Since there was no webinar and the forum was down, I browsed an email that Corel has a new version of their Video Studio X3. Out of curiosity went to the website and noticed that they have implemented CUDA acceleration and Intel® Core™ i7 CPU optimization. OOOOOH!

So, since I have a GeForce 260 which supports Nvidia CUDA I downloaded the full working demo and to my surprise it plays back AVCHD video smooth as silk! WOW! Of course when I start stacking on effects transitions and addtional AVCHD tracks the preview gets a litte choppy but that's to be expected.. (Only has 7 tracks of video, and 4 audio tracks)

Some basic tools are included too, like Stabilizer and ability to draw over video clips and stills, and built in proxy rendering. No video file shuffling between proxy and originals! OOOOOOH!

X3 doesn't come close to the power and flexability of Vegas Pro 9, but for a $100 program X3 looks like pretty good deal to pre edit and render AVCHD video and import into Vegas for final cuts.

Since the competition is offering these features, I hope that Sony will implement some of these in the next version of Vegas.

See what happens when a bored dog is home alone. (: