For me, two features alone make it a good thing - Native XD Cam EX handling, and "includes support for still images greater than one gigapixel in resolution"
$185 for the upgrade & NewBlue Sampler = Great Deal!
We've been using Vegas since 3.0... We have Final Cut Pro & Premiere Pro installed on one workstation just so clients feel confident that we have all the tools as other professional studios, but we do 95% of our editing in Vegas because it's just plain faster and the audio tools are superior.
I guestimate that we save 6 hours per week using Vegas vs FCP. That's a savings of 15%! Time=Money & Money=Time!
When clients ask me what we use, I tell them all 3 programs and that we use the product that will give their project the best end-results. Once they see the final video, they are so impressed they never bother to ask which software we actually used for their particular project...
£165.95 - phew !
I wish I could justfy the cost, but as I am just a home hobbiest and do a project every couple of months, I can't afford it.
Perhaps I have the wrong product.
> I am just a home hobbiest and do a project every couple of months, I can't afford it.
The Movie Studio line is aimed at the home hobbiest and priced accordingly. It is an amazing amount of functionality for the price. If you are not making money from editing videos the upgrade may seem high but the productivity improvements it brings will usually pay for itself in just a few jobs so it's really not that bad at all to stay up-to-date.
I used Video Factory 2.0 (the former version of Movie Studio that only had 2 video tracks!) until I started making money from editing. I upgraded to Vegas Video 3.0 with my first check. I am amazewd at how many hobbiests buy the Pro version of Vegas. I know I could not afford it until I started making income from it. It's all relative.
I'm a serious home hobbyist and use Platinum 9 working on 2-3 videos a month many at the same time. Most of them are for family and friends, but occasionally get a paying gig to do a funeral or wedding collage and gotten great results using Platinum 9.
For me it's been very stable and doesn't have a lot of the "fluff" factor effects that make many home videos I've seen look cheesy.
I agree w/ JR. For the money, I highly recommend it. I'm getting to the point now that I need more tracks and higher end features (to many to list in this thread) that the Pro version has to offer so am going to upgrade from Platinum 9 to Pro 9.
"You see postings almost every day (on Craigslist, and such) for NLE editors who have/know FCP, but I can't remember ever seeing a posting looking for someone specifically using Vegas."
Why should it matter what tools you use? Do you ask your handyman what brand of hammer he uses?