Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0.78 | 68,8 МБ
Sony's Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 is an inexpensive option for editing digital video on your personal computer. It has comparable features and limitation of many economy-class digital video editing software packages. However, with a manufaturer's suggested retail price of $99, Screenblast is a good choice for the burgeoning editor and for more experienced users who need to edit on the cheap.
Layout & Design
Screenblast Movie Studio is organized around a Timeline, where audio and video clips are ordered and edited into second by second sequences. This timeline has several separate data sections including three for video, two for audio, one for voice and one for text. These six sections allow you to layer text on top of video, and to layer a voice-over or music over the main soundtrack; this combination of tracks creates one movie, and runs as a cohesive whole when you play it back in the preview window. Having six tracks allows for a decent number of options in terms of layering, but it would be ideal to have even more tracks to choose from; however, only more expensive programs tend to come with an unlimited number of tracks. One element of the timeline that is convenient, especially for new users, is the included set of volume and pan controls that come with each audio track. This option may seem a bit elementary to more experienced editors, but again, Movie Studio pushes its ease-of-use for new users.
Manipulation of each piece of this movie puzzle is controlled through options on the main interface window. The interface is comprised of a toolbar that allows you to choose among a series of editing options. Learning what these different tools do might be a challenge for new users, but once you learn it's a snap.
Other features of the interface include a marker bar where you can include notes about clips in the timeline, which is good to have, especially for leaving yourself reminders about things you want to change about your movie. The final features of the design of the main interface include a video-preview window where you play your movie, audio meters with master volume control, and a 'multi-function' window where you compile all of your clips and choose transitions and video effects.
Using the Screenblast interface is generally easy: expanding and contracting the timeline is simple to do, as is figuring out how to select clips or effects in the 'multi-function' window. Other things that should be easy aren't: re-ordering the layout of various windows on you screen and changing their size is important for users who like to customize their work-flow, and Screenblast does not allow for that option. Similarly, it is not as easy as it should be to zoom into the timeline to edit on a frame by frame level. In other words, the design of the Screenblast interface does the job, but it's certainly not compelling.
Features
Screenblast has a large number of transitions and video effects. Their count comes in at 125 video effects and 177 transitions: in the 'multi-purpose' window there's a whole palate of wipes, pushes, color balancing options and other devices. A few of these effects stand out for their ease of use: the pan and crop tool allows for basic movement across a field of a still picture or segment of video (think PBS documentary, and you'll know what this tool does). The chroma-key layering effect, more commonly known as a 'blue-screen' effect for letting one image be seen through parts of a second image layered on top of it, worked pretty well, but didn't come close to edge-definition you can get in, let's say, Final Cut Pro (a much more expensive option), where the effect is much more customizable.
This issue of how much you can manually adjust effects in Screenblast is important to go into: the pre-programmed transitions and special effects are all modifiable, but the ease of changing the pre-sets is not immediately clear. For example, to change the length of a cross-fade transition between two clips, you can't just indicate the length you want the fade to be in terms of a number of frames or seconds, and slam that transition on top of the two clips you've chosen. Instead, you have to place the two clips, place the fade, and then adjust the amount that the two clips overlap each other. Don't get me wrong, editing this way is quite simple to do, but it is not as fast or as exact a method as I would like.
The titling options in Screenblast are easy to use and allow for a number of options, the customization of which are much easier than with other effects: you can adjust kerning, leading, outlines, drop shadows, color, and so on. There could be more pre-loaded text animators, but the few that are there do the basics well.
Screenblast Movie Studio is marketed alongside Screenblast Acid 4.0 Music Mixing Software for good reason: Sony wants you to buy Acid to make up for the fact that the Audio capabilities in Movie Studio don't pass muster. The equalizer is fine, and the panning and volume controls are easy to use, but there's no multi-track mixer, which is sorely missed.
The best thing about all of these features, especially the video transitions and effects, is that they preview in real time: you don't have to render to see what you've just cut together. However, this perk is paired with relatively low performance for final rendering speed. I didn't do any head-to-head comparisons, but it seemed to take many minutes more than it should have to write-to-tape a 30 second test movie.
MyDVD 4.5, which is a good addition to Screenblast, is easy to use and completely intuitive for DVD authoring (it includes a set of pre-loaded menu templates). The downside is that it's still a separate interface, unlike the DVD authoring capabilities of such programs as Pinnacle Studio and Ulead Video Studio, which have one interface for editing and authoring.
Support
One of Screenblast's best assets is its support system for beginning users, including a comprehensive manual and interactive tutorials. The manual includes detailed instructions for completing most tasks, from importing video to DVD-burning. In a big nod to beginners, it even includes special sections with titles such as 'What's the Difference Between Digital Video & Analog Video,' and 'A Guide to the World of Audio & Video Connectors.'
The interactive tutorials are even more comprehensive than the manual, but again, in a way directed towards complete newbies: pop-up windows direct the point-and-click actions of the user in a step-by-step process. This is especially helpful for teaching a new user how to customize certain options, such as setting the length and speed of a transition, like a cross-fade, between two clips; but, as mentioned before, these customizations could be easier to use (which might make all of these useful tutorials thankfully unnecessary).
Conclusion
Sony Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 is an inexpensive option for DV editors, from the beginner to the more serious consumer. It's loaded with a bunch of good effects and options, though the interface for applying these options, and the program's general ease of use, could be improved. For those users who would prefer to invest in the time it takes to learn a program (and all its quirks), rather than spend a lot of money, Screenblast may be the choice.
Specifications
System Requirements:
40 MB disk-space needed for installation
128 MB RAM
400 MHz processor or above
Microsoft Windows 98SE, 2000, or XP
Windows-compatible sound card
CD-ROM drive (for program installation)
24-bit color display
OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394 port or capture-card
Company info: Sony Pictures Digital Inc., 800-577-6642
http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com
No mirrors please.