Subscribe Feed (RSS)Ten Differences Between Vegas Pro and Vegas Movie Studio
February 27th, 2009 by Rob Strobbe | Filed under Lists.Although a loyal Vegas Pro user, I acquired the latest Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition for a couple of reasons. One, because it’s pretty capable in its own right. And two, because I enjoy answering questions on Sony Vegas message boards, but felt a bit unhelpful when it came to ones about Vegas Movie Studio (or VMS). I was never entirely sure what features were available in it or what quirks the program had. And with me writing tutorials that may be of interest to VMS users as well as Vegas Pro ones, it’s especially important for me to know how the programs differ.
So, for your reference and mine, here are 10 differences between Vegas Pro 8 and Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Edition, the two current (as of this writing) members of the Vegas family. Most of these will apply also to Vegas Movie Studio (the regular non-Platinum edition).
This is not meant to be a List of Reasons Vegas Pro is Better than VMS. These are just some of the differences that will affect common tasks — and in particular one’s ability to follow a standard tutorial found on this site. In no particular order, they are…
Where’s the File Menu?
While Vegas Pro makes use of the standard File menu found in 99.9% of PC and Apple computer software, VMS instead has a Project menu with most of the same options. Also note that Vegas Pro’s File menu has an “Import” item which cascades into several mediums from which to import. VMS’s Project menu lists all of its Import options right there at the first level of the menu. So if I state in a tutorial to go to File > Import > Media, you VMS editors can translate that to Project > Import Media.
Can’t I Just Start Editing?
I suppose VMS has my best interest at heart, but I find the New Project Wizard kind of annoying. A Vegas Pro project starts off with default properties, and I can start adding tracks and media immediately. VMS is kind of needy in that it first asks several questions about my project. And it won’t let me add a thing until I’ve gone through its hoops. Not major hoops, mind you, but still… At any rate, if I begin a tutorial with “Start a new project, insert a video track, and add X, Y, and Z,” don’t panic if you’re operating with Vegas Movie Studio, Just know that “start a new project” involves going through the program’s series of questions first.
How Many Tracks Do I Get?
Vegas Pro owners are spoiled by an unlimited number of video and audio tracks. I’ve yet to work on a project with more than a dozen tracks, and I don’t forsee that any tutorial I write here will require even close to that. Just the same, it should be noted that VMS does have a limited number of tracks. As of VMS 9.0, that limit is four video tracks and four video tracks. That’s actually pretty good; I think the last time I tried out VMS, it could only hold two video tracks and one audio track.
Where Did They Put That Envelope?
Keyframes are one way to automate changes over time. Another is the use of envelopes. Composite Level, Volume, Fade to Color, Velocity… Whoop, scratch that last one. VMS doesn’t have velocity envelopes. Or mute envelopes. Or transition progress envelopes. Personally, I think Sony should add these into VMS. The velocity envelope, at least, sounds like a must-have, based on how many VMS owners I’ve seen want to know how to slow down / speed up their video. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it?
Cinescore for Free?
Score (no pun intended) one for Vegas Movie Studio. I was impressed to see that it comes with the Studio version of Cinescore, Sony’s music generation software. I paid a decent sum for the regular version of Cinescore as a separate program. Even if Cinescore Studio has fewer features than full Cinescore, it’s a nice bonus. I even assumed it was only the Platinum Edition that has this, but a visit to the Sony site tells me that, no, the standard edition of VMS does also. Nice.
Updated Sept 18, 2009: While the Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition that I have did include Cinescore Studio, I’ve just discovered that Sony now includes Sound Forge Studio instead. Which one you get will, I imagine, depend on where you buy the package and how old their inventory is. Weird.
What is this Bezier Masking You Speak Of?
Imagine, VMS users, being able to “cut out” a shape from an event video — any shape you can draw — so that the event(s) below show through. And then being able to “cut out” another shape. And another. That’s Bezier masking in a nutshell. Did I mention this shape can be keyframed so it can change over time? Oh yes, it can. (Hm, this here is sounding a bit like A Reason Vegas Pro Is Better Than Vegas Movie Studio. Sorry, can’t helped.) Well, at least you still have the Cookie Cutter FX.
Okay, But What’s a ProType Titler?
In Vegas Pro 8, Sony introduced a text tool far more advanced than the old faithful but limited one that Vegas and Vegas Movie Studio users have known. It’s a bit complicated, powerful, and quite flexible. And it’s not available in Vegas Movie Studio. I will be writing about the ProType Titler soon, and while some of the end results I work toward may be possible using the standard Text generator (and other VMS tools), it would take quite an effort. But fear not, VMS fans: I have been a defender of the original Text generated media while other Vegas users scorned it, and I will still not abandon it.
What Do I Do When I’m Done Editing?
One handy feature in VMS is the Make Movie Wizard. Yes, I’m put off by wizards in general (it’s probably the dopey hats). But in a pinch, Make Movie removes most of the guesswork when you know what you want but not quite how to get there or you just want to do it quickly. This wizard not only gets your movie into the format you want, but also assists you in delivering it to DVD (via DVD Architect Studio), to the web (Youtube and Sony’s AcidPlanet), or into an e-mail. So if you want your delivery process to be more automatic, VMS has your back. In this respect, Vegas Pro makes you work hard for your money.
Why Is Customize Disabled?
If you don’t want to use the Make Movie Wizard, VMS Platinum has the same Render As option as Vegas Pro does — although it’s on the Project menu rather than the File menu (as previously discussed). But there’s a hitch if you’re rendering / encoding to MPEG2. If you ever have a need to customize an MPEG2 template in VMS, you’ll find that the Customize button is disabled — even though you rendered an AVI (or even an MPEG1) the other day, and that button was ready to go. As far as I know, this is all about money. Sony pays a licensing fee for every MPEG2 encoder it includes in its software, and I suspect it costs more for them to include customization. This probably is not something they’re willing to do for a product as economical as Vegas Movie Studio.
You Paid How Much?
Okay, maybe I’m cheating here. But speaking of price, and since much of this list does come off as bemoaning what’s “missing” from Vegas Movie Studio: One can’t ignore the difference in price. Deals can be found, but generaly speaking, Vegas Pro costs about five times as much as the Platinum Edition of Vegas Movie Studio. And while I do prefer Vegas Pro, I’ve also watched VMS move closer and closer to it in its feature set. Sony better be careful. So far, VMS has been a logical stepping-stone for new editors before they eventually buy Vegas Pro. At the rate it’s improved, though, many may find that VMS is all they need.
For a more exahaustive (but less wordy) list of the differences between Vegas Pro, Vegas Movie Studio, Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition, and the unfortuantely-named Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Pro Pack (really, Sony? The product naming wasn’t confusing enough already?), visit Sony’s Vegas Family Comparison page.
Tags: comparison, Vegas, Vegas Movie Studio
Great summary Rob – thanks for your tips. I’m of the “VMS is enough” camp as I can’t justify the cost… One thing I’m trying to accomplish and I don’t know how tho:
I want to crop a video, and position that cropped video in say the lower right corner. e.g.: crop someone’s face from a larger capture and position that new clip as a sort of picture in picture. (I’m sure I’m not using the right vocab!)
I figured I can do it with the Pan / Crop tool – but I can’t seem to get it doing what I want. Tips there?
Not only can it be done in VMS, but the steps are the same as they would be in Vegas Pro. The first thing you need to do, if you’re not already, is get your cropped video to stay the right size. By default, both programs scale the cropped area to fill the screen. To prevent this, go to the Source section of the Pan / Crop window and change the Stretch to Fill Screen setting to No.
But Pan / Crop can’t do this alone. You can use it to crop the image or you can use it to move the image (by first zooming out instead of in). But not both.
To position the cropped video in the bottom right corner, close the Pan / Crop window and open the Track Motion window for the cropped video’s track. There, you can further resize the cropped video, rotate it, add a drop shadow or glow if you want, and you can drag it around to reposition it.
The catch, since this is Track Motion, is that whatever you do will affect any other events on this same track. If that’s going to be an issue, you can add keyframes in the Track Motion window and set everything back to normal where necessary. (Set the keyframe type to Hold if you want the change to happen immediately. See my Introduction to Keyframes post if that sentence meant nothing to you.)
And your vocab is spot-on.
Awesome – thank you Rob!
Thank you very much for posting this! I’m very new to the Sony Vegas software family, and I was wondering why I couldn’t find velocity envelopes in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. I’ve been Googling all morning, and all I found were other people asking the same question. Now I know–I don’t need an plugins pack, I don’t have a bad install, and they aren’t in some hidden toolbar; they just don’t come with this particular software package.
I agree, they need a better naming scheme to help people tell the packages apart. Maybe they could call Vegas Pro ‘Vegas’, and rename Vegas Movie Studio to ‘Reno’?
Thanks again!
You’re welcome, Fawnet!
Once upon a time, Vegas Movie Studio had a completely different name. It was called Sony Screenblast. But it was still based on the same code as Vegas, so I suppose they decided to make it more obvious that the two are related.
For an alternative to the velocity envelope, try changing the playback rate for an event. This method is a bit limited, but can still achieve similar results.
Can you please elaborate the 4 track limitation in Studio? I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to get clarification of this but have come up short. I have Studio 9 Plat. and I’m working on a project with 4 dozen or so .dv files. I’m also adding music as I go along. In my testing thus far, I can add as many of these .dv files and/or mp3 tracks as I like… so does it mean simultaneous tracks? If so, why would anyone want to do that for video? Perhaps audio as I could see multiple language tracks and commentary being added to a project, but video?
If you could clarify what is meant by this and how it might affect me, I would greatly appreciate it!
The files you put on the timeline are added as what we call “events.” Far as I know, neither Vegas Pro nor Vegas Movie Studio have a limit on events.
“Tracks” in Vegas can be thought of like layers in Photoshop (or the GIMP or Paint Shop Pro). They’re a way of organizing your media and sometimes compositing it in different ways. For example, if you want one piece of media to appear above another (for example, adding titles over a background), you put it on a track above the other one. Another reason to use multiple tracks is if you have several pieces of media that you want to apply the same FX to, but you want to leave other pieces alone. Instead of applying them to each individual file on the timeline, you can put all of those files on a single track and then apply the FX to that track. (In fact, audio FX can only be applied at the track level.) The list goes on.
When you create a new Vegas Movie Studio project, it starts out with six tracks — three video and three audio. And VMS has already labeled them with what it thinks you should use each track for. You can use them as they are; you can delete and/or rename them; you can add more tracks from the Insert menu. It all depends on your project, what effects you need, and how you want to organize your work.
When the file is rendered, the tracks are “mixed down” — the final output does not have separate tracks. In this context, tracks are purely project-based elements.
Does that help?
Yes it does Rob, thanks. I get it in theory but still struggling with visualzing why more than 4 vid tracks would be needed. Is it possible you can give a good, practical scenario example in which someone may need more than 4 video tracks. It would help me conceptualize it better. Also it is a total of 8 tracks possible right? As in, 4 audio and 4 video?
I’m working on a small narrative (short); low production value; so I don’t think this limitation will affect be but still not sure if I should start in Vegas 8 Pro… learning curve about the same? I think there are more tutorials online catered vegas 8…
I suppose the simplest example would be the effect popularized by the TV show “24″ in which several scenes are shown on screen simultaneously. In Vegas, this would be done by putting each video on a separate track and using Track Motion to resize and position each one.
I could list several others, but what’s “practical” to one person may be “unnecessary” to another. Bottom line is that the more media you need to see or utilize at one time, the more tracks you’re going to need. Most of these effects can be achieved with fewer tracks by simply creating small projects for up to four elements, rendering it out to file, and then importing that result into a new project. But having unlimited tracks is more flexible and more forgiving (since you can tweak individual bits without having to re-render them).
“Also it is a total of 8 tracks possible right? As in, 4 audio and 4 video?”
Yes.
“still not sure if I should start in Vegas 8 Pro… learning curve about the same?”
The interface is nearly identical, so not much to learn there.
Thanks for the review!It really helped