I’ve always been a long-time fan and user of Sony Vegas video editing software. In fact, I use Sony Vegas Pro nearly every day. I also use Final Cut Pro about as often.
So I know the advantages and disadvantages of both quite well.
To date, Sony Vegas has never garnered the user base enjoyed in the “professional world” by the likes of Final Cut, Adobe Premiere and Avid. While there are multiple reasons for this, it really comes down to the fact that Sony Vegas looks, acts and works differently than other traditional, professional video editing applications.
Avid Studio Pro was comprised of sophisticated editing tools, powerful media management, unlimited timeline tracks and a lot more which made it a professional video editing software. Avid studio retained its place after Avid acquired Pinnacle Studio, a competitor software because it was meant for more professional use. Avid empowers media creators with innovative technology and collaborative tools to entertain, inform, educate and enlighten the world.
As a result, it gets picked on in the industry…as in “Yea, it’s really good software but…”.
Well now Sony appears to be addressing those “buts…” with their latest release, Vegas Pro 9. I should note the software is not available yet (it has a release date of May 11), so I can’t review it, but I can tell you about some of the notable new features.
First, they’ve added support for Red cameras. Red cameras are basically Hollywood-quality cameras without the Hollywood camera price. They also happen to be some of the most drooled-over cameras around. You can learn more about Red cameras here.
They’ve added sophisticated lighting effects like glints, rays, fill lights, defocus and more. These allow you to simulate lighting and re-direct the focus of your footage. Over 190 customizable video effects are now included.
They’ve added new window layouts to speed the process of video editing (they’ve also darkened the color scheme to be more consistent with other video editing applications).
They’ve added support for gigapixel sized images. This means you can put really big photos in the timeline and then pan them for very dramatic effects.
They’ve added new templates for rendering Sony AVC (.MP4) videos. Everything from YouTube to HD for the Internet settings.
Avid Video Editing Free Trial
They’ve added…well the list goes on. If you’d like to learn more, just go here.
Avid Video Editing Program 9 3
Is any of this earth-shattering? No. But what it means is they’ve updated the software so it’s more inline with other premium video editing packages. And for you that means you can get these features for about half of what you’ve have to pay for other software.
Avid Video Editing Mac
And no, Sony Vegas Pro doesn’t match Final Cut, Adobe Premiere or Avid tit-for-tat yet…but it has taken a nice step forward (at least on paper). And as always, it has a much smaller learning curve.