Cheap Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 (Software) (Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows NT) Price

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Customer Reviews of Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0

ScreenBlast has been replaced
I recently had correspondence with Sony. They advised me that they shut down ScreenBlast.com on 9/30/04. They confirmed that there will be no updates for ScreenBlast Movie Studio 3.0 in the future, since they have essentially discontinued it. You can imagine my dismay, having purchased this product only 6 months ago. <
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>They did say that they will support it if you e-mail them, but there is no site for User Tips, etc. anymore. Because of my frustration, they sent me all the links to the media (sound, video files, etc.) that would have been available to me at ScreenBlast.com, since I wasn't able to get it before they shut the site down. They also extended me an offer to buy an upgrade to their replacement product, Vegas Movie Studio 4.0, which includes DVD Architech Studio 2.0 (instead of MyDVD). <
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>After enough complaining on my part, they gave me the full version of the replacement product for free. Initially, I felt pretty good about that and felt that they had taken care of me adequately. <
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>That was until after another inquiry I sent them brought me this message: "Our Vegas software will only 100% support capturing from a DV camcorder or DV deck through a standard OHCI compliant IEEE-1394 (Firewire / iLink) board. If you are using any external break-out boxes or capture cards then we can not guarantee that this device will capture video with our software." <
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>I do not own a camcorder and I don't have a firewire card. I have been simply trying to capture a small stash of old videotapes given to me by others, from an analog VCR connected into my computer via an ATI All-in-Wonder 9000 graphics card with TV/tuner. Vegas is incapable of dealing with this. It will record video, but not sound. Sony advises me to use other capture software to accomplish this. A person shouldn't have to use 3 different pieces of software to accomplish capturing a video, editing it, and saving it to a DVD. <
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>I'm pretty annoyed that it appears I'll need to revert back to the old antiquated ScreenBlast 3.0 product to capture video from my VCR with a Sony product. One further note on this is that Sony's really particular about what path you install into, because if you install it where you want it to go, there could be conflicts if other Sony software is anywhere present there. <
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>If none of this is relevant for you because you have no other Sony software on your computer, and you own an appropriate type of camcorder and connection Sony requires, then I can tell you this. ScreenBlast Movie Studio and Vegas Movie Studio look pretty much identical. Vegas adds a few minor things. It's great editing software. If you want to nab some old videotapes via VCR hookup, forget it. <
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>Other reviewers are correct that the software can seem overwhelming at first, but the more you explore it, the more it will seem extremely easy to you. I found that I really liked it after just a short time of poking around until I got how it worked. Reviewing the manual speeds up that process and is worth your time. It's an easy read and pretty comprhensive. <
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>For my purposes though, the fact that it won't allow me to capture from my analog VCR is an extreme annoyance that makes me wish I'd ignored all the complaints about Pinnacle and Ulead anyway and purchased one of those instead. I've essentially wasted my money, in not being able to use this piece of software for the captures I need to do. Therefore, I can't give it any kind of decent rating. <
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>Two weeks of dinging around with the software and contacting Sony, and in the end, I'm pretty darn disappointed. I haven't figured out for sure what my solution is going to be to capture from my VCR. The software that came with my graphics card doesn't offer as high of resolution as Vegas does. <
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>I will post this review under Sony Vegas Movie Studio as well.

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Makes me look good!
I bought this software to edit large-format videos that I take with my Minolta Z2 digital camera, which records sound and motion in the Quicktime (*.mov) format. My WinXP Movie Maker can't import that format, and I haven't found a way to make it handle more than 320x240 pixels. I checked other video editing software packages (the ones that allow a free-trial download) and not all of them can import Quicktime files. One more requirement: my Minolta can shoot video at up to 800x600 pixels -- a "knock-your-socks-off" level of resolution. I wanted a video editor that could input and output video files at that level of resolution. <
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>I've found that Screenblast does the best job with the 800x600 format by outputing in MPEG2. MPEG2 is playable in Windows Media Player if it is given the MPEG2 codec (which should have been provided in Windows Service Pack 2 but wasn't). The videos are, if I may immodestly say so, beautiful. They make me look good as a movie maker. <
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>I found, to my surprise, that Screenblast is intuitive. You can start using it immediately for simple editing, and teach yourself the fancy tricks as you go along. It is also powerful enough to be fun. For example, you can brighten up a scene that appears dark because it was shot in low light, or correct for a color cast given by tungsten lights. It is sometimes tempting to over-use the wizardry, which can overshadow the video's content. This is not a criticism of the software, only a warning that "...with great power comes great responsibility."

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Very stable with great features.
To briefly re-state what the previous reviews have correctly stated: <
>1) Much better than the competition. I've tried them. <
>2) Has all the features 'that you would probably really use' of the high end programs. It is the same as Sony Vegas with a couple of the features that most people would never use chopped out. A couple of the messages still say 'Vegas' in them. <
>3) Very stable. Has never crashed over multiple large projects <
>4) You are easily able to take out or lower the volume on a little part of the sound track (if there is an unwanted sound or somebody says a few words that you want to take out). <
>5) It comes with Sonic MyDVD which is a piece of junk but it does work if you want ugly menus. The latest CD version of Screenblast 3.0 comes with MyDVD 5.23 which is the newest version of MyDVD as of today! Earlier reviews said that their Screenblast came with MyDVD 4.5 which is not true anymore. <
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>An earlier Amazon reviewer gave this product 1 star because they said: If you take out a picture then you have to move all of the pictures after it manually to fill the hole. That is not true! Just turn on 'Ripple Edit' and everything moves over by itself. <
>Another reviewer said it was not stable. Those people need to fix their computers. In my experience (and according to all of the reviews around the internet) this is a rock solid stable program with no crashes. <
>I have not needed customer service for this program but I think that Sony customer service stinks for their other products but that is another story that doesn't go with this review. <
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