Marcelo Lewin of Pixel Heads Network recently interviewed our own Michael Bryant about using Sony Creative Software applications for digital content creation. Click here to play episode
Metal: The Ultimate Construction Kit
From thunderous double kicks to drop-tuned riffs force-fed through power-hungry stacks, metal is a highly specialized style of music that continues to generate new mutations even after nearly four decades of constant shape shifting. A superb addition to our Premium Collection line of 2-CD, 24-bit titles, this tortured treasury of sound features all the mandatory sonic accoutrements of the genre, including flexible drum mixing options that will take you deep into serious metal production.
Buy now only US $69.95
Flow & Function:
The Hip-Hop Playbook
From acclaimed hip-hop producer Henry Willis, this library is a detailed new blueprint of the ever-evolving lukecage sound. Organized into 15 session folders full of trunk-rattling bass, moonlit Rhodes, bi-coastal boom bap and more, Flow & Function is a first-rate field manual of strategic urban groove plays.
Buy now only US $39.95
DVD Architect Pro 5 with Blu-ray Disc™ authoring Download
See all available updates
Dubmatix remix contest
Eric Hogg remix contest
New Media Expo
August 14-16
Booths 305 and 307
Las Vegas, NV
www.newmediaexpo.com
COMEX 2008
August 28-31
A-One Multimedia booth 6656
Singapore
www.comexshow.com.sg
IBC 2008
September 12-16
Hall 9, Stands 9.A31 and 9.A32
Amsterdam
www.ibc.org
For technical support or product questions visit:
http://www.custcenter.com
Sony Creative Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, Wisconsin 53704
Customer Service and Sales:
1.800.577.6642 or 608.204.7680
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Existing users can save 20% on upgrades now through August 31
Vegas Movie Studio 9 software is here, and it's available in three configurations: Vegas Movie Studio 9, Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Edition, and Vegas Movie Studio 9 Pro Pack Edition. All three products include new features that make video editing and production faster and easier than ever before.
Vegas Movie Studio 9 new features:
- Integrated upload to YouTube™
- Cinescore™ Studio plug-in for music soundtrack creation
- Streamlined "New Project" and "Make Movie wizards
- Full-screen preview to a primary and secondary display
- Import and export support for FLAC files
- Import support for LPEC files
- Import support for MJPEG-encoded AVI files
Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum has the above new features and:
- Burn to Blu-ray Disc™ from timeline
- Improved native HDV .m2t playback performance
- Improved memory handling for HDV long form projects
- Sony AVCHD enhancements
- Improved Sony AVC/MPEG-4 encoder
Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack has the above new features and:
- Pro Pack Cinescore Themes
- 106 NewBlue® 3D transitions and effects
- Includes Sound Forge™ Audio Studio software
- 1,001 sound effects
As in previous versions, the Vegas Movie Studio applications include DVD Architect Studio software for DVD authoring and burning, Show Me How tutorials to help you learn the application quickly, built-in video transitions and special effects, and much more.
More about Vegas Movie Studio 9 | Read the press release
Additional themes for Cinescore and Vegas Movie Studio 9
The new Vegas Movie Studio 9 applications all include the Cinescore™ Studio plug-in for fast creation of royalty-free music soundtracks. From within the Vegas Movie Studio applications, you can now select a theme, shape its mood and intensity using a few simple controls, and render out your finished soundtrack for easy integration with your video. When you're ready to share your creations with the world, we have you covered — Cinescore soundtrack music is royalty free, and that means hassle-free uploading and file sharing.
Included with all versions of Vegas Movie Studio 9*, Home Studio Soundtrack Pack, Volume 1, contains five very flexible Themes to get you started on your way to the perfect score. Interact with a rich menu of sparkling modern rock and pop sounds, New Orleans-style blues and street music, exquisite world music performances captured at their sources, cutting edge electronica and more.
For even more themes, Home Studio Soundtrack Pack, Volume 2 opens an ideal gateway to the Cinescore experience. Five flexible Themes offer thousands of variations to explore, spanning pop music from ballad to disco to electro, classic hard rock and indy rock, breakbeat, exotic world music tapestries, and riveting progressive electronic forms.
Click here for more or to listen to Cinescore Theme audio samples.
Stretching Vegas audio with Sound Forge
by Craig Anderton
Sound Forge software is editing an audio file, imported from Vegas Pro software, in order to stretch it. This way, it can match video that has been sped up or slowed down.
The velocity envelope tool in Sony Vegas Pro software is great for "stretching" (shortening or lengthening) a video clip, but the audio doesn't stretch along with it. However, if you have Sony Sound Forge software, you can stretch the audio (within a reasonable amount, like plus or minus 10%) so that it fits the video perfectly. This takes advantage of the fact that you can open up a Vegas Pro file directly in Sound Forge software, edit it, and save it back into Vegas Pro software. Here's how.
- Right-click on the Vegas Pro timeline and choose Time for the ruler units. Turn off looping to make sure you don't snap to a loop boundary accidentally in subsequent steps.
- Click on the right edge of the video/audio clip (they should be the same length until you speed up or slow down the video), and note the length in the Time Display. We'll assume for this example it's 04:04.144; write this down as the "initial time."
- Right-click on the video clip, and go Insert/Remove Envelope > Velocity. Adjust the velocity envelope for the desired amount of stretching. In this case, we'll set it to 90% to lengthen the file somewhat.
- "Roll out" the right edge of the video clip until it snaps to its new length. (For example, as we slowed down the velocity, the clip is now longer; you'll need to roll it out to the right.) When the video hits the new snap point, click on the snap point (i.e., the right edge of the video clip) to see the new length - in this case, the Time Display shows 04:30.104. Write this down as the "final time."
- Right-click on the audio track, and select "Open Copy in Sound Forge."
- Once it's open in Sound Forge, select the entire waveform. (The next six steps all occur in Sound Forge.)
- Go Process > Time Stretch. In the Initial Time field, enter the initial time value you wrote down (e.g., 04:04.144).
- In the Final Time field, enter the final time value you wrote down (e.g., 04:30.104). Don't worry if this value changes in the steps ahead, Sound Forge will remember these settings as soon as you click on something else (which you'll do next by clicking on Preview).
- Click on Preview and audition different stretching Modes. Choose whichever one sounds best. After choosing it, click Stop.
- Click on OK.
- After the processing has occurred, go File > Save in Sound Forge. This saves the audio as a new take in Vegas.
- Close Sound Forge.
- Now check out the project in Vegas Pro software; the audio and video should sync together perfectly. To compare the sound quality to the original take, right-click on the audio track and choose the desired take. Of course, the original one won't be in sync with the video.
That's all there is to it!
Author/musician Craig Anderton is Editor in Chief of www.harmony-central.com and Executive Editor for EQ magazine. He not only maintains an active musical career, but has also lectured on technology and the arts in 37 states, 10 countries, and three languages.
Daily podcasts from New Media Expo
The New Media Expo bills itself as the world's most popular convention for podcasters, online video creators, and bloggers. Sony Creative Software will be there demonstrating easy podcast creation with ACID,  Sound Forge, and Vegas software and showing people why ACIDplanet.com® is the ideal site for podcast creators to host and share their episodes.
ACIDplanet.com web producer Stacie Arellano, known among the ACIDplanet community as Voxana, will be at the show giving presentations about ACIDplanet.com and also producing daily podcasts live from the show floor. In her podcasts she will interview attendees about their experience at the show and share other exciting New Media Expo news. Watch for the New Media Expo podcasts here.
To listen or subscribe to the ACIDplanet New Media Expo podcasts or dozens of other ACIDplanet podcasts, go to www.acidplanet.com/podcasts.
Tech tip: Authoring and burning Blu-ray discs with Sony DVD Architect Pro 5
by Gary Rebholz
What? Are you kidding me? Free software?
Nope; we're not kidding. If you're a registered user of DVD Architect Pro 4.5 software, then the new 5 upgrade is yours free. And that means that you can now have Blu-ray Disc™ authoring and burning for what amounts to a pretty darned affordable price. While the price tag is good news by itself, there's more good news: if you've been using DVD Architect Pro 4.5 software, then you don't have a whole lot to learn about using 5. Most of the functions are identical between the two versions of the application. In fact, if you're creating a standard DVD (which you can still do in 5) then your workflow is virtually identical to what it was in 4.5. However there are some things that work for DVD authoring that don't work for Blu-ray authoring. And of course, there is new functionality related to creating your Blu-ray titles that wasn't available in 4.5. We'll discuss these differences in this article.
First, you'll need to get DVD Architect Pro 5 software to your computer. You can download the application from the Updates section of the Sony Creative Software website. Once you've downloaded it, run the installer. There's no need to uninstall DVD Architect Pro 4.5 software first; 5 will recognize your 4.5 serial number and upgrade your 4.5 to 5. If you've already uninstalled 4.5, reinstall it first and then run the 5 update installer.
Now that you've installed 5, start the application. Of course, you can start completely new project, but you can also open a project that you previously created in 4.5 and use 5 to create a Blu-ray version of the same project. (Just remember that you might need to render your media again as high-definition if you want to take advantage of high-definition resolution). As you can see in Figure 1, just looking at the application you don't see any visible differences between 4.5 and 5, so you're already on very familiar ground.
DVD Architect Pro 5 software uses the exact same interface as version 4.5 did, so it's easy to feel at home if you've used the previous version.
Once you've started the application, you'll want to specify whether you're creating a DVD or a Blu-ray project. Of course, you can change your mind later, or complete the project as one type and then change it to the other so that you can burn both a DVD and a Blu-ray Disc™ if you want to.
To specify which type of disc you want to create, choose File | Properties to open the Project Properties dialog box. On the Properties tab, notice that the first property is Disc format. Click the current format value if you want to change it and then select the format you want to use from the list. Figure 2 shows my Project Properties dialog box after I've switched the Disc format property to Blu-ray Disc and you can see that now the Properties tab shows Blu-ray related properties. Click here to continue
Gary Rebholz is the training manager for Sony Creative Software. Gary produces the popular Seminar Series training packages for Vegas Pro, ACID Pro, and Sound Forge software. He is also co-author of the book Digital Video & Audio Production. Gary has conducted countless hands-on classes in the Sony Creative Software training center, as well as at tradeshows such as the National Association of Broadcasters show.
Now through December 1, 2008, receive an automatic entry into the Sony Open Hawaii Escape Sweepstakes drawing with the purchase and registration of any qualifying Sony Home Studio or Professional software product at retail or ANY product purchased at www.sonycreativesoftware.com. You will receive one (1) entry for each product purchased between August 7, 2008 and December 1, 2008. Each entry gives you another chance to win a trip to the Sony Open in Hawaii or one of hundreds of other prizes!
The Sony Open Hawaii Escape grand prize package includes:
- Trip for two to Sony Open in Hawaii
- Six (6) nights stay at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu
- $3,000 spending cash for use on meals, on-site transportation and other incidentals
- Two (2) weekly passes to the Sony Open in Hawaii
- One (1) round of golf for one (1) person only (either winner or travel companion) with PGA Tour pro in Satellite Pro-Am while on trip
- Two (2) tickets to a Pro-Am awards dinner with performance by a Sony BMG artist
- Two (2) tickets to an advanced screening of a Sony Pictures Entertainment movie
- Ground transfers to/from the airport in Hawaii and to the golf tournament
You could also win one of 200 Sony 2GB Walkman® Video MP3 players. Visit www.sonycreativesoftware.com/escape for complete prize package, rules and more details.
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