very easy. Not a big deal, but, just an extra step.I did play around with the Sony Vegas settings as much as I could before giving up and just buying a converter for 50 bucks.
Some comments on the reviews:1] Working with video/audio/stills/etc is much more complicated than working with a Word document. Trying to do this on a laptop screen or small monitor will be frustrating. The converter made the 816 meg.wmv file into 122 meg.mov, with negligible loss of detail. Maybe this is a glitch with my install, although I just chose all the defaults.Again, not a real issue: just render to.wmv and if a.mov [Quicktime] version is also needed, use a video converter such as from AVS4YOU.
This is fact, though many "experts" on the net have written posts stating that it cannot be done. If you want to produce professional-looking video on a budget, I know of no other choice. You can probably download free trial versions of other video editors from their companies' respective websites, which is strongly recommended if you are leaning towards another video editor. (Some other video editors are notorious for being unreliable.
However, non-Sony programs are required to convert the Blu-ray format output to AVCHD DVD format.Here is an overview of how to do so:1) Create and edit your high-definition video in Vegas, and render it out to your computer hard disk in Blu-ray iso image format (Make Movie/Burn it to a DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or CD/Blu-ray Disc/Render image only + Sony AVC (*.mp4;*.m2ts;*.avc) + Blu-ray 1920x1080-60i, 16 Mbps video stream). Vegas also has an option for creating Blu-ray output, and that does work. Some other consumer-grade editors tend to be easier to learn but offer less user control and place more emphasis on making amateurish-looking effects. I don't know what resolution triggers this bug. If this is true (I haven't tested it) and it's an issue for you then until this is fixed, simply reduce the resolution of your photos in any photo editing program before bringing them into your Vegas project.
However, Vegas does provide a very useful "Show Me" feature to help you learn the basics quickly and painlessly.A little background for which there is a great deal of confusion and misinformation on the net: AVCHD video can be recorded onto DVD media with a DVD writer, and played back on AVCHD compatible Blu-ray disc players and show true 1920x1080 resolution video on HD televisions. (multiAVCHD is shareware or something. That is, they may frequently crash and even corrupt your project file, destroying all your work).AVCHD format video is relatively difficult to decode and requires substantial computational horsepower to do so in real time.Vegas has reasonable performance editing and rendering AVCHD video on my computer. I haven't looked back. Doing this will reduce the quality, however, unless a lossless conversion is chosen.Vegas offers many features and capabilities, and allows you to do many useful things, but in exchange for this power and flexibility, the learning curve is fairly steep. (My computer has an Intel 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo E7400 Processor, 4GB memory, and runs 32-bit Windows XP).
(Note: video intended for playback on computers should be rendered in progressive mode rather than interlaced for best quality).If your goal is to produce SD video from your AVCHD source material that can be recorded on DVDs and played back on DVD players and SD TVs, then you can do as above but just choose to render your output in an SD resolution rather than an HD resolution.In other words, Vegas allows you to edit your AVCHD content once, and then render it several times, each in a different resolution and/or format so that you can distribute your production on any type of media for any type of playback hardware, SD or HD. Mainly I'll comment here on editing AVCHD content and producing AVCHD (HD) output, since those issues are still relatively new, not generally well supported, not well documented, and have a lot of misinformation surrounding them. AVCHD video of about 40 minutes in length can be recorded onto regular inexpensive single-layer DVD media.Vegas has an option for creating AVCHD output files, however the audio in the AVCHD file created is corrupt (as of Vegas version 9.0b) and the file created lacks all the structure and supplemental files required for creating an AVCHD DVD. The results are excellent).2) Mount the Blu-ray disk iso image file created in step 1 to a virtual drive on your file system. Just ask most any Pinnacle Studio user if you don't appreciate the significance of this. Vista and Windows 7 supposedly support UDF 2.50 natively, but I don't have either and haven't tested them to confirm that).3) Use the multiAVCHD program to convert the Blu-ray m2ts video file on the virtual drive that the Blu-ray iso file image was mounted on in step 2.
Incidentally, Vegas also allows you to render your output compliant with either the NTSC or PAL standards (not all video editors allow this) so that your production can be played on DVD and TV equipment around the world, not just in the US or Canada or the few other countries that use the NTSC standard.Basically, Vegas Platinum has many of the features of a professional-grade video editor, but at a consumer-grade video editor price. multiAVCHD converts the m2ts file to AVCHD format and writes it and all supporting files in AVCHD DVD structure to your computer hard disk. That is a huge issue, and one that other AVCHD editors may not share. (Of course, the HD versions will have higher quality than the SD versions). Furthermore, that output can either be written to a Blu-ray disk, if you have a Blu-ray recorder and Blu-ray media, or it can be written to your computer hard disk and then converted to AVCHD-format and written to a DVD disk with a DVD recorder.
It's fully featured, but only works for 30 days. I have read that including high megapixel still photos in Vegas projects does expose a bug that may cause Vegas 9.0b to crash. Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise. (Here is one such AVCHD compatible Blu-ray disc player: Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-ray Disc Player). (I owned two different versions of Pinnacle Studio before switching to Vegas. (Playing a clip once may be a little choppy but also buffers it; play it a second time and it plays smoothly in real time). Try something at least 10 minutes long, unless you will never edit anything that long.P.S.
AVCHD is the current standard format that DSLRs and HD camcorders use to capture HD (high definition) video content. If this is unacceptable, a faster computer processor may be adequate, or converting AVCHD to another more easily decoded high definition format may be done. if you've spent days editing your video to make it the best you possibly can, you REALLY won't appreciate your editor crashing and corrupting your project file, destroying all your work. That's one of the reasons that editor reliability is so extremely important.
If you use Windows XP you need to install UDF 2.50 file system drivers first, which can be obtained for free. If you require a 24Mbps video stream then you must use a Blu-ray writer and Blu-ray media as well as a Blu-ray player. If you like it, you can donate whatever you choose to the author).4) Burn the AVCHD DVD structure and files created in step 3 onto a DVD. (Note: 16Mbps is near the highest bit rate that DVDs support; in particular, they do not support a 24Mbps video stream.
However, in order to edit AVCHD video natively and in real time with my computer, I do have to make certain accommodations. By the way, despite all the marketing hype, producing professional-looking video takes a lot of effort and time. That is a huge issue, and one that other AVCHD editors may not share. Files rendered this way are also suitable for uploading high definition video to YouTube, vimeo, exposureroom, dailymotion, etc. There is nothing wrong or unreasonable with recording your video at 24Mbps for the highest possible quality and then rendering it for 16Mbps output. You must burn the DVD using the UDF 2.50 file system, which is selectable in ImgBurn.5) Play your AVCHD DVD on any AVCHD compatible Blu-ray disk player. It's great, but you're limited to about 40 minutes of AVCHD video per single layer DVD.If your goal is to produce HD video that can be played on computers, then you can edit your AVCHD video source material with Vegas and render it in any of several high definition capable video formats, such as avi or wmv. I have only used Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 (same video editor as in Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack) to make AVCHD videos, so I can't personally compare it to other AVCHD editors, though I have read many other reviews of them and have the strong impression that Vegas is by far the best advanced consumer-grade editor (for both SD (standard definition) and AVCHD).Vegas has reliably worked for editing my AVCHD/HD content.
So, you can test it out with your own gear and see if it works for you before laying out any cash. I've read of others' similar experiences with other video editors, too).Finally, you can download a free trial version of Sony Vegas from Sony's sonycreativesoftware website. You get Blu-ray disk quality on DVD media. But test them out with videos of substantial length. You can use the free ImgBurn program to do so.
I must choose an appropriate preview size (like exactly quarter or exactly half size) and image quality (like preview rather than good or best), and I may need to buffer the video for it to play smoothly. Any of the editors probably work fine with a 30 second clip. (You can use the free DAEMON Tools Lite program to mount it. You can try it out for free. Amazon.com sells it at a better price than Sony, and you can register your trial version with the code you get when you buy it from amazon so you don't even have to reinstall anything if you decide to buy it here after trying it out.
I have used 3 megapixel photos extensively in Vegas projects without any problems.
Crashing. You cannot import.M2TS files into this program without it crashing. I can't believe the people that make this product have not been indicted for fraud. I have no idea how the rest of this program works, it might be so good that it does your laundry for you and even puts those nice creases in your dress shirts. Not locking up. Not taking forever to process. It may do all that, but I have no idea because it cannot even do the most fundamental task of a video editor, import video. I run an Intel Core 2 6600 @ 2.4 GHz, 6.00 GB System Ram, Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit, NVidia GeForce 8800 GTS.
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