Sony Vegas Pro 9

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review




Another awsome edition Pro 9, September 15, 2009
By Bruce S. Phung (Rochester NY)
I have Sony Vegas Pro 8 and I really like it, very powerful editing program. I now got Sony Vegas Pro 9. There are very similar to Pro 8 but with new improvements. I notice that Vegas Pro 9 rendering movie a lot faster than Vegas Pro 8. Vegas Pro 9 Took total of 7 hours to rendering 110 minutes movie 1440 x 1080i.HD format. And 13 hrs for DVD Architect Pro 5 to finish the DVD. Quality is unreal, HD quality. This is done on my Dell Laptop with 2 gig ram and T5750 duo core processor. Vegas Pro 9 can not import AVCHD directly from a camera but if you have already transfer .m2ts file into your computer from the camera. You then can import your .m2ts file into Vegas Pro 9. I use the software corel that come with the AVCHD camera to trasfer file and keep my raw footage store on another hard drive, just drag out the raw footage and edite them.

Vegas Pro 9 can import:

1) Media
2) AAF
3) Broadcasts Wave
4) DVD Camcorder Disc
5) hard disk Recording Unit
6) Memory Recording Unit



Here is what Pro 8 can import:

1) Media
2) AAF
3) Broadcasts Wave
4) DVD Camcorder Disc
5) hard disk Recording Unit
6) Memory Recording Unit
7) AVCHD Recording



Will be good, once all the bugs are worked out. . ., August 10, 2009
By Thomas Santomartino (Newark, DE USA)
This version of Vegas has many bugs and it is not fully compatible with all consumer camcorder file formats, where as the preceding version worked better with AVCHD and others. Since this is a software designed for Pros, Sony seems more interested in only providing adequate compatibility with formats used by video professionals. If you do not need the added functionality (like being able to apply more effects and more than 4 video and audio tracks), you'd be better off sticking with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Pro 9 instead. It is more fully compatible with consumer camcorder file formats (works well with Canon AHCHD files natively), and it's capabilities can be expanded by using any number of number of plugins available for NLE.

I am very unhappy with this software release. As I use a variety of different video camera and formats I expected it to more compatible with all the different file formats I shoot. I am still hoping an update patch will improve compatibility, but I'm not holding my breath. Currently if I want to use this software to edit AVCHD I will have to transcode into another format; one that take us a lot of hard disk space, even though my computer is powerful enough to edit such files natively.

If I had full file compatibility I would love to use the new features.

My advice is that anyone wanting to buy this software should download the demo first and be certain it will open and edit footage from your camera. Don't assume that if it works with Vegas Pro 8 or Vegas Movie Studio 9 it will work; I made that mistake and am now several hundred dollars poorer with no recourse.



Still the best, July 23, 2009
By N. Gustafsson (Bellevue, WA, USA)
Even though I sometimes use two other video editors, Vegas remains the master of the space. Don't let the notion that the editing workflow is intended more for professionals than consumers fool you -- ignoring most of the bells and whistles, you still have a product that is worth the extra money if for no other reason its stability. I definitely fall in the consumer category, but Vegas is worth every penny to me.

Vegas takes good advantage of modern multi-core in rendering. When I recently upgraded from a dual-core to a new Intel 8-way chip, I saw a near-linear (3.75x) speedup during rendering, which was quite impressive. Since I haven't used Vegas in ways that stress the system outside of rendering, I don't know whether it is as efficient in its use of system resources for other activities.

While Vegas has great format support and degrees of control over output unrivaled by editors in the consumer-audience market, I whish it would include (input) support for formats such as .dvr-ms so I didn't have to convert to .MPEG using another editor (which is more likely to crash) as a pre-step.

In addition to home movies, I like to move recorded TV shows to my Zune, so editing out the commercials is something I do frequently. I bought Ulead 12 just for this purpose -- the multi-trim function seemed to be much more powerful and easy to use than Vegas. After being frustrated not only with crashes and hangs, I have concluded that the workflow in Vegas for this is actually better than Ulead's, mostly because the audio stream vizualization in the trimmer window gives me great cues as to where the commercials start and end. Also, taking time to learn Vegas' keyboard command shortcuts was well worth the effort here.

Like most people, I'm too lazy to read the documentation that comes with software I purchase. When I can't figure out how it works intuitively, I tend to blame the product design rather than myself. Vegas is one product where you do want to take the time to read the manual; doing so is well worth it, particularly if you're going to spend roughly $500 to get the best.

The only reason I stay away from 5 stars is that the included DVD Architect Pro software will not produce AVCHD DVDs that are playable on Sony's own PS3. The PDF manual actually speaks to this fact, but blames it on the player. However, since both Ulead and Cyberlink are able to produce DVDs with AVCHD content that are recognized just fine by the Playstation, this is rather hollow. So, I have to produce my HD home movie disks using Cyberlink instead, something that ought to be embarassing to Sony.



Nice but..., June 26, 2009
By Greg Acuff (Irvine, CA United States)
What is doesn't do is Panasonic P2 mxf files. I've got 3 hours worth of video from 4 Panasonic HPX500 cameras... the one and only time I'll need to edit this format and I'll need to buy a $200 Raylight add-in / plugin to edit it. Not a great way to blow $200.

Also, I have had to fuss around with loading the 64 bit version for about 2 weeks and just now discovered that my RAID card was preventing Vegas from running. OK, so now I can run Vegas without the RAID array... but I need to run them together!! This is the only program in three years of running that RAID card that's ever had a problem with it.



Vegas Pro 9 Continues To Excel In Video Editing, June 1, 2009
By Maek (Phoenix, AZ United States)
The product description above goes a LONG way into describing Vegas Pro 9's capabilities here, so I won't reiterate these ad nauseum.

However, if you're new to the field, is Vegas Pro 9 for you? If you're looking for the perfect, non-linear editor, and are seriously considering producing multiple DVD's as a business line (say you're a wedding videographer, etc.), then I'd respond with a resounding YES. If you're tired of being faced with restrictions of cheaper offerings (i.e. limited menu lengths, constrained templates, etc.) or if you're frustrated with compatibility limitations (only certain video files are supported, you need something that will read AVCHD video files), then here's another resounding YES. If you're looking into software that gives you full range in creativity, then another resounding YES.

If you're looking for software that simply takes your home movie and plops it onto a DVD with minimal rework, look elsewhere. I, however, use it almost exclusively for home movie use, BUT I edit my home movies heavily and create my own music videos which requires that I often look/listen to them on a frame-by-frame basis, so I appreciate the full range of power that is at my disposal.

I have been using Sony Vegas Pro 8 for quite awhile (you can see my full review on this site), so some of the Pro 8 users may wonder if it's worth the upgrade or not. Here are some points to consider that Pro 9 supports that Pro 8 does not:

* 4K images. 4000+ x 4000+ images are now fully supported for rendering. While some may be entranced by this, I had no use for this whatsoever.
* Lighting effects. Sony Vegas Pro 9 offers Glint, Rays, etc. I love these and I use them quite frequently to offer some additional punch on my title screen sequences.
* Fill Light. This feature alone was worth it for me in the purchase of an upgrade. Do you ever have a shot where there's a bright light source that tends to drown out the rest of your footage (that you want!) in shadows because of the differential exposure? Fill Light will brighten those dark images and leave the brighter portions of the frame alone!! This was highly, highly worth it to me since this type of exposure compensation is usually not available on commercially available camcorders.

Overall, Sony Vegas Pro 9 (which has BOTH 32-bit and 64-bit versions on the same disc) operates just as cleanly as its older brother Pro 8. If anything, it appears to operate even more smoothly and some of the buggy portions of the ProTitler appear to have been fully corrected at the time of this review.

I highly recommend this product. Happy editing!