Sony Movie Studio 13 Platinum review

The success of tablets has had a dramatic effect on PCs, and consumer software developers need to adapt if they are to survive. That’s the thinking behind this update to Movie Studio. It’s still recognisably the same software as before, but its buttons and tabs are bigger, making them easier to prod on Windows 8 touchscreen devices.

Sony has also taken the opportunity to redesign the layout of buttons. They’re now grouped more logically, with general housekeeping at the top, editing functions at the bottom, and transport controls below the preview panel. It makes sense, but the upshot of bigger buttons distributed across the three areas is less space for the timeline and preview panel. Video-editing software invariably demands a high-resolution monitor, and that’s especially true here.

We’re disappointed that the dedicated button for accessing ripple-editing options has disappeared. Movie Studio Platinum handles ripple editing better than any other consumer editor, with precise control over how edits affect the timing of other clips on the timeline. An Auto Ripple option is now available via the Config button, but full access to the three modes is tucked away in the Options menu. The default setting caused events on different tracks to become unsynchronised.

The move to touchscreen support also means the various handles that appear on clips in the timeline are no longer available simultaneously. As before, clicking and dragging the end of a clip trims its start or endpoint. The target area is bigger than it used to be, and we often accidentally trimmed a clip when we intended to move it. Fading a clip in or out used to be a simple matter of dragging the top-left or top-right corner, but this would be too fiddly for touchscreen control. Instead, there’s a dedicated Fade tool that must be selected first. This is a step backwards for existing users with no plans to switch to touchscreen control.

Version 13 introduces a Simple Edit mode, which hides various features to help new users find the ones they need. The omitted features are well chosen, and much can be achieved without needing to switch to Advanced Edit mode. Speech bubble annotations give a quick overview of what does what, and the excellent Show Me How tutorials guide new users through the basics.

Project setup could be friendlier, though. As before, there’s a dialog box that presents various formats, but it’s overly complex, and still omits commonly used specifications such as 1080-25p and 1080-50p. In fact, you may as well pick a preset at random, since the software automatically reconfigures the project to match the source footage on first import.

The export options have been overhauled, but they’re still less than ideal. The Save to Hard Drive dialog box offers six preset templates, but QuickTime and MPEG-2 convert everything to standard definition, and MP4 uses an absurdly low bit rate that makes a mess of footage. That leaves only WMV and AVCHD, neither of which are widely supported by playback devices. Clicking Advanced Options provides detailed export options, but the touchscreen-friendly design ethos seems to have been forgotten here, as has any accommodation for less-experienced users.

It isn’t all doom and gloom. There’s a new effect called Color Match, which clones the colour palette of one clip onto another. It’s handy for matching colours in consecutive clips shot under variable lighting, or with different cameras. There are also seven new effects from FXhome, including sophisticated lens-flare, glow and bleach-bypass effects. We’re a little wary of bundled third-party effects, since they have a tendency to come and go with each update, which causes problems when revisiting old projects. We hope this bundle sticks around.

Another key change is support for 4K resolutions up to 3,840 x 2,160. With four times as many pixels as 1080p, manipulating 4K footage is a serious challenge, so the arrival of proxy editing in Movie Studio is perfectly timed. By default, 4K footage is converted to 720p proxy files on import for smooth previewing while editing, returning to the original footage for export.

It’s also possible to edit using the original files by switching the preview quality from Preview to Good. A dedicated, properly labelled button would have made more sense, but it works well enough. 4K exports are in Sony XAVC S format, which produced excellent results.

Proxy editing is also available for 1080p editing, via the right-click menu in the Project Media panel. This boosted preview performance from an impressive seven simultaneous AVCHD streams to a record-breaking 11 streams in our standard test on a Core i7-870 PC.

There are things we like about this update, a few changes we’re not so keen on, and areas that are still in need of improvement. The move to support touchscreen devices might irritate existing users, and we’d like to see a third editing mode on top of Simple and Advanced, which retains the smaller buttons of version 12.

Clearly, though, this update is great news for Windows 8 tablet users. 4K support is timely, too, and it’s great to see preview performance improve yet again. Adobe Premiere Elements 12 does more for both casual and demanding users, but Movie Studio Platinum is leaner, more efficient and extremely capable in its own right.

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