Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an excellent product for the home video producer. I have successfully used it to produce a 40 minute high definition video. My video camera is the Sony HDR-HC9 high definition camcorder. This camcorder records in 1440 x 1080, 16:9 aspect ratio. The software detected my camera automatically and captures and writes back to the camera without any problems.
I produced two outputs. One was a high definition video output back to the HDR-HC9 tape camcorder. When played through the HDMI cable connected to my Samsung HDTV, the results were outstanding. I could not see any difference in the quality of the video between the original recorded tape, and the rendered completed production.
My second output for the same video was to a Standard Definition DVD. When I played this DVD on an up-converting 1080p OPPO DVD player, the results were very good on the Samsung HDTV. It would take a sharp eye to tell the difference from the tape version.
I did not produce a blue-ray DVD as I do not have a blue ray DVD player.
The software does not require a supercomputer to run. My computer is a six year old Dell Dimension 8200, 2.0 GHz, 1 Gig memory, with a 120 Gig Hard Drive with 80 gig free memory. The software never crashes. When I produced my DVD movie, it automatically launched the included DVD Architect module without any problems. When capturing and rendering a movie, I made the follwoing adjustments: disable all network connections; shut down anti-virus and anti-spyware programs; disabled my sreen saver. I did this to maximize available memory and to prevent any interuptions to the capturing and rendering process. I did not experience any dropped frames.
The rendering time for producing the tape output movie was about 5 to one. It took 200 minutes to render a 40 minute movie, and another 40 minutes to write it to tape in the videocam. The rendering time for producing the standard definition DVD was quite a bit longer, about 8 hours for the 40 minute movie, plus another 10 minutes to write it out to the DVD. Since this is usually the last step in the movie production process, it is not a problem. I just do the final DVD rendering overnight.
I assume rendering times are reduced if you have a more powerful computer. All editing functions performed without problems and very quickly.
The software can also be opened in two instances which allows you to produce sub-projects and then copy and paste them into a final production.
The learning curve is modest, but if you have used other video editing software, you should be able to get going in a few days. I had previously tried another product offered by Amazon (Corel ULead) but it kept crashing and did not interface correctly with my Sony HD video camera. Fortunately, Amazon gave me a full refund and I switched to Vegas Movie Studio. I would highly recommend it.
My final advice to high definition movie makers: use a tripod.


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Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection V14 Review

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(More customer reviews)This is my third iteration of Pinnacle Studio, having owned versions 11 and 12 as well. I also own and have used several other video editing packages running from high to low end. At the top of the low end range, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection 14 comes in as a solid five-star performer - if you are willing to tolerate some minor stability issues. For reasons I don't pretend to understand, all video editing programs seem to have stability issues to one degree or another. Sometimes I think I may be part of the problem as I rush ahead performing other operations while the CPU is still rendering what I've already done. Other times, I just plain don't know: like Adobe Premiere Elements 7 simply not running on a Vista 32-bit system while it ran on a 64-bit version without problems. Given time, I could probably narrow down the issues, but I'm not that concerned. With Pinnacle, I am politely informed that the program has malfunctioned and given an option to close the program. Do that, restart Pinnacle and I'm back in business within a few seconds. Do frequent saves and the occasional crashes don't hurt.
Pinnacle runs about a 12 month cycle between new major releases. Frankly, every other release could probably be skipped because the improvements are not generally that earthshaking.
I am glad, however, that I upgraded to Version 14. There are three variants, each having a few more features than the others. Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection is the top of V14 line. The only drawback is that some of the bonus content, such as the SoundSoap program, are no longer included and earlier versions will not run in V14.
The good news is that the user interface has been simplified again. Pinnacle uses context-sensitive functions. In other words, double-clicking on a video clip brings up a different menu than you'd get by double-clicking on a still image. I've found the current interface to be somewhat more sensible and easier to use. There are three primary tabs: import media, edit and render output. Import gives you the choices you would expect, covering the waterfront from analog video to AVCHD. It's pretty simple to use with some good on the fly scene selection options. There are also options for directly importing from a digital camera, and interesting, a stop motion option that lets you build something resembling a flip book. Automatic scene detection is available for those who want it. Personally I find it more of a nuisance than a help.
The editing section has everything you could want in a solid low-end program. The user interface offers a storyboard or timeline or text listing formats. I am generally in the timeline view. There are scrubbers both in the movie preview window and at the bottom of the timeline, so reviewing video is an efficient procedure. Lots of keyboard shortcuts permit a speedy workflow. There are dozens of ordinary transitions and a couple of dozen other effects that will probably see little use. Plug-ins offer special features such as pan and zoom on still images, RGB color correction and so on. There is Picture-In-Picture and Chromakeying. Pinnacle provides its own custom music program called ScoreFitter, which as the name implies will generate music of a sort to fit the time of your clips. There are also some sound effects.
There are tracks for primary video, overlay video (which can also be used for dual camera shoots), titles, music, sound effects and voice overs. All in all, it's a nice, functional layout.
Pinnacle provides two competent, if not brilliant, titling programs. One creates static text which may be kerned and otherwise adjusted. It may be used to create DVD menus and the like. The other, called Motion Titler, allows more dynamic titles. Third-party titling programs run rings around it, but it is still quite usable for those who don't want exceptionally elaborate titles.
Pinnacle includes something they call "Montage Themes" which the user can customize with clips, photo and captions. They are pretty hokey, in my opinion, and not something I would use.
You can output to just about anything. DVD menu layouts are included and you can create your own. Almost all common codecs are included for video output, which is nice.
Overall, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection V14 is a very nice video editing application that I would rank at the top end of the low-end programs. It has everything the average hobbyist videographer and, in a way, functions are more accessible than in Adobe Premiere Elements. But there's a caveat: buy the printed manual if it isn't included with your Pinnacle package. The manual itself is somewhat difficult to deal with, but comes in extremely handy as a ready reference when you need it. I have several low-end video editing packages and Pinnacle is the one I find myself using most often. It offers, I think, good value for the money and an unusually good user interface.
Jerry


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Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 Review

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(More customer reviews)This entire video was made in Video Studio Pro X2. I purposely did it as fast as I could to show the power of the product (matter of fact this writeup took longer). Besides the obvious time line oriented video editing, there are a ton of video outputs that can be utilized whatever your ability. You can export directly to You Tube, or record it in HD for watching in 1080. Direct to DVD authoring is another really nice addition.
I have used Final Cut Pro Studio costing $1300. While this is NOT as powerful at all, it does allow for a good deal of professional editing. It has a very low learning curve and if you just need to make excellent quality videos and not spend a very long time learning then this is the product for you.
You can import your own clips very easily, just drag and drop. It will even import your entire audio library. I tried to do a voice over for this video but my mic is really poor quality so it sounded very digitized. It allows you to add a voice over with 1 click though and I may redo this review if I can get a better mic. It is very refreshing the amount of video outputs this program has. If your a novice and want to make a video that is high quality for You Tube it is just a few clicks and you are done. The menus are easy to navigate and very intuitive.
About this video: Because I did not want to wait 3 hours to upload it. I rendered it at 30fps mpg. I am not sure how Amazon codec will re-render so I hope it looks nice when it is finally converted.
Thank you for watching!

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Videostudio X2 PRO

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