Here are some answers to your questions:

> 1) is there an upgrade price? (lower than the full price)

Yes. You can upgrade from Vegas Pro Production Assistant v1.0 to v2.0 for only US $79.95 on the Sony web site.

> 2) why does "my account"|"my software" not recognise my PA1 serial no?

You would have to contact Sony Customer Service to find out why.

> 3)why do I not see my PA1 in "my software"?

You would have to contact Sony Customer Service to find out why.

> 4) Why should I be expected to buy this (marginally useful) product again 6 months after first buying?

You are not "expected" to buy anything. Vegas Pro Production Assistant v1.0 works fine with Vegas Pro 10. You just need to have it installed from Vegas Pro 9.0 if you're not upgrading.

As to it's "usefulness"... Vegas Pro Production Assistant v2.0 more than doubles the number of batch processes you can perform adding 13 new processes to the original 11 which gives you 24 processes to choose from. It also allows for near hands-free processing of memory cards. By simply inserting the card and selecting a destination, you can program it to ingest the media, place it into a project template, batch process it, and render it for DVD without every touching your computer! It also upgrades some functions like allowing you to use your own Lower Thirds. That's a lot of new functionality for $79.

> 5)Is this product supported by Sony or Vasst?

Vegas Pro Production Assistant is a Sony product and is supported by Sony. VASST provides 2nd level support to Sony for problems they cannot resolve on their own.

> 6)why should I have to keep VP9 installed just for this?

You don't. Production Assistant v2.0 installs with Vegas Pro 10, 9 or 8. If you are referring to Production Assistant v1.0, it should continue to work even if you uninstall Vegas Pro 9. It just needs Vegas Pro 9.0 for the initial installation because it can't possibly know that Vegas Pro 10 exists so if you want to continue using version 1 with Vegas Pro 10, it is assumed that it it is already installed from Vegas Pro 9.0.

If this is not the case, you will need a version of Vegas that Production Assistant 1.0 supports in order to install it. This is no different than any other plug-in that installs into an NLE host and needs to know where the host application resides. If you upgrade your host without upgrading your plug-ins, you should be prepared to keep your old host installed long enough to get your plug-in installed. After it's installed, Vegas Pro 9.0 can be uninstalled.

Hope that answers your questions,

~jr