Sony Screenblast Movie Studio

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=856' target='_blank'>http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=856</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/sbmoviestudio.jpg" /> <br /><br />"Screenblast® Movie Studio™ software is an easy-to-use editing program from one of Hollywood's leading motion picture studios. It lets you seamlessly capture your video and still images from digital devices, and add effects, transitions, titles and music. It's everything you need to turn your video into memorable movies in minutes. <br /><br />• Integrated DVD authoring software — Includes over 40 DVD menu templates from the Sony Pictures Digital Authoring Center.<br />• Improved still-image tools — Red-eye removal wizard.<br />• Addition of a new 6th track on the timeline — Add text effects to your creations with functionality typically found only in professional software applications. <br />• NEW Effects — Border, Black Restore, Deform, Lens Flare, Light Rays, Linear Blur, Mirror, Quick Blur, Radial Blur, and Threshold.<br />• NEW Transitions (Page Peel, Page Roll, Venetian Blinds) — Expands upon Screenblast Movie Studio software's category-leading roster of video effects and transitions.<br />• "Get Media" button — Easily access hundreds of professionally produced video clips from the Sony Pictures Television library in addition to images, graphics and music from Screenblast.com for use in your projects*<br />• Increased format support — Support for import, editing, transcoding, and export of Windows Media® 9 video format, AVI's, Macromedia® Flash™ file format (.SWF), MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and other popular formats."<br /><br />Sony acquired the consumer software division of Sonic Foundry, and in doing so, they got their hands on some of the best video and audio editing software on the planet. This software used to be known as VideoFactory back when Sonic Foundry owned it, and considering it was sub-$100 software, it was quite amazing. I'm not a developer, so it's hard to explain this with any degree of accuracy, but when you use Sonic Foundry products, there was something incredibly sleek and powerful about them. Everything is snappy and responsive, even on humble hardware. It just felt solid, not bloated at all. VideoFactory was a little rough in a few UI departments, but surprisingly powerful. I haven't seen the latest version of ScreenBlast yet, but I can only hope it's just as solid as VideoFactory was!

[Montego]

When I was first getting into video editing I had tried Videowave, and Videostudio. I found Videofactory (Screenblast) and never looked back. Easily the best entry level video editor out there.

When I was ready to get more professional software, I looked at Premiere and Avid, but ended up making the upgrade to Vegas and have been more than satisfied.

Though Sony purchased Sonic Foundry products, the Sonic Foundry team is still doing the sfotware. Sony knows a good thing when it has it.

[pocketpcthemes.com]

Being a former Pinnacle Studio 8 user, I had nearly given up on editing video on the PC platform. Then I purchased Screenblast. I can finally do all of the things that I wanted to do with Pinnacle, but with success. I don't have to worry about unexpected output results, lockups, very slow load times, etc. Screenblast is solid, reliable and just works. Lots of cool features. The one thing that you may want to be aware of is that it doesn't really have integrated DVD burning. It bundles Sonic MyDVD, which is a separate app, to do the DVD burning. If you're frustrated with editing video on the PC platform, you owe it to yourself to give this app a try.

[canux]

Does anyone know of a Canadian vendor (brick and mortar or online) that sells this title? I downloaded the trial version a few months back...an excellent product, but have had no luck actually finding a place to buy it up north.