Sony Vegas Pro 10 review

Ben Pitt Read more October 13, 2010

Image 1 of 3

£580

Price when reviewed

Sony’s consumer video-editing application, Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, recently entered our A List thanks to its streamlined, powerful editing tools and responsive interface. Vegas Pro is essentially the same software with various enhancements aimed at enthusiasts and professionals. It has a tougher challenge making it into our A List, though, with a price that isn’t much lower than the supremely capable Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.

The big news in version 10 is 3D editing. Left and right clips captured with a pair of conventional cameras must be synchronised manually on the timeline, whereupon they’re merged into a stereoscopic clip via a right-click command. 3D footage where the left and right images appear side by side in a single video stream (such as from the Panasonic HDC-SDT750) are supported too.

There are options to preview and export 3D projects as an anaglyph (for use with coloured glasses), and exporting in side-by-side mode is perfect for use with YouTube’s fledgling 3D support. Full-screen previews are also available on passive 3D monitors such as the Zalman ZM-M240W in conjunction with an Nvidia graphics card. Nvidia 3D Vision active-shutter glasses work too, but only with an Nvidia Quadro graphics card and a compatible 120Hz monitor. These aren’t the kinds of kit most people (including us) have lying around, though. Those who just want to experiment with 3D will have to make do with anaglyph for preview purposes.

Still, a pair of cheap red/cyan glasses was enough to keep us highly entertained as we explored Vegas Pro’s 3D capabilities. These consist of a video effect with a simple Horizontal Offset control that sets the virtual depth of the clip, plus various options to correct stereoscopic footage that isn’t perfectly aligned. The 3D Track Motion tool is considerably more powerful, with the ability to move and rotate layers in 3D space. This mode crippled preview performance, though, and its controls are clunky. We also found it quite a cerebral challenge to make the two 3D tools work harmoniously together.

In its defence, though, Vegas Pro was never an animation tool. There’s enough here to edit footage shot in 3D and add a few graphical elements such as text to the 3D stage. However, the bundled authoring application, DVD Architect Pro, isn’t 3D aware. That means 3D discs are limited to anaglyph or side-by-side mode, which halves the effective resolution – there’s no support for the official Blu-ray 3D standard. Still, considering the uncharted territory Sony is entering here, it’s an ambitious first attempt.

The new video stabilisation tool isn’t such a headline grabber, but the results have just as much wow factor. Handheld camerawork was totally transformed, with just the occasional motion blur to remind how wobbly the original footage was. The same effect appears in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 10, and although we’re pleased to see proper controls in this version, there’s still no way to limit how much footage is cropped by. The software tends to crop heavily to give itself a wide margin for correction, and that often spoiled the composition and reduced detail levels.

Support for closed captions is greatly expanded, with various methods of import and export including to YouTube and DVD Architect. Caption editing and creation is supported on the timeline, although the proliferation of cryptic codes makes this pretty cumbersome. Other improvements include the ability to group tracks into collapsible folders to tidy up the timeline, and to see the individual tracks when editing in Multi-camera mode. Audio effects can now be applied to individual clips and there are VU meters on each audio track.

Whereas Vegas Pro 9 struggled to render complex projects on our 32-bit Windows XP test PC, this time we had the chance to test on Windows 7 64-bit with 8GB RAM, and were glad to see these problems banished. Our Core i7 870 PC previewed seven AVCHD streams smoothly – an excellent result, but not quite as impressive as Premiere Pro CS5’s ten streams on the same PC.

This isn’t the only area where Adobe’s editor takes the lead. Its creative effects are more flamboyant and its object animation tools are far more sophisticated. Vegas Pro’s text animator is excellent, but moving other graphical elements around the screen produces clunky results. The new 3D effect gives a tantalising glimpse of Vegas Pro’s future, with multiple keyframe lanes and BŽzier curve editing for its parameters. These controls are thanks to a new OpenFX plug-in architecture, but sadly, the old effects and motion editors still use the old architecture and clumsy keyframe controls.

That’s disappointing because, otherwise, Vegas Pro is fully equipped for demanding use. Its interface is responsive and intuitive and, despite Premiere Pro’s superior preview performance, edits are often quicker to execute in Vegas Pro. For those who won’t be designing complex animations such as intro sequences and DVD menus, it’s an excellent alternative.

Details
Software subcategory	Video editing software
Operating system support
Operating system Windows Vista supported?	yes
Operating system Windows XP supported?	yes