Hey guys!
Just signed up, great forum you have here, very rich with info.

I have two questions, one is Vegas related the other a hardware one.

My church will soon start producing HD video for a new website that we are launching later in the year. I have been glued to the computer doing loads of research on lighting, what type of camera, and what type of software to use since basically I will be in charge of producing the video.

I've selected the Panasonic HMC 150 camcorder, based on tons or reviews and watching hours (combined) of test footage. And for the time being I am really digging the Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack for editing. I know that it's fairly low end on the software totem, but from what I've read it's a pretty good low end editor for HD editing.
When I pitched my budget and it got approved on Monday that was the software I had listed. Well last night while continuing to do research I ran into a bit of a speed bump, does Vegas Studio 9 support AVCHD??
I know it would seem like that would be something easy to find, but amazon nor the actually Sony product page would say. I'm assuming yes because I read about a studio 8 patch that allowed for AVCHD, but darn it if I can't find info on 9

And about that hardware question, where does a fella go for a good video editing rig for under 2k?

Okay, after poking around a bit on this site, I have come to the conclusion that Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum must support AVCHD only because later versions of 8 do, so 9 must.

Jeremy,
Don't know about the AVCHD as I do not use it and I do not use the Studio version.
But you can easily find a good editing box for your purposes for under $2000. Many on these forums have been getting new i7 4core HT (from Dell) for well under $1500. I have one and except for one problem that appears to have a work around it seems to work great. The problem is that the eSATA port does not seem to work and Dell cannot seem to get it fixed. My work around will be to add an eSATA card. We'll see... Less expensive quad core boxes are out there also. Amazing what you can get for comparatively little money these days.

I know Vegas Pro 8.0c and Vegas Pro 8.1 both support AVCHD. Worst case you could always get AVCHD Upshift which will convert it to standard M2T.

Thanks Terry and Edward.

Yeah it's amazing what can be done now for 7500 bucks. I was telling the guys at church that if we had done this in 2000 and had close to the same quality it was have cost so much more, it's mind blowing really.

I am so green to filming in general but it is something I can get passionate about. Just last night the guy that is on the web end of things briefly mentioned launching an internet radio station, like I don't have enough on my plate already!

I'm gonna check out that Dell machine. Will I need the eSATA for video transfer? Sounds like a BIOS or firmware issue the Dell is having.

Jeremy,
Don't know about the AVCHD as I do not use it and I do not use the Studio version.
But you can easily find a good editing box for your purposes for under $2000. Many on these forums have been getting new i7 4core HT (from Dell) for well under $1500.

Hey Terry, do you know if Vegas supports 64 bit? That Dell setup you were talking about is 64 bit

Studio Versions of Vegas do not yet have 64 bit versions, but they run perfectly well on 64 bit machines.

Okay, after poking around a bit on this site, I have come to the conclusion that Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum must support AVCHD only because later versions of 8 do, so 9 must.


I recently began video editing for personal interests, and quickly outgrew Vegas Movie Studio. Not so much out of sheer need/requirement, but you are going to have a lot of fun, and the unlimited number of tracks in Vegas Pro is really needed if you plan to tinker with effects, backgrounds, etc...

I forgot to add that educational/non=profit versions of Vegas Pro can be had on eBay for approx $300. It really was worth it to me.

Vegas 8.1 is a 64 bit version. Unfortunately, it is not nearly sorted out yet. Appears to be very buggy. As an example, the audio fx are faulty and cannot be used, at least in HDV time lines.

Studio Versions of Vegas do not yet have 64 bit versions, but they run perfectly well on 64 bit machines.

That is good to know! Thanks Jeff.

I forgot to add that educational/non=profit versions of Vegas Pro can be had on eBay for approx $300. It really was worth it to me.


Yeah I hand't even thought of that.

The problem is when I go to talk to the people making money decisions I want to try and stick to my budget as much as possible. But I see what you're saying.

How would you compare the "control" of Pro versus Studio?
Like did you notice a big difference in color correction in the cheap versus not so cheap?

How would you compare the "control" of Pro versus Studio?
Like did you notice a big difference in color correction in the cheap versus not so cheap?

Here's a chart (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/compare) comparing the different versions of Vegas.
For example, only Vegas Pro gives you advanced colour correction.
There are several other features available with Vegas Pro only but, for me, the biggest one is the ability to run scripts, something I couldn't edit without :-)
To simplify it, a script is a set of instructions allowing you to automate a particular task with the click of a button.
There are several free ones that I use all the time.
There are also paid ones such as Excalibur & Ultimate S which are a whole series of tasks built into one program.

I agree with scripting. I wrote a very specialized custom command for Vegas Pro 8 to simplify the editing process of our Church service. Since we do the same things over and over every week, it really saves a ton of time.

Yeah I hand't even thought of that.

The problem is when I go to talk to the people making money decisions I want to try and stick to my budget as much as possible. But I see what you're saying.

How would you compare the "control" of Pro versus Studio?
Like did you notice a big difference in color correction in the cheap versus not so cheap?

If you work on Vegas for more than 5hrs a week, you might as well go Pro. The scripting alone is totally worth it.