Ulead VS8 or Vegas 5.0+DVD

[steveandbelinda]

I have all Ulead products, VS8, 3D Cool Production Studio, DVD Workshop 2.
I was wondering, is Vegas 5.0+DVD, better than VS8, and if so, is it user friendly, and easy to use as Ulead.

steveandbelinda@hotmail.com

[Ken Berry]

I have Vegas Video 5. It is more at the upper end of the market in terms of both cost and the 'professionalism' of its intended target audience. As such, it is probably more akin to Ulead's Media Studio Pro than VS 8. It is certainly rather more complicated to use and not particularly intuitive, but produces an excellent product once you have mastered it.

[steveandbelinda]

Does it have more to offer in the way transitions, music etc? My son-in law has an Apple program. And it will automatically put music with the video, or pictures etc. Just does a lot more, but only makes it for Apple. I think he said it is Apple Movie Maker or something. I was just wondering if Vegas +5.0 had alot more features to offer that VS8, and was easy to catch on to use.

[duffgnr]

i use apple's final cut pro at university and videostudio 8 at home!

i find that even though fcp is high end stuff editing works best when you use simple hard cuts and cross fades.

the idea of editing is to ensure the audience dose'nt notice the editing.

an excellent book about editing called 'in the blink of an eye' by Walter Murch reveals the philosophy of editing perfectly!

this guy edited 'the english patient' and 'apocalyse now!' so he knows what he's talking about!

videostudio 8 is excellent! dont just look for the gimmicks!

[Ken Berry]

And at the risk of repetition, Vegas Video is a high-end product aimed more at 'professional' users. It certainly does more than Video Studio, though this does not by any means mean that Video Studio is not a good product. It is. Neither Vegas nor Video Studio do 'gimmicky' things like automatically inserting audio (though Video Studio 8 has the occasionally useful feature of SmartSound music). And as I have already said, Vegas is not particularly intuitive -- in other words, it would probably take some practice to get used to its many features.

[dgoldan]

Magix Movie Edit Pro 10 might be another alternative.

http://site.magix.net/index.php?id=411

Dan

[steveandbelinda]

Is there a way to fade out at the end of a video clip? And thanks for the info on the other item.

[kebrinton]

If you want to fade to black, insert a black "color" from the Library after your last video frame, and insert a "fade to black" transition between them.

[rebatefraud]

PC mag had article comparing different video editing tools. It was probably in dec or jan issue. I recall following highlights, hope they help you.

* VideoStudio 8 was rated best in earlier review, however in the recent review Pinnacle Studio 9 plus got most bang for buck award. I think they said that Studio 9 plus is like having VideoStudio 8 + MovieFactory Disc Creator in one.

* Sony Vegas got high marks on Quality but low on ease of use. Plus it does not have content creation feature (like Disc Creator)

* Abobe Premier also got good marks on some features while lacking others, so probably average overall. I recall it lacks content creation capability, just like many others.

[steveandbelinda]

Thanks for the help. Slowly I'm picking it up. Wanting to slide my way into doing peoples wedding pics to DVD. But don't know if that would infringe on the photographer's copyrights, if the people give their wedding pics to me and ask me to do this service for them.

I would also like to find out if there are any sites where I can get more transitions or menu templates to use in Video Studio 8. I already have the ones from Burger.

[GeorgeW]

I would avoid over-using transitions and "flashy" effects. After a while, they don't look as "professional" as simple crossfades and cuts do (to me anyway).