Review: Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 video-editing software

The part of the vast Sony empire that makes its Vegas video-editing software is tucked away in a tiny little corner, metaphorically speaking, which means it gets little publicity, especially compared with rival programs such as Adobe’s Premiere Elements.

The other comparison between these two products is that, just as Premiere Elements is a cheaper version of Adobe’s professional Premiere video editor, Vegas Movie Studio is based upon an advanced program called Vegas Pro.

Adobe has made a big effort to redesign Premiere Elements to simplify it for home users, but Vegas retains most of the rather daunting design it inherited from its big brother.

The basic elements are similar to those in most video-editing programs. There’s an Explorer window that allows users to locate audio and video clips on the hard disk and a Preview window where they can examine individual clips in more detail while editing.

Finally, there’s the Timeline window, which runs across the entire upper half of the screen. This is very similar to the timeline displays found in most video-editing programs, and allows you to arrange the various audio and video clips in sequence to create a complete movie.

The Timeline in Vegas Movie Studio is festooned with icons and tools that will seem confusing to the inexperienced user. Icons with names such as Make Compositing Child and Lock Envelopes To Events may make sense to trained professionals, but they’re not going to mean much to someone who just wants to put together simple home movies.

Sony is clearly aware of the complex interface because it has made an effort to include plenty of tutorials and help files. There’s a Show Me How button that activates some very good tutorials, and a help tool that displays extensive information about any tool that you click on. Even then, we can’t help thinking that it would have been better if Sony had simply reworked the program’s design to make it more suitable for ordinary home users.

Vista compatible: Yes

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