This latest round of events with FCP X, and Adobes counter with half price for FCP defectors, leaves me scratching my head once again. In fact, this weekend, I actually downloaded the CS 5.5 trial, just to refressh myself on the Adobe side, and just to see if my memory of Premiere was any different from its present reality. I also took a basic tutorial in After Effects because I knew I had no idea what it was really capable of. I got through a first level really basic tutorials from YouTube, and noted that at the levels it was covering to that point, I was able to do similar things in Vegas without leaving it. No doubt that basic level is to be followed by some real cool stuff. The point of this is that in Vegas, we seem to have a lot of stuff on board the basic NLE, that Final Cut and Premiere relegate to additional programs.

I also experienced that same "handcuffed" feeling in the basic Premiere program, that I had felt before, and that had eventually driven me to Vegas. It feels to like Premiere requires some precise one way only steps to accomplish certain tasks that in Vegas I can attack from many different directions. So I am curious what others more familiar with these other NLEs have to say about what we are missing in Vegas.

Not really about NLE but more on VFX. I had to get After Effects for tracking and rotoscoping. In Vegas you need to use track motion by hand which was tedious. Worse for animating masks with multiple points, feathering was especially hard if you had hard edges you needed to keep. With CS5 the automatic rotoscoping works quite well and is cleaner.

I also have Premier but don't use it. Would also be interested in hearing from someone who does.

COLLABORATION - yes, in big letters - otherwise nothing much else.

The 50% discount to Premiere is really enticing.. I use Photoshop a lot and have messed with After Effects. The current price of Production Premium is what i bought AE CS3.0 alone back then! However I'm concerned about PP being one of the more costly NLEs i have seen. I do weddings mainly, dun rake in big $$.

The only thing i dig is the smooth DSLR editing. In all honestly i have tried working it out with Vegas 10 but it jams a little on my alien laptop. Ends up with me doing the cineform conversion till now which is a pain.

Sometimes i do 3D space stuff within Vegas from photoshop jpegs and it has never been a problem so the collaboration thingy doesnt impact me that much.

With the introduction of ofx it is comforting to see more plugins for Vegas. Like Twixtor which has been for the rest except for Vegas shows that we r getting noticed!

What a hard decision..

Mike, I have to agree that the rotoscoping and other specialized effects of After Effects aren't there, and that is something I am interested in exploring in After Effects.

Leslie: Can you explain what you mean by collaberation. Is it because that many people are not using Vegas ?, or lack of conversion capabilities to other editors ?

Sean: Would be cool if Adobe had that 50% offer open to any NLE user. I might consider that type of offer, as FCP users are.

vegas truly lacks ANY tools for collaboration - starting with the most basic - edl i/o.

without edl it's completely useless for working with anyone else on another platform.

otherwise it rocks!!!

Vegas really can't match the power of After Effects. Even if you load up Vegas with Boris and Newblue plug ins, it's still not in the same league. But Vegas gets quite powerful as you add plugins, and it's nice for me at least to stay in one software. Vegas handles my AVCHD files fluidly while AE won't even recognize them unless I transcode them.

i would never compare ANY nle with ae - they're two different beasts.

One of the things I am spoiled with about Vegas is timeline renders, etc. In the trial version of Premiere, I decided I wanted to render what I had on the time line so far, so I looked for render options, and of course it is called export in the file menu. So I tried to invoke that, but it wasn't available to open. Then I recalled from my old days of Premiere, I probably had to render the timeline first. I looked at my time line, and of course it was showing red above the imported clip files. (This was footage direct from a DSLR) So I had to prerender the timeline out, to fit the current project, and then stumble through setting and re-render an output file for what I needed.

This is the type of thing that seems so antiquated to me about Premiere. From the sound of FCP X, that is something that Apple was trying to change, making me think that FCP was trying to be more "Vegss like". And it seems that this type of approach may be what "old pro" users are rebelling against.

i would never compare ANY nle with ae - they're two different beasts.

I agree, to some extent. But Vegas does do a good job on many of the lower end type editing techniques in its unified time line that Adobe seems to push off to After Effects for "advance" treatment. And with Adobe packaging everything as a single cohesive unit known as CS 5.5, the comparison will be made by many.

Chris, if you had a red bar above the sequence timeline and did a pre-render (which isn't required to export in AME), then you didn't have CUDA working for you. Any i7 machine with decent RAM and even a cheap CUDA-capable nVidia graphics card will give you a buttery smooth editing experience unless your project gets exceptionally complex and/or you have specific need to load on a bunch of the less commonly used, non-accelerated effects. In that regard, I think your brief assessment probably isn't giving it a fair shake.

As a longtime PPro user, I guess I just can't relate to the handcuffed feeling. PPro to me is so straightforward yet robust. Who knows, I might feel as you do if I were to try editing in Vegas since I know PPro well but not Vegas. We all use what works and is comfortable for us.

I'm not the one to research the question, but am kind of curious about the converse to your original question...what specific NLE features Vegas has that PPro doesn't? PPro CS5.5 is really broad and deep; I go to AE for compositing, not editing, so the comment about pushing off to AE doesn't really ring true for me. Again, I'm unable to compare with Vegas but I don't find a need to go to AE for editing tasks. Might be interesting to see a listing of what one NLE does that the other doesn't, and vice versa.

Yep, collaboration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can't even export/import audio to/from its own ACID program...silly.

As far as FX go, AE absolutely rocks, even for rudimentary FX its simple and effective.

Lack of third party support, not really vegas's fault, but they do have a broadcast hard ware giant behind them... take a look at edius, they have grass valley behind them and they get tons of great toys to play with!

Shameful.

I agree on lack of collaboration. I love editing in Vegas but would really like to export my timeline out to Premiere and AE for grading. It's unfortunate because I think Vegas would have many more users if they played nicer in the sandbox.

Have you ever attempted grading in Vegas, and how does AE and Premiere differ from Vegas grading capabilities ?

With Cineform and Firstlight, I am finding myself grading my clips before editing, and then touching up in Vegas.

In answer to Pete:

1. General editing in Vegas is breeze. You can pull most file formats into a time line right out of Windows explorer, and mix any format on the same time line. From windows explorer you can drag and drop files directly in the media bins, or directly on the time line.

2. From your media bins, you can drag directly to the time line, or open in trimmer to close trim before dropping on the time line. Again mouse works in all these function, eliminating command keys. Fine frame by frame final trimming is probably best done on time line by enlarging time line so each frame become visibly represent on the time line. From there his S where you want to cut, highlight the extra piece and cut it.

3. I actually started editing when you didn't have to learn commands. I don't know if it is slower, but Vegas work flow with mouse is super clean in my opinion. Drag and drop is the name of the game in most situations.

4. I m not having any issues with the color correction capabilities. It also has great tools for mattes and compositing. Simple to use.

5. Basic titler is great. The ProTitler is kind of neat looking, but I just haven't tried to master it. Having some of AE's titling capabilities and presets, its seems this one is a bit week.

6. Key Framing effects and titles and such is simple and easy.

7. When I first started in Vegas, it seemed it rendered final versions quicker than Premiere.

I will post other impressions as we go along with this discussion.

Heh. Just noticed Vegas 10.0e added support for Omneon Spectrum MXFs - but still no actual EDLs. So, hey, be high-end, just in a bubble.

Just saw that on E. Now that is collaberation.... And this raises the question about EDL.... is that going to be there in the future still ?

afaic until vegas gets edl (cmx, etc.,) it's NEVER going to be collaborative.

that said, are scs interested? i don't think so....

afaic until vegas gets edl (cmx, etc.,) it's NEVER going to be collaborative.

that said, are scs interested? i don't think so....

No, they are not. I really wish Sony's Professional Division could get their hands on it. Or Maybe BlackMagicDesign can buy it?:)

I use Vegas all the time, but even i can tell why others (users of FCP, AVID, Adobe) may look down upon it without even using it... its marketed as a consumer, or at a best prosumer app. But it is not! Except for the collaboration and the lack of third party soft/hardware it is very powerful and fluid!

Go to Sony Creative Software - Vegas video - ACID & Sound Forge audio editing (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/) right now and it's home page is full of the of the entry level stuff. With the recent FCPX debacle there's probably quite a lot of editors, even AVID, and Adobe users who are asking, "hey what else is out there?" If they come to SCS's site, they are gonna make a U-turn. I would!

Dear Sony, Please make Vegas a truly professional NLE so i don't get laughed at when i go to the post house...but even more than that and seriously - make Vegas a truly professional NLE so i don't have use AVID to go the post house!!!!

Thank you.

afaic until vegas gets edl (cmx, etc.,) it's NEVER going to be collaborative.

that said, are scs interested? i don't think so....

My guess is no as users have been asking for this capability for a VERY long time and SCS still hasn't delivered.

[QUOTE=Chris Barcellos;1664985]Have you ever attempted grading in Vegas, and how does AE and Premiere differ from Vegas grading capabilities ?

Chris, yes quite often but there are times when I would like to use Magic bullet looks, Neat video in 16bit and the shadow highlights effects among others. It would be nice to have option without having to render out every clip. Also the titler in Premiere is light years ahead of Vegas and the quality is better.

Thanks Marc, I'll have to check out the titler on my trial version. Haven't looked at that yet.

I tried editing in Premier again yesterday but 10 minutes into my edit I decided screw this! Syncing media with PluralEyes is such a hassle with Premier, you have to export to an XML then if the sync wasn't 100% you have to redo it all, then import the modified XML back into your project - seriously! In Vegas I press one button and PluralEyes sync's my timeline and for clips that didn't sync I simply lock down and re-sync only that clip. What a mission in Premier! I really wish Vegas will get their act together and offer better integration with other systems & since Red Giant no longer supports Vegas I will have to eventually move to Premier which I'm not looking forward to.

I've been trying out PluralEyes in Vegas over the last few days and man is it fantastic! About 2 minutes and four 20 minute clips are analysed and perfectly sync'd...

been reading this with interest.
I learned in Vegas and for a while have been trying to learn other systems ( a long while actually), Ive downloaded so many trials I cant remember, Premiere more than a few times, Avid, Edius and an old version of FC express on the Mac side.
I was recently on holidays and made myself work with Premiere for 6 weeks. I must say I think its pretty good, some annoying things that take longer than Vegas, but other things that are def better,
bezier keyframing,
Fast color corrector is really really good.
AFX integration ( not completely sold on dynamic link yet but I'm persevering ).
And the more I learn in After FX the better it gets, once you get into expressions and animation presets, Vegas and Premiere seem like Moviemaker for Titling. If you have AFX and havent used the Rotobrush tool, google a tute and watch it rock your world for masking.
I cant imagine not using Vegas anymore, its just so quick to do small projects.
I dont think any one NLE is the BEST, If I could own them all I would, but if you could have some grand magical dynamic link to jump between any software........... that would make someone very very wealthy.
Surely it wouldnt be that hard to make, an interface that converts any project file into any other project file of your choosing, Vegas to Avid, Premiere to Vegas and so on.
I know FX would be a prob, but cuts and crossfades should be easy.
Any rocket scientists out there with some spare time?

I've been trying out PluralEyes in Vegas over the last few days and man is it fantastic! About 2 minutes and four 20 minute clips are analysed and perfectly sync'd...

Re: Plural Eyes

I bought the stand alone version of Plural Eye, ie., Dual Eyes, so I could work in any editor in the future. With Dual eyes you just do a mass synch, and have it create new files. Alternatively, it will create exact length sound track that fit exactly on an audio track in synch with the original footage. It is not reencoding.any video in either case.

(One thing I have noted with it is that the resulting file does not convert well to Cineform. So any mass synch to that includes Cineform in the chain, should have the convert to Cineform prior to the synch>)

[QUOTE=Chris Barcellos;1664985]Have you ever attempted grading in Vegas, and how does AE and Premiere differ from Vegas grading capabilities ?

Chris, yes quite often but there are times when I would like to use Magic bullet looks, Neat video in 16bit and the shadow highlights effects among others. It would be nice to have option without having to render out every clip. Also the titler in Premiere is light years ahead of Vegas and the quality is better.

I tried the titler just briefly last night, and it doesn't seem to have changed a lot since PPro 2. Memories of working with it came flooding back. I do recall that in first working with Vegas title, I felt that it was too simple. But I have not really missed Premieres more advanced titler. Then again, my primary thing is narrative films, where titling is usually pretty basic. I do want to learn a bit about the mondern trend of including location identification in the scene as a 3D image (like in "Fringe", et al), but I am not sure if Premiere's titler is that advanced. May be an AE thing ?

As to the Magic Bullet looks, I solve that issue with Cineform in most of my projects and using Firstlight. If you haven't seen it at work, it acts instantaneously on any footage adding a chosen look to the original file, as well any unrecompressed progeny in the project. Coupled with the Technicolor picture style I now shoot most of my stuff in on my Canon 5D, we end up with pretty nice grading capability.

I really think a lot of the complaints about Vegas's titler comes from thinking it was ever intended to do the same things other titlers do.

It really wasn't. It's meant to get words onto the screen, and not much else. Vegas's other tools and FX do the rest.

You can make fantastic titles in Vegas; you just don't do it all in the titler box. You may prefer to do it in the titler box, but that's more a matter of preference than an actual failure of the titler -- you can't pull nails with a ball-peen hammer, but it was never designed to do it in the first place. It's just a different tool from a claw hammer.

Now, it's true that it's difficult to do things with individual letters, but not too many titlers within NLEs do it, either.

If you want to do more advanced work with titles in Vegas, I find working in combination with Photoshop does the job. Just have both programs open, do the title work in Photoshop with a layered file, and to see immediate changes on the same file on the timeline in Vegas, just save in Photoshop. The changes are immediately reflected in Vegas.

Thanks for the comments about tilte making. Led me to just do a search on YouTube and see a lot of Title making tutorial.... like this one:

YouTube - ‪Sony Vegas | How to create Action title Intros (all versions)‬‏ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmpBsKL8x4Q)

I've spent a considerable amount of time learning Premiere to date and although I'm not at any advance level within Premiere I've decided to compile a list of pro's & con's.

Vegas is ready to edit from the moment you open the software, simply drag & drop media into the timeline. With Premiere you are looking at roughly 10 minutes setup time, importing media and organising before you actually start editing.

Basic fade-in effect within Vegas is a single mouse click & drag, Premiere is more complex requiring you to key-frame your opacity in order to fade-in. Want a cross fade between events? Simply drag your clip over another in Vegas and it automatically crossfades between events & shows you the duration of the fade in numerical values. In Premiere you have to guess how long your crossfade duration is & dragging one clip over another does nothing you are required to select a transition and apply it manually.

Ripple edits is toggled on/off in Vegas & is a dream to work with, Premiere offer Ripple edits as a tool you need to select for every Ripple, quite annoying.

Moving around within the timeline in Vegas is very simple and it's easy to get a grasp of the overall edit you are working on, Premiere is more locked down. Vegas reminds me of Google Earth in terms of movement you can explore and find your edit while Premiere is like taking a paper map and finding your way you need to know where you are going before you actually edit.

Another great feature that Vegas offers is when you start playing your video it allows you to jump around within your timeline playing where ever you click while in Premiere it stops playing every time you click somewhere. You can actually edit in Vegas while you are playing video keeping a step ahead and seeing you edits play as you change them.

Unfortunately Vegas suffers when it comes to colour grading, Premiere has superiors colour grading effects, with very accurate Auto Colour/Contrast/Levels. Integration with After Effects and Encore is where Vegas lose more points but in terms of the actual time it takes to edit & as a creative tool Vegas wins.

My solution? Edit in Vegas - Save As Avid Legacy AAF and Import into Premiere when done for colour grading and effects.

Nicholas. Interesting concept with the Avid Legacy AAF middle step...... I am going to mess around with a try at that tonight.

Chris only problem with AAF is that it doesn't support changes to audio events like fades applied in Vegas and won't import if you did. You have to remove all modified audio from your timeline before Saving as AAF. It's a bit of a headache but my current workflow for colour grading is, edit in Vegas, render audio, export video to Premiere via AAF, colour grade, import sound & output. I use to do it all in Vegas but the more I learn about Premiere the more I respect it's colour grading capabilities.

Nicholas, thank you. I've been unable to import into Premiere from Vegas and it looks like you just solved the puzzle for me. I too am interested in final grading in Premiere but prefer Vegas by far for editing. May I ask how you have your color correction monitor set up through premiere? Are you using a third party card?

Negative conforming. Features are still shot in film. You need to keep track of key codes. (In answer to AVID)

So I was just in Vegas 10, and was going to save a test edit in AAF. Only choice in the save as was .veg, and .edl (text file) I went to help and it was explained how to save it, but the save routine only allows How do you save AAF ?

Use Vegas 9.
Unless I'm mistaken export AAF was removed in 10. (please tell me i'm wrong if its hidden somewhere).

Marc I don't have a special monitor or third party hardward for grading, over time you develop a feel for it according to your style. Chris that is weird, I'm running Vegas 10e and when I "Save As" I have AAF as an option.

64 bit versions of Vegas Pro does not support AAF, 32 bit versions do support AAF (even version 10.0e). Same was for Vegas Pro 9.

Maybe not FCPX but here are some reasons why somebody would choose CS5.5 or Avid over Vegas.

1. DVCPROHD. Broadcast standard and Sony needs to accept that.
2. Mac Support. Yes this is a big deal to a lot of people, especially if they are coming from FCP and refuse to use FCPX.
3. OMF. One of the reasons why so many hate FCPX.
4. Great EDL/XML support. The basics are there but this is one of those features that hasn't changed for years in Vegas.
5. Industry recognition. Yes this matters to some especially if they work on projects with other post houses.
6. Better 3rd party capture card support. You can use AJA and Blackmagic with Vegas but with limited functionality compared to CS5.5 or FCP. Avid has their own capture card solution. Vegas just doesn't take capture card users as seriously as they should.
7. Vast 3rd party plugin library. It is getting better for Vegas but still not at the level of CS5.5 and FCP. Avid has a limited set of plugins as well although it tends to not need them as much.
8. 100% reliable best quality timeline playback. With Avid I was able to play full HDV at best quality and 3 layers with effects in RT through HD-SDI and it would never drop a frame with doing any timeline rendering all on a core 2 duo machine. This is something that is hard to count on with Vegas. Throw more cores at Vegas and it gets better but FCP can fly through HD on any laptop like it is butter. I just feel we cannot run a timeline in Vegas and have a client watch it without rendering and expect it to playback perfectly. To be fare I'm not sure I trust CS5.5 for this either unless you have a supported video card.

Don's get me wrong I happen to like Vegas but there are a few things holding it back. I have been to the Vegas headquarters in Madison as well, great team they have there. I do feel however they put more emphasis on cool new features instead of improving the core of the program.

Use Vegas 9.
Unless I'm mistaken export AAF was removed in 10. (please tell me i'm wrong if its hidden somewhere).

Thanks Gerald.

Maybe not FCPX but here are some reasons why somebody would choose CS5.5 or Avid over Vegas.

1. DVCPROHD. Broadcast standard and Sony needs to accept that.
2. Mac Support. Yes this is a big deal to a lot of people, especially if they are coming from FCP and refuse to use FCPX.
3. OMF. One of the reasons why so many hate FCPX.
4. Great EDL/XML support. The basics are there but this is one of those features that hasn't changed for years in Vegas.
5. Industry recognition. Yes this matters to some especially if they work on projects with other post houses.
6. Better 3rd party capture card support. You can use AJA and Blackmagic with Vegas but with limited functionality compared to CS5.5 or FCP. Avid has their own capture card solution. Vegas just doesn't take capture card users as seriously as they should.
7. Vast 3rd party plugin library. It is getting better for Vegas but still not at the level of CS5.5 and FCP. Avid has a limited set of plugins as well although it tends to not need them as much.
8. 100% reliable best quality timeline playback. With Avid I was able to play full HDV at best quality and 3 layers with effects in RT through HD-SDI and it would never drop a frame with doing any timeline rendering all on a core 2 duo machine. This is something that is hard to count on with Vegas. Throw more cores at Vegas and it gets better but FCP can fly through HD on any laptop like it is butter. I just feel we cannot run a timeline in Vegas and have a client watch it without rendering and expect it to playback perfectly. To be fare I'm not sure I trust CS5.5 for this either unless you have a supported video card.

Don's get me wrong I happen to like Vegas but there are a few things holding it back. I have been to the Vegas headquarters in Madison as well, great team they have there. I do feel however they put more emphasis on cool new features instead of improving the core of the program.

Thomas:

With the exception of playback issues, sounds like your list of short comings are about "niche uses". Really, how many out there are capturing into cards ? Maybe a thousand or two worldwide ? I am curious about that.

Like FCP X, but earlier on, I think SCS has recognized that money is not in those specialized uses, and that third party plug in will grow as use by mainstream users increases. Definitely not a marketing strategy that favors the pro user with specialized need, but on the other hand, one that may preserve the economic viability of the product.

The question is can the pro user get what he needs in this NLE so he or she can take advantage of the nice things about it. Thus, the reason for this thread. Is the pro or high end consumer better off going to Premiere Pro or Avid or FCP X ?

The history of Adobe products has been ever increasing pricing-- probably necessary for the development it has undergone. But the result is that you lose a share of the market every time your entry level goes up $100.00. And when updates are charged at high levels, that makes the common user who doesn't want all the new stuff, look at alternatives like Vegas.

Conversly, if Vegas starts adding support for these niche areas, its licensing and development is going to require its price to increase. I don't think its a matter of concentration on developing the core, as much as it is a choice of marketing.

From that stand point, I like the idea of a solid clean and easy to use NLE like Vegas, with the specialized capabilities to be added as I need them from third parties. I think Apple has recognized that too, though it didn't expect as much backlash as it has gotten.

As a wild card, I'd add the new Lightworks to the list, still beta, but I've been having a quick play with it and shall we say I find it less annoying than Vegas when trying to do actual edits. Vegas is good at assembling lots of different media, but to be honest I find it frustrating as a program for frame accurate action cutting.

Lightworks isn't the power in the NLE market that it was, but for actual editing it's pretty neat. Interestingly, you can use either AVID or FCP keyboard inputs or the rather cool looking Lightworks console. The manual is also pretty readable.

Thomas:

With the exception of playback issues, sounds like your list of short comings are about "niche uses". Really, how many out there are capturing into cards ? Maybe a thousand or two worldwide ? I am curious about that.

Like FCP X, but earlier on, I think SCS has recognized that money is not in those specialized uses, and that third party plug in will grow as use by mainstream users increases. Definitely not a marketing strategy that favors the pro user with specialized need, but on the other hand, one that may preserve the economic viability of the product.

The question is can the pro user get what he needs in this NLE so he or she can take advantage of the nice things about it. Thus, the reason for this thread. Is the pro or high end consumer better off going to Premiere Pro or Avid or FCP X ?

The history of Adobe products has been ever increasing pricing-- probably necessary for the development it has undergone. But the result is that you lose a share of the market every time your entry level goes up $100.00. And when updates are charged at high levels, that makes the common user who doesn't want all the new stuff, look at alternatives like Vegas.

Conversly, if Vegas starts adding support for these niche areas, its licensing and development is going to require its price to increase. I don't think its a matter of concentration on developing the core, as much as it is a choice of marketing.

From that stand point, I like the idea of a solid clean and easy to use NLE like Vegas, with the specialized capabilities to be added as I need them from third parties. I think Apple has recognized that too, though it didn't expect as much backlash as it has gotten.

I agree with you but it is those niche things that do cause pro editors to think of FCP and Adobe long before they think of Vegas. Perhaps you don't use those things but the pros do and we need them. We cannot compromise with what we do and it is how we work.

Again I'm not knocking Vegas at all. I think it is an awesome program but we also use CS5 and FCP at work. We are even an authorized dealer for Sony Vegas but there are just some things in a professional environment it just cannot do.

We see an example of this need right now with FCPX. It isn't because it is different that pros are furious over. It is the lack of some of those features lacking in Vegas.

There is a good reason why companies like AJA, Blackmagic and Matrox exist. Because people out there do have a need for capture cards.

Though I am not an Apple user, I like the idea with FCPX that I can buy a real clean basic NLE and ad what I need for my specific product. I think this is beginning to come true for Vegas with its most recent changes in plug in structure.

I get a feeling with Adobe that you pay a pretty high price for medium level performance, and then if you want to maximize it, you have to go to a specialized product anyway.

And in the background of all of this is the development of Linux based freeware editing, which seems to be accelerating. I have played with KdenLive a bit in months past, actually editing my Canon DSLR footage. Big issue there is output codecs, from what I have seen.

As a wild card, I'd add the new Lightworks to the list.

I agree Brian - it's very interesting as well as being extremely customisable.

Hmmmm. While I love the open source concept, at first blush Lightworks looks like it has a pretty steep learning curve. Though I haven't explored in detail, it seems that the preview capability is week. Also, It only displays on one of my two screens.

I haven't gone into Lightworks beta with any depth, but there appears to be a logic to everything. Although it currently doesn't ingest everything and there is also the commercial version. Also, you need to buy a license that allows you to ingest certain codecs.

Is There a Good Overall Tutorial here or on DVD for Beginners? (http://www.lightworksbeta.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=26&id=12325&Itemid=269) - there's an intro video half way down.

From my quick play the editing was much more fun and I was making test edits very quickly. They've got a quick manual which gets you going. From what I could see, Lightworks wasn't that more complex than Vegas, just different. From what I gather from an editor friend it was originally designed for film editors, so if you've cut film (which I've done) you can see the parallels at work.

It really depends what you want to use it for, but I'd use it before Vegas for narrative drama or standard TV docs. Perhaps less so for a production that has multi source media. which Vegas seems to be strong at.

Use Vegas 9.
Unless I'm mistaken export AAF was removed in 10. (please tell me i'm wrong if its hidden somewhere).

You are mistaken, and it isn't hidden. File-Save As, then select AAF or AVID AAF from the type-dropbox. It also supports in and export of EDL.

Sony's version of EDL, but not a standard EDL. It's no good for cross-application use.