Videomaker 2007 Best Products of the Year (page 5)

Sony Vegas Pro 8 is a great tool for editors looking for a professional editing application without a hefty price tag. This latest version adds support for AVCHD, including M2TS import, which greatly simplifies the process of getting AVCHD footage onto your computer. Sony Vegas Pro 8 also includes a great number of audio effects, many of which perform in real time. We are also impressed with its multi-camera function, allowing event videographers to edit together different camera angles quickly. Add in DVD Architect, and you're looking at a powerful post-production tool that won't drain your budget.

For the first time ever, we have a tie. Both video editing suites deserve an award this year, as they have delivered valuable upgrades across the board. We've looked extensively at both these suites to try to find a clear winner. It used to be that editors picked their video editing suites based on their preference of platform: Mac or PC. This year Adobe changed all that, creating a cross-platform suite (well, actually not all of the tools in the suite are Mac-friendly, but most are). Equally, Apple really expanded what Final Cut Studio could do across the board and added a finishing software valued at thousands of dollars. In the end, we felt the best video editing suite really comes down to what kind of work you'll be doing. We feel confident that, whatever you're doing, either of these suites will get the job done.

The Tiffen Dfx video filter software may be one of the best values of this year. Thousands of dollars of optical video filters have been translated to their digital equivalents in this software package. So, the immediate savings are a plus. But, you also get the flexibility of applying these trusted video effects in post production with the bacon-saving Undo button available. We are impressed with Tiffen Dfx's precision controls, with a number of custom settings and a well-rounded group of presets to get you up and running. When it comes to setting your video apart from the rest, this plug-in set has plenty of options to get you noticed.

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