Well, that's two nods for Sony. As I'm in the market to upgrade, I'll review the reviews of the top 5 choices and post my obersvations here.

1: CyberLink PowerDirector 7 Deluxe:

- Editors' Gold award.
- The only rating below excellent is in help and support.
- If you want to author Blu-ray, you'll need the Ultra version.
- Video stabilization
- Playback in the editor was a bit jumpy. The system was tested on a DuoCore with 2 GB ram.
- Some camera compatibility issues with respect to Vista vs XP.
- A bit of information overload in terms of available options.
- Several times when their system hung for several minutes without apparent cause.
- Good, free online community where others share their custom menus, templates, and objects.
- Great auto/photo editing

2. Corel VideoStudio X2 Standard

- Ergonomically well-designed menus/functions
- Doesn't burn to Blu-ray - must use the X2 Pro version.
- Smoother playback that in PowerDirector due to use of proxy technology (edit in lower-res files; render using original files).
- Optimized for dual and quad-core processors
- Non-destructive editing (source file remains intact).
- e-mail support is free (but trust me, Corel's e-mail support sucks)

3. Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9

- Takes less effort to learn than others
- Quality software - "in depth"
- More features at this price point
- Awsome interactive tutorials
- No built-in audio editor. Can still do fades and pans. However, for just $30 more you can get the Platinum Pro pack which includes Sound Forge Audio Studio, various themes, 3D transitions, and 1,001 sound effects.
- "The most feature-rich video editing software in it's price range."
- Blu-ray burns in this package - no upgrade necessary!

I'll skip the other two. After reading the reviews of the Gold winners, it's clear the only reasons Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 didn't get the top award is that it has a slightly steeper learning curve, and it doesn't have a storyboard. It does have a timeline. Given it's significantly greater depth of capabilities, that's entirely understandable.

If only it had a storyboard...

So, for me, it's Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack. I'm downloading their free trial, now, and will let you know how I like it compared to the others I've used.

__________________
If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.