Preview performance, as best as I can tell is identical to Version 8. What it appears Sony did was find a workaround to avoid actually improving playback performance by adding the new auto adjust feature to playback. Playback of pan and cropped photos on the timeline seems marginally better.

I just did a render test and rendering times are identical to V8 with or without photos. I have never had an issue with rendering times and Vegas, so this is by no means a criticism, just an observation.

Edit: I want to add that with the 64 bit version playback does seem rather good. I just learned that Ultimate S 4.1 will work with 64 bit Vegas, so I might just be jumping on this train after all. I would lose magic bullet, but I could live with that.

Okay, well as you could imagine Jeff as I believe you are in the same boat... For me, personally, this is a bit of bad news. I was secretly hoping we'd see a small performance and quality boost with video preview.

Jon

I don't want to sound harsh, I really don't, but this new auto-adjust feature for playback seems really lame to me. Lazy and lame. I'm sure there are plenty of other great features, but with HD where it is in the market, I cannot help but wonder why Sony seems to be deliberately refusing to remedy this thorn in our sides.

People have been complaining about this aspect of Vegas for ages, and now Sony has taken a piece of duct tape to fix it. This is how Red Green would fix the playback issue.

I cannot and will not ever understand software design, and I cannot imagine the issues those folks must deal with, so I really want to be kind, but it is difficult at this point. I still love the workflow of Vegas and until another can match that I'm sticking with this product, but until then I still feel like this product is a really good one, but the folks who sell it are keeping it from being truly great.

Amazing! Yet another worthless Vegas upgrade. They put a sexy skin on the timeline, make a few simplistic, superficial changes, and call this a new version. At least, this time I saved myself $187 US. Sony seems to just be coasting on the work of people who have long ago left the company. What a shame!

What do they do, up there in Madison, besides swat mosquitos and try to stay warm?

well ive downloaded the trial today and I think the preview of HDV and cineform files has definately improved over vegas 8 but im not convinced the performance gain is worth the upgrade price.
I suppose if you are a RED user or XDCAM user then the upgrade is worth it.
I will wait and use up my 30 days trial before I decide and also wait to see what bugs others find.

Jon, I must admit that since I got a 30" monitor recently my playback issues are much less. Because the screen is larger, I can have the preview window relatively smaller, and yet it is much larger than it was on my 24" , thereby giving me "better" preview.

The downside is that a 30" monitor seems almost too large in some ways. I NEVER thought I'd say the words "too large" in the same sentence with the word monitor, that is for sure!

It does appear at this point that 64 bit version has the bugs worked out, so for those that don't need MB, the 64 bit version might be a great reason to upgrade.

John, I would not dispute your finding, but in 32 bit version I just opened an HD project and in Preview mode playback quality was actually dreadful when the timeline hit some graphics, I actually had to go to good quality to even read the text in the graphics. The HD footage was fine, but I didn't find playback performance to be any better, but I'm talking mt2 files, which may not be fair.

If there is an improvement, I just might be missing it.

I have always liked to have the latest, but after the disappointment I suffered with Vegas 8, I might not go for this one.

I'm taking a wait and see attitude and waiting for more reactions.

Actually, I have found that preview performance in the 64 bit version does appear to be superior to the 32 bit version, its not bad at all.

Jeff I think i just found a problem here, i just had a single line of hdv cineform video on the time line then above that i put a simple one line title.
The play back was spot on at 25p (best full) until it hit the text. It then defaulted to preview half but dropped to 6 fps!
Not only that but once past the text it remained at 6fps until i stopped playback and restarted it again....is this a bug.

John did you disable the auto adjust feature of playback?

no not yet but will try now..

Yep thanks, that stopped the problem, not such a smart feature to have enabled by default!

I'm not a big fan of it...I don't get it. Well, I get it, but I don't think much of it.

I'm finding that the preview works much better in 8.0c than 9.0....
My "good" "full" in 8.0c is better than the "draft" "half" in 9.0 and it doesn't matter if its 32 or 64 bit, I tried all of them with the same veg file.

I must be missing a setting or something...

Well Bob, I found that with 32 bit version it seems that the auto setting in the "Preview" quality mode is terrible, but full is OK. To get quality comparable to 8.0c "preview" settings I have to use Good full in v9 to look as good as Preview auto in 8.0c.

Like I said earlier, Sony seems to be adjusting the settings, but not much else. They really seem to be taking users to be complete fools.

I imagine the conversation would've gone like this:

"I have an idea...lets change the settings for playback to work better by reducing the quality and those idiots will never know the difference. We'll tweak a few items here and there, spruce up the interface, add Red support, etc. and bam we're done. You know what they say, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh_t."

Well, I admit it! I'm baffled!

Well Bob, I found that with 32 bit version it seems that the auto setting in the "Preview" quality mode is terrible, but full is OK. To get quality comparable to 8.0c "preview" settings I have to use Good full in v9 to look as good as Preview auto in 8.0c.

I agree the "quality" is better in the Good setting, but I'm talking about the smoothness of the video preview...

With 9.0 its hanging up and freezing at any fades or effects...
With 8.0c, it runs much smoother, even on a higher quality setting...not perfect, but better.

I'm working with AVCHD, 1080 30p....

Looks like I will continue to use VASST Gear Shift and work with proxy files...

I see, actually I haven't experienced the same thing you have as far as v9 tripping up, it seems about as smooth for me, and 64 bit is definitely smoother, but that is just me.

Re: the 64 bit version, I'm giving it a thumbs up.

I see, actually I haven't experienced the same thing you have as far as v9 tripping up, it seems about as smooth for me, and 64 bit is definitely smoother, but that is just me.

Re: the 64 bit version, I'm giving it a thumbs up.

Well, not exactly...
In typical Sony fashion, they fubared the Cineform codec in v9 64-bit. Now, I understand that moving to 64-bit isn't a trivial process, but, to do so without a word to your 3rd party vendors like Cineform is just a poor business practice. Sony just seems to thumb their nose at anyone who isn't at their party.

Everyone else has moved on to DirectX, why does Sony continue with vfw? it's old technology that causes more problems than it's worth.

First of all, reducing quality to maintain playback rate is something that Premiere has been doing all along. I haven't read of any Premiere users complaining about that. Vegas has previously taken the opposite tact, reduce frame rate to maintain the selected preview quality. Now we have a choice between the two. Choice is good.

Secondly, David Taylor from Cineform said that they are working on a 64-bit version of the Cineform codec which will work in Vegas v9.

I find it amusing that some people complain about Vegas still using VFW, instead of DirectX, but then they also complain that Vegas has decided to take the full leap to 64-bit, which means leaving 32-bit codecs behind.

Yeah, I think SCS is somewhat getting a bad rap for incompatability with their 64-bit software. As far as I know, they're really the first to jump full steam into the 64-bit arena with this type of software and I think they're doing a pretty good job.

The fact that Vegas 8 and Vegas 9 give you BOTH versions for the price of one rather than charge you a seperate or premium for the 64-bit versions is commendable. The reality is that if somebody doesn't like the compatability of the 64-bit version, just close your eyes and pretend they never gave it to you as an option and continue on in your 32-bit world.

In the end, probably by the next version release in 12-18 months, I won't be surprised if Sony's software running on Windows 7 in native 64-bit mode will be the fastest and most stable NLE in the marketplace. :)

Jon

I'm running Avid Media Composer v3.5 on Win7 64-bit with little to no probs. It's stable, all my DI's work, Renders are faster and reliable. Granted, it's not written in 64-bit, but then, I make a living at what works, not what's experimental. Vista 64 bit isn't ready for prime time. By the time Win7 is released, 64-bit will be third gen, and a lot more OEM's are publishing drivers.

I agree with you, Jon. If you don't want to experiment with your livlihood, don't go 64-bit....yet.....at least, not with Vegas. Ironically, Vegas 9 32-bit doesn't work so good....LOL.

Well Bob, I found that with 32 bit version it seems that the auto setting in the "Preview" quality mode is terrible, but full is OK. To get quality comparable to 8.0c "preview" settings I have to use Good full in v9 to look as good as Preview auto in 8.0c.

Like I said earlier, Sony seems to be adjusting the settings, but not much else. They really seem to be taking users to be complete fools.

I imagine the conversation would've gone like this:

"I have an idea...lets change the settings for playback to work better by reducing the quality and those idiots will never know the difference. We'll tweak a few items here and there, spruce up the interface, add Red support, etc. and bam we're done. You know what they say, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh_t."

Well, I admit it! I'm baffled!

Hey Jeff, So I am guessing that the general consensus is save your money on this one?

I too wonder if there is a need to upgrade just yet. Of course, this upgrade is a no-brainer for EX-1/EX-3 users and Red users, but for HDV it's a close call. The other thing is that the X.0 versions are always a little rough, and Sony gets many things, especially performance issues, ironed out with the X.1 and X.2 updates. So maybe it's worth it to at least wait until the first update at this point? Of course, all bets are off if the Red Scarlet comes out next week...

Ken, If you're running Vista 64 bit I can tell you there are, for me so far, NO issues with Vegas 9 64 bit. It is a champ, excellent piece of software, and worth the upgrade price.

Don't forget the special upgrade pricing expires in June sometime.

I like the 64 bit version enough that I am going for it even though I can't use MB with it.

Tim, I feel this way: Vegas v9 32 bit has no features that that are worth the upgrade, but that is just me. Performance is the same otherwise.

On the other hand, I have been running Vista 64 bit for a while waiting for a 64 bit version of Vegas that I like. Well, that version is here. I like this version very much.

So Tim, if you are sticking with 32 bit and you have $200 or so to spare, the upgrade will not hurt anything, but if you don't I don't see that you're missing much.

If you are running 64 bit Windows, I recommend the 64 bit Version of Vegas for increased performance, great stability, and the new interface.

but I could have sworn the last time I upgrade from 7 to 8, it was only like $150 Australian dollars, this time the upgrade is costing me $249 US, which is $496Aust, and shipping is on top of that.
So the upgrade is certainly not looking too sweet at the moment, especially considering the minimum changes involved, and with all the probs of 8, it was still a major change from 7

But it's not $249US.

Once you put in your Vegas Pro 8 S/N, the price will then drop $50.

I disabled Auto preview quality and it did not improve my frame rate.. I'm basically getting 1/3 of the FPS that I was getting with 8.0c...

v9 trial 32-bit , playing back 1080P 30P Cineform content.

Hi Jeff, I am still on Win XP 32bit and have no problems at all with 8.0c. Judging from what I have read here and over at the Sony forum, I don't think I have to be in a hurry, and can probably even wait until 9.0a or even 9.0b comes out. That being said, I do intend to move to Win7 at the end of the year and will probably get a Scarlet or EX-1 around the same time. Might as well plop down the money for 9 now, even though I doubt I would even install it on the current computer. Its the old "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" paradigm.

Kevin, if you're going to upgrade, this is the time, as the special upgrade pricing expires in June.

Working "ON" a 64-bit OS and "BEING" a 64-bit app are two totally different things.

Virtually all windows apps will "work" on a 64-bit OS like Vista 64. But that doesn't mean anything more than they will run. Actually being a 64-bit app is a totally different story.