> Is Prod. Assistant and Ultimate S from VASST the same thing?

No. The best comparison I can make is that Production Assistant is focused on "batch process automation" while Ultimate S Pro is focused on "interactive" editing. We just added 13 more automated processes to Production Assistant 2 and we added media card detection support so the difference of batch vs interactive are becoming even more and more apparent.

They do share some tools in common which are Photo Montage, MotoFoto, Lower Thirds, Film Looks, and similar Rendering capabilities but that is only 5 of the 15 tabs that are available in Ultimate S Pro. So Ultimate S Pro still has 10 tabs of interactive function that Production Assistant does not have (Editing Tools, Markers, Audio Tools, Visual Effects, Quad-CAM, Special FX, DVD, Audit, Setup, & Project).

On the Production Assistant side, it has process automation that Ultimate S Pro does not have. The ability to take process functions and string them together into a workflow is an extremely powerful feature that only Production Assistant has. Of course the ability to create entire projects from templates as another big feature that is unique to Production Assistant. The ability to monitor for media card insertion and create a project from it is great for same-day-event videography.

If you do mostly interactive editing I would get Ultimate S Pro. If you do a lot of batch processing I would get Production Assistant. They really are aimed at solving different workflow problems.

Hope that helps,

~jr