Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION]

If you're looking for something in between Final Cut Pro and iMovie, this is probably the software for you. The interface is very simple, practically no learning curve. It may require a little fiddling to find it, but there's a surprising amount of functionality. Ran beautifully on an old laptop with a 64 meg video card, 1 gig RAM and 1.7 gig processor, also runs on my newer XP machine. Not bloatware at all, which is appreciated, since I usually have at least 3 or 4 programs running at once.

Vegas is just what the name implies.Its a crap shoot as to whether or not it will work. You order the software and install it. It crashes. You read the documentation and see that Vista is supported. Re-run and it crashes.
You go through this crap a few times and then you contact support at Sony.
Guess what? THAT is when you find out that Vista 64 bit is not supported.
This problem has been around for quite a while. This tiny piece of data could have been mentioned on the website. It certainly would have stopped me from ordering it.
Do yourself a favor. Use something else because it is this lack of attention to detail that indicates that the Sony name no longer means quality.

I have paid about ten times as much for a lesser product. I could not be more pleased with the use and results. With a year under my belt, I am a little scared to upgrade to Vegas 9. With a little experience I can create a video production in no time. To fade in and out of both video and sound you simply drag the video to overlap the preceding video. If you want another transition instead of a simple fade, just drag the transition into the overlap space. Nothing could be easier. I use a JVC High Definition camcorder to produce high def DVDs with astounding clarity. I also render video to post on You Tube. Here is an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPxVVUchHAA
It is called The World Famous White River. Tip: under the right side of the video you can select "watch in high quality."

Buyer Beware! I took delivery of this product from Amazon on 28 August 2008. I normally (correctly)assume that my Amazon purchases are getting me the latest available edition of books, etc., and that is usually the case. In this case, however, I learned after installing the product that there is a version 9.0 of this product. I registered my version 8 product but received no offer for free upgrade to version 9.0.
I believe that this is a good product, but I would recommend investing your money towards the newer version. I believe that there should be a free upgrade if the new version is out and you have unknowingly just purchased the prior version (both are the same price as far as I can tell). Just my thoughts.

I've been frustrated in finding a Windows based video editing software that was easy to use yet provided all the perks to make a good home movie. I've tried many but Vegas Movie Studio 8 is by far the best. It doesn't get 5 stars because the DVD architect software is not as user friendly as the movie editing portion.