The Generate Music feature is the heart of what makes Cinescore an innovative and powerful tool. Upon activating this feature, a new window appears where you can choose among many different musical themes, (20 in total from this package,) and many different variations of each of those themes. Many of these variations include multi-genre music (i.e. one theme may have a Funk, Latin, Urban, Electronic and Jazz version and sub version from those.) Most of these themes have a least fifteen different variations. Choosing your theme and variation is only the tip of the iceberg.

Once you have that selected, Cinescore inserts the musical score into a separate timeline window from which you can preview your score. From here you can change a multitude of properties of the track, (i.e. Ending Type, Starting Section, Mood, Intensity, etc,) and more importantly you can change these properties throughout the track by adding Hints. These Hints then become ways for you to adjust instrumentation, tempo, intensity and the overall mood of the track so that the music can change with your video. There are too many variables under the Hint tab of the Generate Music feature to cover them all in this review. If you want to see them for yourself, Sony is offering a free trial download of the software.

Cinescore is a great product for new soundtrack creators, especially for those on a tight budget. Intermediate users will also enjoy using it for its ability to take control of audio files and create dynamic scores. Also, Cinescore plays well with most common media files and can also render out a variety of files, (but it won't convert SD to HD.) While there are definitely more powerful and rich scores available, there are not too many sound libraries offering the ability to change the song's mood with numerous variables and candid timing. If Sony dedicates more themes with natural and rich sounding variations, Cinescore could be the leader in its class.

OS: Microsoft Windows 2000 (SP4) or XP
Processor: 1.5GHz or better
RAM: 512MB (1 GB recommended)
Hard-disk Space: 200MB for program installation (1.7GB hard-disk space for optional Cinescore Theme installation)
Maximum Audio Tracks: 3
Audio Fidelity: 16-bit, 44.1/48kHz
Other: Windows-compatible sound card , CD-ROM drive (for installation from a CD only), DVD-ROM drive (for installation of Themes and audio transitions), DirectX 9.0c or later (included on DVD-ROM), Internet Explorer 5.1 or later (included on DVD-ROM)
Compatible Import Files: .aif, .avi, .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .mov, .mp3, .mp4, .mpg, .ogg, .pca, .png, .psd, .swf, .tga, .tif, .w64, .wav, .wma (series 9 audio and video)
Compatible Export Files: aif, .avi, .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .mov, .mp3, .mp4, .mpg, .ogg, .pca, .rm (Real Audio and Video), .w64, .wav, .wma (series 9 audio and video) Capable of rendering NTSC DV (widescreen with 24p and/or (2:3 or 2:3:3:2 pulldown) or PAL DV (widescreen), NTSC or PAL SD YUV, HDV (720 30p, 24p or 1080 60i, 50i) and HD 1080 (60i or 50i YUV).

• Ease of Use
• Generate Music Feature
• Affordable

• Limited to 3 audio tracks

Sony Cinescore is a great tool for beginning and intermediate videographers who want to add royalty free music to their productions on a shoe-string budget.

Mark Montgomery is a commercial television producer.

$200
Sony Media Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, WI 53704
www.sonymediasoftware.com