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Today, Sony announced the upcoming release of Vegas Pro 9, although the product itself is not yet available. Sony is taking pre-orders for the program and plans to start shipping on May 11th with download availability the same day. This announcement, which first took place at this year’s NAB convention, breaks the tradition in which Sony Creative Software has always been available the same day Sony publicly confirmed a product was even being worked on (let alone completed).

The new features mentioned in the specifications for Vegas Pro 9 are:

• 4K support for frame sizes up to 4096×4096
• Support for capturing directly to XDCAM-compatible MXF files from supported SDK sources
• Automatic source media adjustment for working with mismatched media
• Enhanced 32-bit floating point video levels mode designed to work like 8-bit mode but with the precision needed for 10-bit and higher sources and render formats
• Gradient wipe transition
• Glint, Rays, Defocus, Starburst, Soft Contrast, and Fill Light video effects
• Place and edit audio without quantizing to frame boundaries, while still quantizing video edits
• Multichannel audio adds from Trimmer Window
• Includes native 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vegas Pro software
• Enhanced user interface with layout presets
• Impressive lighting effects including Glint, Rays, and Fill Light
• Darker color palette UI for optimized viewing
• Audio Mixing and Color Correction default layouts
• Browse XDCAM EX and AVCHD contents in Device Explorer
• Native XDCAM EX reading and import
• Support for gigapixel size pictures
• Read and save DPX, OpenEXR, and Microsoft HD Photo formats
• Open and edit RED ONE™ files on the timeline
• Device Explorer for AVCHD and XDCAM EX devices

For a limited (and unspecified until June 30th) time, Sony is offering an additional bonus. First-time buyers of Sony Vegas Pro 9 will also get the Sony Seminar Series training DVDs. If you are upgrading from a previous version of Vegas Pro or upgrading from Vegas Movie Studio, you will have a choice between Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio, the Sony Sound Effects Series sampler, or the Sampler Pack from third-party effects maker NewBlue.

I’ve seen mention of the pre-order coming with $50 off the standard price, but I’m not ready to buy yet, so I can’t confirm this. I don’t see any mention of it on the order page. Also, Sony generally offers about $100 off during the first month of any Vegas release, though that early bird discount is usually not mentioned on Sony’s website (other than in the knowledge base). Rather, in the past, it has been advertised to registered users via an e-mail anywhere from a day to a few weeks after release. If Sony will offer that discount this time around and how it fits into the pre-order arrangement, I don’t know.

One more “first,” it appears that there will not be a new version of DVD Architect with this new version of Vegas. I suppose we got that early when the free DVD Architect 5.0 upgrade was released in order to incorporate Blu-ray disc authoring.

Tags: upgrade