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recently, Sony Creative Software released updates to its consumer line of media products, including Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10. This month we're going to look at some of the real-world differences between Vegas Pro and the latest Vegas Movie Studio line of software as they pertain to wedding and event videographers.
ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE USING IT
Most people in our industry take it for granted that pro NLEs are essential to pro videography and that any videographer worth his or her salt must be using Sony Vegas Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Grass Valley EDIUS, or (in a few cases) an Avid system. But it's a fact that you do not have to have the most expensive tools to do good work.
For years, Randy Stubbs, a WEVA Hall of Famer, twotime EventDV 25 All-Star, and winner of 20 WEVA Creative Excellence Awards (CEAs), used Canopus' (nowdiscontinued) $99 consumer NLE, Let's Edit. Even though the upgrade to HD has caused Stubbs to move to EDIUS, Grass Valley's pro application favored by many videographers, he built his legend and won all his CEAs while using consumer software. In 2001 alone he garnered six CEA awards. Stubbs says, "I still firmly believe that the story is the most important aspect of any production. I'm not saying that image quality is not important, but too many videographers make the mistake of thinking that if they buy the latest/greatest gear then their work will automatically be better."
If you're a Vegas user, can you do your best work with the low-priced Vegas Movie Studio? It's an especially interesting question now that Sony has released the HD Platinum 10 version of Movie Studio, which is jam-packed with new features and utilities that are much more substantial from the flashy bells and whistles one typically associates with feature-bloated consumer apps. Highlights of the new release that should pique the interest of pros include support for up 10 video and 10 audio tracks; oneclick white balance; built-in image stabilization courtesy of proDAD (makers of Mercalli) and featuring rolling-shutter correction; and GPU-accelerated AVC rendering.
To assess the viability of this $99 tool for those of us editing wedding and event video with one eye on delivering a...