Vegas 7.0

Version 7 adds new features for pros – but are they enough?

Sony’s Vegas has long been seen as the PC world’s answer to Apple’s Final Cut Pro. This new version doesn’t add much to the basic feature list, but does extend hardware support in a new professional direction with HD and SD XDCAM capture and editing. This is good news for users with XDCAM hardware, but not so interesting to those of us with older MiniDV and DVCAM cameras.

This update also makes it possible to edit 1080i format video more easily, and the range of output formats has been extended to make it possible to create video content for Sony’s PSP and audio using Sony’s now rather dated MiniDisc-based ATRAC system.

Ergonomically, the changes are less obvious. The most striking new feature is a better Snap-To mode that uses orange and blue highlighter lines to indicate clip positions. It’s now easier to drag a clip vertically to a different track without moving it horizontally. There are also some more subtle changes, such as the ability to draw freehand envelopes. The optional DVD Architect 4, which is bundled with Vegas, now includes support for 16:9 widescreen and dual-layer (DL) disks.

Overall the changes are rather meagre. There’s no support for HD on BluRay/HD-DVD, and Vegas’s basic editing and effects features have barely changed since version 5. At the price it’s good value for video newcomers, especially as a download from Sony, rather than a UK-sourced boxed purchase. But unless you need XDCAM support, the relatively small list of changes from version 6 makes an upgrade less than compelling.