Sony Vegas to CS5 learning curve? at DVinfo.net

Roger Shealy · December 16th, 2010, 08:19 PM

Guys, I'm a long time Vegas user and have the CS5 Suite as well. I shoot with the 7D and t2i and even with Vegas 10, editing native .mov is a bit clunky, especially with multiple tracks and transistions. I'm running an i7-950 w/ 12GB RAM, OCZ RevoDrive SSD for OS & Programs, 2x6GBps Caviar Black Sata III's for source and target media, and NVidia GTX470 graphics. Vegas is really fast and easy, but using Cineform is a bit of a pain and I also like the idea of having the suite shared with AE and PS and the benefits of the mercury engine.

Any of you guys made the transition from a recent version of Vegas to CS5 that can tell me what kind of learning curve and experience I should expect? I'm a Lynda.com subscriber, so I'll likely start there.

Chris Barcellos · December 16th, 2010, 11:07 PM

Having gone the other way a few years back, I thought Vegas was a savior from Premiere's clunkiness.
I felt like the processes they provided were too restrictive. In Vegas, you could do everything three different ways. I Premiere, you don't seem to have that latitude.

I like the clean and quick work I do with Vegas and Cineform. All that said, I do have the urge to go back with it, but at this late date, CS5 cost, prices me out. If you have it, why not get into it, and then tell us what you think.

Roger Shealy · December 17th, 2010, 10:14 AM

My son is using CS5 on a i5 laptop, effortlessly editing 7D footage and many tracks of effects. It caught my attention and I was very fortunate to recently get the master collection as a gift a month or so ago. I'll give it a whirl, just find the Adobe interface very confusing compared to Vegas!

James Hooey · December 19th, 2010, 12:51 AM

I moved from Vegas Pro 8 to Adobe Production Premiem CS4 and most recently CS5 almost two years ago. I still use Vegas occasionally as it is the fastest to whip together quick edits, but if you have the entire suite there is no way to beat how all the software integrates together (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, ect.)

The learning curve was actually not that steep for Premier....it feels a little different in the way it edits and I use things like Premier's trimmer which is something I never did with Vegas. Of course keyboard shortcuts are different as well, but it's an editor like any other so if you understand the processes there is just a familiarization period really.

With CS5 and my supported Cuda card Premier now is my go to editor as it now easily outperforms Vegas playback with HDV and .h264 codec files, multiple tracks and basic colour correction. In Vegas I would often prerender short chunks to make sure the edit was good at full framerate.....not an issue with CS5...it just plays full rate all the time :)

I'd say go for it....honestly I like Premier more than Vegas although it seemed like an intimidating switch at the time.

All the best,
James Hooey

Roger Shealy · December 19th, 2010, 06:19 AM

Thanks James. I'm going in.....

Roger Shealy · December 28th, 2010, 08:28 PM

Very early into my work with PPro CS5 so all my comments are highly suspect. Both PPro and Vegas have their strong suites. I much prefer the Vegas interface and find building a project much, much faster for the type of editing I do (realizing I haven't learned CS5 yet). But CS5's mercury engine is much smoother if I need to handle more than 2 tracks of DSLR footage. I like the output options of CS5 and its render speed seem faster.

Vegas's CUDA implementation isn't nearly as good as CS5. With Vegas, several of my CPU cores are loping along and the GPU is barely touched. With CS5 the CPU is close to max and the GPU is heavily taxed. Go Adobe! For reasons I can't explain, rendering in Vegas to .mp4 with "CPU only" is faster than using "GPU" or "Auto". Why Sony? Adobe, on the other hand, feels like it takes several keystrokes/mouse moves to do what Vegas does in one. Why Adobe? I'm hoping I'll soon find a better way to overlap clips and add transitions than having to drag and drop transitions into the timeline versus the Vegas drag clips to overlap. Carpal tunnel is on the way unless I find the better methods. What I'm doing now seems incredibly painful.

More to come. I imagine it will get better as I "learn the language" of CS5. What I really want is the Vegas interface with the mercury engine. What we need here is a corporate merger!

James Hooey · December 29th, 2010, 09:24 PM

"What I really want is the Vegas interface with the mercury engine. What we need here is a corporate merger!"

Roger - that is a pretty bang on assessment of what would make a great editor!...

seriously though your thoughts are completely valid...transitions in Premier are nothing simple like they are in Vegas....slip/slid and voila! transitions do not happen in Premier...it takes a bit more forethought and planning and yes, more mouse clicks.

What I think you will find is that several other functions in Premier are not nearly as process intensive and offer far richer interfaces and control. eg: Premier's titler - intuitive, very complete and possibly even faster than creating titles than Vegas due to almost all the controls being on one big panel. I realise that vegas has or at least had the ProTitler thingy but it was so un-intuitive that I spent countless frustrating hours trying to get polished results and gave up on it. Keyframes for effects and track motion are dealt with in a better interface than Vegas as well which benefits everything with time based changes.

Another consideration will be the integration with the rest of your CS suite....when you start to fiddle around with Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects and see how seemless the integration and consistent the interfaces are the light bulb will turn on suggesting...WOW exciting possibilities. Keep in mind though that each will have their own learning curve too! ;)

Finally, it boils down how well do they work? Yep, Vegas is a bang up fast editor that can produce great results, Premier is a great editor with a little more depth and currently an edge in how well it plays with things on the timeline/rendering.

I'm sure two or three years from now, full frame rate HD editing will be generally a defacto standard from all the big players so that wow factor will be mute. Bear that in mind as you step into Premier and invest the time to get proficient with it as Vegas may very well catch up in the playback realm....the interfaces/workflow will always differ to some degree though.

Keep us posted on what else strikes you as you get further along with Premier!

All the best,
James Hooey

Roger Shealy · December 30th, 2010, 03:33 PM

Will do James. Any feel for how similar Premiere is to Final Cut Pro? If you can run one, can you essentially run the other?

James Hooey · December 30th, 2010, 06:53 PM

sorry Roger, I've got a two editor sized skull....if I tried to learn a third one of them would dribble out the other ear.

Never worked with FCP...I suspect it's different again from the odd post I have read here and there.

All the best,
James Hooey

Roger Shealy · December 31st, 2010, 03:15 PM

Well James, I'm starting to think I have a 1-editor skull, so you're doing better than me!

Chris Duczynski · January 2nd, 2011, 06:14 PM

I use PE4 for fast cuts, DVD burns or wmv, flash, webmedia etc, but is no good past HDV format. It is fast, basic, easy. CS5 is best for high end stuff in pretty well any format. Both are very similar in edit functions but you also need two seperate PC's 32 and 64 bit. I never fully transitioned to PPro but works well for me.

December 16th, 2010, 08:19 PM	#1
Roger Shealy Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Fayetteville, GA Posts: 772	Sony Vegas to CS5 learning curve? Guys, I'm a long time Vegas user and have the CS5 Suite as well. I shoot with the 7D and t2i and even with Vegas 10, editing native .mov is a bit clunky, especially with multiple tracks and transistions. I'm running an i7-950 w/ 12GB RAM, OCZ RevoDrive SSD for OS & Programs, 2x6GBps Caviar Black Sata III's for source and target media, and NVidia GTX470 graphics. Vegas is really fast and easy, but using Cineform is a bit of a pain and I also like the idea of having the suite shared with AE and PS and the benefits of the mercury engine. Any of you guys made the transition from a recent version of Vegas to CS5 that can tell me what kind of learning curve and experience I should expect? I'm a Lynda.com subscriber, so I'll likely start there.

December 16th, 2010, 11:07 PM	#2
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Having gone the other way a few years back, I thought Vegas was a savior from Premiere's clunkiness. I felt like the processes they provided were too restrictive. In Vegas, you could do everything three different ways. I Premiere, you don't seem to have that latitude. I like the clean and quick work I do with Vegas and Cineform. All that said, I do have the urge to go back with it, but at this late date, CS5 cost, prices me out. If you have it, why not get into it, and then tell us what you think. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

December 19th, 2010, 12:51 AM	#4
James Hooey Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Bruce Pennisula, Canada Posts: 316	I moved from Vegas Pro 8 to Adobe Production Premiem CS4 and most recently CS5 almost two years ago. I still use Vegas occasionally as it is the fastest to whip together quick edits, but if you have the entire suite there is no way to beat how all the software integrates together (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, ect.) The learning curve was actually not that steep for Premier....it feels a little different in the way it edits and I use things like Premier's trimmer which is something I never did with Vegas. Of course keyboard shortcuts are different as well, but it's an editor like any other so if you understand the processes there is just a familiarization period really. With CS5 and my supported Cuda card Premier now is my go to editor as it now easily outperforms Vegas playback with HDV and .h264 codec files, multiple tracks and basic colour correction. In Vegas I would often prerender short chunks to make sure the edit was good at full framerate.....not an issue with CS5...it just plays full rate all the time :) I'd say go for it....honestly I like Premier more than Vegas although it seemed like an intimidating switch at the time. All the best, James Hooey __________________ For Stock Footage http://www.revostock.com/ViewProfile.html?&ID=4811 My Website http://www.soundprostudios.com

December 29th, 2010, 09:24 PM	#7
James Hooey Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Bruce Pennisula, Canada Posts: 316	"What I really want is the Vegas interface with the mercury engine. What we need here is a corporate merger!" Roger - that is a pretty bang on assessment of what would make a great editor!... seriously though your thoughts are completely valid...transitions in Premier are nothing simple like they are in Vegas....slip/slid and voila! transitions do not happen in Premier...it takes a bit more forethought and planning and yes, more mouse clicks. What I think you will find is that several other functions in Premier are not nearly as process intensive and offer far richer interfaces and control. eg: Premier's titler - intuitive, very complete and possibly even faster than creating titles than Vegas due to almost all the controls being on one big panel. I realise that vegas has or at least had the ProTitler thingy but it was so un-intuitive that I spent countless frustrating hours trying to get polished results and gave up on it. Keyframes for effects and track motion are dealt with in a better interface than Vegas as well which benefits everything with time based changes. Another consideration will be the integration with the rest of your CS suite....when you start to fiddle around with Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects and see how seemless the integration and consistent the interfaces are the light bulb will turn on suggesting...WOW exciting possibilities. Keep in mind though that each will have their own learning curve too! ;) Finally, it boils down how well do they work? Yep, Vegas is a bang up fast editor that can produce great results, Premier is a great editor with a little more depth and currently an edge in how well it plays with things on the timeline/rendering. I'm sure two or three years from now, full frame rate HD editing will be generally a defacto standard from all the big players so that wow factor will be mute. Bear that in mind as you step into Premier and invest the time to get proficient with it as Vegas may very well catch up in the playback realm....the interfaces/workflow will always differ to some degree though. Keep us posted on what else strikes you as you get further along with Premier! All the best, James Hooey __________________ For Stock Footage http://www.revostock.com/ViewProfile.html?&ID=4811 My Website http://www.soundprostudios.com

December 30th, 2010, 06:53 PM	#9
James Hooey Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Bruce Pennisula, Canada Posts: 316	sorry Roger, I've got a two editor sized skull....if I tried to learn a third one of them would dribble out the other ear. Never worked with FCP...I suspect it's different again from the odd post I have read here and there. All the best, James Hooey __________________ For Stock Footage http://www.revostock.com/ViewProfile.html?&ID=4811 My Website http://www.soundprostudios.com

December 17th, 2010, 10:14 AM	#3
Roger Shealy Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Fayetteville, GA Posts: 772	My son is using CS5 on a i5 laptop, effortlessly editing 7D footage and many tracks of effects. It caught my attention and I was very fortunate to recently get the master collection as a gift a month or so ago. I'll give it a whirl, just find the Adobe interface very confusing compared to Vegas!

December 19th, 2010, 06:19 AM	#5
Roger Shealy Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Fayetteville, GA Posts: 772	Thanks James. I'm going in.....

December 28th, 2010, 08:28 PM	#6
Roger Shealy Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Fayetteville, GA Posts: 772	Very early into my work with PPro CS5 so all my comments are highly suspect. Both PPro and Vegas have their strong suites. I much prefer the Vegas interface and find building a project much, much faster for the type of editing I do (realizing I haven't learned CS5 yet). But CS5's mercury engine is much smoother if I need to handle more than 2 tracks of DSLR footage. I like the output options of CS5 and its render speed seem faster. Vegas's CUDA implementation isn't nearly as good as CS5. With Vegas, several of my CPU cores are loping along and the GPU is barely touched. With CS5 the CPU is close to max and the GPU is heavily taxed. Go Adobe! For reasons I can't explain, rendering in Vegas to .mp4 with "CPU only" is faster than using "GPU" or "Auto". Why Sony? Adobe, on the other hand, feels like it takes several keystrokes/mouse moves to do what Vegas does in one. Why Adobe? I'm hoping I'll soon find a better way to overlap clips and add transitions than having to drag and drop transitions into the timeline versus the Vegas drag clips to overlap. Carpal tunnel is on the way unless I find the better methods. What I'm doing now seems incredibly painful. More to come. I imagine it will get better as I "learn the language" of CS5. What I really want is the Vegas interface with the mercury engine. What we need here is a corporate merger!

December 30th, 2010, 03:33 PM	#8
Roger Shealy Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Fayetteville, GA Posts: 772	Will do James. Any feel for how similar Premiere is to Final Cut Pro? If you can run one, can you essentially run the other?

December 31st, 2010, 03:15 PM	#10
Roger Shealy Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Fayetteville, GA Posts: 772	Well James, I'm starting to think I have a 1-editor skull, so you're doing better than me!

January 2nd, 2011, 06:14 PM	#11
Chris Duczynski Major Player Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: sydney Posts: 304	I use PE4 for fast cuts, DVD burns or wmv, flash, webmedia etc, but is no good past HDV format. It is fast, basic, easy. CS5 is best for high end stuff in pretty well any format. Both are very similar in edit functions but you also need two seperate PC's 32 and 64 bit. I never fully transitioned to PPro but works well for me.