Vegas Movie Studio is the consumer version of Sony Creative Software's highly regarded Vegas professional video-editing application. Missing are several advanced features—including the ability to use more than two video tracks, and support for high-end editing decks—but they aren't likely to be missed by consumers. And though the program's professional roots meant it hasn't been as consumer-friendly as its competitors, this edition's automation and help system make it a truly easy-to-use consumer video-editing application.
The Vegas series has always sat in the middle of the usability scale. Vegas's interface—unlike that of arcane professional products such as Adobe Premiere—is fairly straightforward and efficient, but in previous versions you were dropped onto a blank timeline, with no interactive guidance on how to proceed. (Imagine being handed a blank Word document and being told to create a catalog.) This time, Sony's innovative "Show Me How" interactive tutorials offer guided help, not only explaining the steps but highlighting them in the user interface and guiding you through processes like adding audio effects, creating titles, making a slideshow, and creating video crossfades.
Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 also adds new project import and export wizards that make it easier to bring in video from a variety of tape-based and digital devices. The "Import AVCHD Camcorder" wizard, however, was unable to import AVCHD files from a Canon Vixia HF100 HD camcorder; we had to drag the video files over to the Project Media window manually. Expert users can choose specific bitrates, resolutions, and codecs for their projects, while more casual videographers can use the Make Movie wizard and choose hard drive file, Blu-ray/DVD/CD disc, Web upload, camera, or e-mail options. Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 can also upload files directly to YouTube (in both classic "fuzzy" format and much-better-looking AVC format) or to Sony's AcidPlanet site; and it can also send them directly to a connected PlayStation Portable.
When you create a DVD, Blu-ray disc, or Video CD, Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 can automatically send the project to the bundled DVD Architect Studio application. Like Vegas Movie Studio, DVD Architect Studio is easy to use, with a wide selection of pre-built DVD themes. It also offers you complete control over your design layout, however, and it features the same "Show Me How" interactive help system to help you move past the basic features.
The Platinum Edition includes Cinescore Studio, which will generate royalty-free music timed to fill a selected segment of your video. The resulting music doesn't sound bad—think dance-club beats—and is great for adding a bit of mood to your video. Plus, the RIAA won't get on your case like they might for using that 30-second clip of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" in your uploaded video.
At first, Vegas 9.0's steep learning curve may push you toward the interactive tutorials, but once you're up to speed, the timeline interface helps you work more quickly and efficiently than the more-regimented wizard setups in some other consumer programs. Vegas Movie Studio supports a wide variety of input and output formats, in both HD and SD, and it makes it easy to create professional looking videos with titles, video overlays, voice tracks, musical scores, sound effects, and transitions.
Performance is excellent, taking full advantage of all four cores when rendering video on our quad-core test setup. Stability is also excellent—there were no crashes, lockups, or aborted renders. The only glitch we encountered was the aforementioned problem with importing AVCHD video from a Canon camcorder; it seems that the AVCHD standard is still coming together, as we've seen similar issues with most other editors.
Two other editions of Vegas Movie Studio are also available. The basic $69.95 non-Platinum edition lacks Blu-ray, 5.1 surround, HD support, and other features; consider buying it only if you never plan to upgrade to HD. The $129.95 Platinum Pro Pack adds the Sound Forge Audio Studio 9 sound editor, additional Cinescore themes, and more transitions and effects. Sony also offers electronic editions of the programs for $15 less.
With its new hand-holding interactive help, Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 Platinum Edition has moved to the front of the pack for amateur video editors who want an accessible program that will let their projects grow in sophistication.
