Those of you using Vegas Pro 9 - are you seeing any significant differences in the render speed versus Vegas Pro 8?

No. I found version 9 a complete waste of money on every level. You results may vary.

I think to say it is a complete waste of money depends on what you do. Much of my work is coporate projects that involve using stills and I find that the ability to use just about any size image was worth the money by itself. You can do very nice pans on high res images now, plus it takes the Photoshop image re-size step out.

I also like the new darker interface, new FX filters, and some of the new selections uder editing preferences (transitions and image sizing spcifically).

I just completed a 9 minute video that was full of high res images, transitions, and composited text /graphics done in Boris Red 4.33 plug-in. I transitioned from Vegas Pro 8 to 9 in the middle of this. In the initial renders (using stils that had been re-sized under 2K) it still crashed constantly while trying to get an HD WMV file. Ater moving to 9 it hasn't crashed once on full renders using very high res still images.

I've also just competed a music video that also rendered seamlessly with many tracks of SD and HD footage composited together.

Overall, I think a good upgrade. Just waiting on DVFilm to provide updates for Raylight Ultra. I can't comment for absolute speed on render, but the sheer fact the crashes have been reduced so dramatically for me with no other changes makes it a winner for me. Also seems much more stable with Boris Red as well.

Glad you like it Mark.

To answer Stephen's question about rendering, rendering times are pretty much the same, no improvement. For faster rendering times you much move to 64 bit version, which I found unusable (very buggy on the timeline) or buy a faster processor.

I personally use approximately 100 images mixed with video in most of my projects that begin as large jpgs (4000x2800 or some such size).

The discs I receive from photographers typically contain about 1000 images and I use Irfanview which resizes a DVD full of photos in two or three clicks. You mentioned using Photoshop to resize, and I'm mentioning Iranview for you Mark as I find Photoshop to be cumbersome and slow for resizing. Irfanview is much quicker. Of course it sounds like you don't need to resize anyway, but I find things render faster and handle better when images are no larger than they need to be.

If you are using high resolution images I suppose Vegas 9 might be advantageous, but I have never have reason to use any image more than 2100x1400 or so. Those sizes have never given me any problems.

The other things you like are as you say, subjective.

I abandoned version 9 within a couple of weeks of buying it, but I'm certainly glad you are enjoying it.

after I've found it slower and less responsive i went back to 8c and still lke it.

I went back to 8c also.

In business it is sometimes better to improve the quality of a proven product like 8c, sell more of that product, instead of releasing a new product every 18 months.

Sony hasn't learned that yet.

One shouldn't expect the rendering speed to improve significantly from 8c to 9.. If it did, it would just point to poor coding in the 8c version as it relates to the rendering engine.

It shouldn't decrease though... and so far, I haven't heard anyone reporting slower rendering speed with version 9..

I'm liking 9 better now after the cineform fix and version 9 can render out to Sony AVC without crashing..

Thanks all!

Thanks for the tip, Jeff. I've always just run a script in Photoshop to resize batches of photos. I'll give your recommendation a try.

Mark

Mark, just like Jeff, I'm a long-time fan of IrfanView.
I use it to batch resize and change from JPEG to PNG all at the same time.
It's very quick at it too.
All in all, a great (and free!!) app.