As some of you may remember, last year when I arrived in LA after being on the road for 35 days, I fried my Mac. I bought a laptop while out in LA and then had to go through the process of getting software again.
I remember sitting at a coffee shop at a beach far south of LA and I got an email from the promotions manager of Sony Creative Software. He had read of my situation, was a fan of my work, and offered me a copy of their professional video editing software, Vegas.
Hero.
I. Love. Vegas.
During that brief period when I was using the Mac, I was using Final Cut to edit video. Final Cut has a rather steep learning curve, but Vegas is easy to use pretty much right out of the box. Every video I’ve pieced together since June of last year has been done in Vegas.
Lately, I’ve been using some of Sony’s other software, ACID Express to create tracks for the videos rather than using existing music/songs.
Sony’s sending me a full version.
Scott is happy. 
You’ve convinced me.
I was just about to buy Adobe’s Premiere Pro (literally!) even though I was…
(a) getting sick of Adobe products (I already own their CS2 and 3 web dev suites which I don’t even use anymore) and…
(b) Steve Jobs now also hates Adobe (and isn’t that enough?) and…
(c) really don’t want to be locked into Adobe forever (again) and…
(d) was thinking there might be something better out there.
Since you’ve now trumpted this again, I’ve been really looking at it and have decided to go with Sony. This is just for “home use”, but I’m not going to settle for Windows Movie Maker either. I MUST have the ability to sync clips to music events (cymbol crash, etc.).
I see you are using Vegas Pro ($700), but I see there is a much less expensive version which looks pretty good (for me anyway) – the Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Pro Pack ($130) – which is what I’ll be getting shortly.
Just thought I’d let you know your endorsement actually got someone to buy a Sony product. This will be the first Sony product I’ve bought since my Walkman in 1981. Which actually was bought my parents. So, I guess this will be my first Sony product ever – amazing!
I’m also in the market for an LCD TV and have actually thought about deviating from my Samsung obsession and getting one of them thar Sony Bravia’s.
Thanks for the “behind the scenes” info about your videos. Very helpful.
I’ll send you my completed DVD of the kids playing football. Maybe you can use your Vegas Pro version to morph in some of your models as cheerleaders. Just don’t use any trademark NFL apparel or you’ll be sued into Cambodia – and beyond!