Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9

Vegas 9 is described as a "fun, easy way to create and share your own movies". Don't be fooled. It's very good. You can do wonderful things with it. But it's not much fun and it sure isn't easy. Unless you have experience of video-editing software, then you will find it very difficult indeed to learn.

It does come with pre-packaged effects, but I never really worked out how to use them. Even after spending about 40 hours turning my scraps of video into a 90-minute show, I'm still not sure what those 'envelopes' are or how they work. The Help section, which is sometimes excellent and sometimes poor, says a lot about 'envelopes' but without explaining what they are or why you should want to use them.

The only real mistake in the program is grouping. If you stick two bits of video together, the soundtracks become detached. If you don't spot this straight away and undo, you've had it. And the preview pane is far too small to let you resynchronise based on lip movements.

If you have the patience and are prepared to get familiar with 4am on consecutive nights, then Vegas 9 will reward your patience. If you want the simplest of video work, then Vegas will do it for you easily enough. And if you are already familiar with video editing, then you will probably spend less time than I did screaming at the screen.

Ok guys here's the deal,
im going to give my opinions on Sony Vegas MS9 and im going to assure you, that by reading this review,
you will know whether or not this movie editing software is the right one for you.

first up,
this software IS very easy to use. its also very stable, and ive not had it crash or hang once.
the only technical flaw i had with it , was when i first installed it and went to use it for the first time.
i wanted to edit an mpeg2 video, but it wouldnt open due to a codec problem.
now this very problem could have been due to the free and rubbish movie editors i downloaded from the web,
and they could have interfered with how Sony MS9 worked. lets face it, all and any movie editors or even movie players
for that matter can affect another completely seperate program. this is due to all the programs sharing access to each codec.
updating sony MS9 to the latest build / version immediately solved this problem.

continuing on,
the Sony user interface was a bit foreign to me, as i was a Windows Movie Maker user.
i found WMM easy to use, but eventually , and after alot of use, i figured out how flawed it is and how
much it held me back creatively.
in all honesty , i have to say it only took me 2 hours to get used to the sony software.
it does work similarly to WMM , as in, you open up a file you want to use and it appears in a box. you then drag and drop
this file onto the time line to edit. yes, its that simple and straight forward.
if you want to do anything else like, cut, fade or split the video up into segments , all you have to do is follow
the help section which will guide you through it step by step without being annoying or too overwhelming for new users.
for an example, if i wanted to split a 5 min vid in half , all i do is locate the 2:30 mark in the timeline , click on the video
where this 2:30 mark is and just press S on my keyboard. there you go, video split in half , and you can do this as many times as you like.

adding effects are basic also. just clicking on the effects tab and dragging and dropping the desired effect to the video file will work.
there is a better, more editable way to it, but it'll take time to learn all of it.
also, all the audio on any video file can be edited too. you can change the volume and add effects. easiest way to do it is just go to the help button.
lastly, this software does not cover HD users , the highest res usable is 720 x 480 , so newer camera users may need to look elsewhere, or better
yet, send sony an email and see if they have / or will update the software to cover HD users.

so, to sum it all up,
it really is a great package to work with. ( please note i dont use it to burn my video's with , i use roxio for that )
its easy to use, has a good range of video and audio effects , and will be the main programme you use for all your video editing tasks.
trust me on this, i havent opened WMM once, since i started using this software and thats the truth.
if your tired of the limitations that free online software and WMM pose , then this is the next step in editing software for you.
if you havent used any type of video editor before , yes, you'll struggle a little to learn the ropes , but it is a better rope that you have got in the end.

highly reccomended software thats easy to use. ive used it for 2 months now and i can do effects like picture in picture - for tutorial videos, add text ,
add music tracks , blend , smooth and even add loads of video transitions to make the overall end product ( my video ) look professional.

this software is brilliant for the price and youtube is full of tips n tricks for new users, should you get stuck.
i am really glad i purchased this software and i would reccomend it to anyone.

I was reccomended Sony Vegas by a friend and it is terrific. I use it to make holiday videos etc and it has all I need and more. I particularly like the DVD maker that comes with it.
A great package. I would recomend it to anyone.