Not with the 'bits' to capture - but I could look at the software on another machine - any idea if it comes with sample files or would I need to copy over some .avi's ...hmmmm would it recognise avi's captured by Pinnacle/Premiere?

ROss

Good questions worthy of their own topic.

I can say that i ran vegas video 3 and premiere 6.5 on my old machine together and they didn't bother each other in the slightest.

Zac

I think I'll play safe and load it onto another machine ... "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day".

Thanks for the advice folks.

Ross

Sorry for the question but, what is NLE?

Thanks

N on
L inear
E diting

I bought Vegas today. I'm selling Premiere. My days of indecision are over.

I have been using Vegas for a year now and all I can say is WOW!! This software is addictive. I can't stop playing with it. I have been getting into the advanced functionality of the software lately and just having a blast. I have not yet found anything that I wanted to do (technically or artistically) that Vegas could not do. Absolutely awesome software! I downloaded the Premiere demo and gave up after a couple of days. Vegas 4.0+DVD ROCKS!! Highly recommend it. Oh and one more thing...IT NEVER CRASHES.

Interesting that many will use the stability of a company's stock to determine their NLE purchase. As someone has mentioned the Amiga had the first and original Video Toaster and it worked like a charm to some extent. I can tell our local public access TV channel used to use it because of the guru meditation messages it used to display...anyway, look guys, if you learn one platform, regardless of your age, you CAN learn another one with probably nothing more than a quick overview or refresher course, if anyting you will have to edit with the manual close by.

I think if you are a sole propriator doing weddings, events, etc and your current NLE works and you know how to troubleshoot your own computer bugs then why does it matter if there is no support for it? Other than the ever changing MS upgrades and your old and tried NLE will become obselete, even then if it has done the work it was suppose to do, then it paid for itself already and it is time to upgrade if you feel it is time. If not then, leave it as a standalone PC using whatever OS you are using now using the same config in hardware and I bet you this will last for at least 5 years.

There goes the support questions, not to mention user groups that will form out of love for the NLE. The other issue I wanted to touch up on, if one would based their purchasing decision on a company's stock, a company's net worth or market capitalization, then by this premise should one purchase a NLE created by Microsoft? Which is probably, arguably one of the strongest, most stable, riches companies around. I know MS took their hits in stock, but these are individual investor losses, you think Bill Gates has now turned down the heat during winter and turned up the AC during the summer or eats Nissin Ramen once a week to make ends meet? No way. But how many of us will buy a NLE package from MS? This is the same company who ruined Visio :) Who gave us products like Movie Maker 2...LOL Imagine a professional, "I edited your wedding using MM2". This company also has long erased the premise that if one was to buy MS it will be running great with the MS OS. So there you go. On last thing and this is definitely tongue in cheek, Come on guys you guys recovered from switching from Macs to PC's, if you can do that then you can change NLE's :) BTW, it was MS who saved apple during the late 90's.

Yo Tim. Great seeing you here. I have been having a great time with Vegas too. Powerful, stable and just fun to edit with.

I actually planned to purchase FCP 4.O + a New Mac G4 in a few months. But in the last few days, I've read so many positive reviews for Vegas 4.0 in varies forums and decided to give it a try. I got it under $400, and thought I've nothing to lose. I'm a premiere 6 user, found it abit fussy, and I like that color correction in Vegas. Beside, I'm not doing any serious filming so I save several grands.

I have to admit that after be one of the ones to bring up the financials on Sonic Foundry that I can't ignore that obvious outpour of support for Vegas that it's users have heaped upon it. I haven't read a single bad review on it.

As some have mentioned here, the price is nice. You could by 3 Vegas priced packages before one AVID. Also Vegas seems to incorporate some pretty high end features for it's price.

I'm still giving Edition the most serious thought even though they seemed to be more interested in marketing than support. However, I would like to see some side-by-side type comparisions between Edition and Vegas.

Anyone know of any?

Also, out of the box, what does Vegas offer for Titling and FX?

Thanks

Carl

Carl as I mentioned before, I've been using both and frankly, both have great titling and FX's. I like the features of both, and having been a Pinnacle product user for 3 years I felt it was a natural swithover. It wasn't from a standpoint of ease of learning the interface. Editions interface takes a little getting usedto but once you do it really makes sense. As I said before the only reason I'm using Vegas4, and frankly am quite happy with it, is because I'm having a challenge with Edition and logging clips on my system. I've been conversing on the differnt forums, there are some besides Pinnacle, and I have come to the conclusion that it's just some small thing in my system thats throwing me off. When I'm all caught up I'll spend more time getting into it but back to the original question, the kick a** thing about Edition is the BACKGROUND rendering. It's as close to absolute real time as there can be. You do an effect and don't have to wait for anything, keep cutting and editing. Effects are relatively easy as they are in Vegas, as a matter of fact there are some things I've been able to do in V4 that I still haven't figured out how to do in Edition. BTW, I've been using Vegas now for a whole 8 days. I finished a Bar Mitzvah, a wedding (2 versions) and have a 2nd wedding almost done. Small learning curve :)
Carl, since you and I live very close perhaps you can email me off line and we could make arrangements to get together and you could try them yourself.
Hope this didn't muddy the issue for you!
Don

I'd love to see some head-to-head comparisons, but haven't found any. The magazines are all a bit too small and fighting for life to offend advertisers by annointing a winner. Although Vegas has been around for awhile, v4 is the first heavy contender in the price category. It, like Edition, is relatively new to the market.

For whatever reason, the vendors of the NLEs have not put head-to-head lists on their sites. I find that a bit unusual, but it's still early.

There are some folks here who have used both Vegas and Premiere. Maybe they could make a comparison list.

Don, actually I sent you an e-mail several weeks ago, but never received a reply or you never got it for some reason. Check your profile and make sure that your e-mail address is current. I've been suspecting a problem with my new e-mail provider, but don't have any evidence to show that mail is not being delivered in both directions.

In any event, I would like to get together some time. You can e-mail me at the address in my profile.

Thanks

Carl

Hi All,

As thread-starter I must thank you all for your valuable input...even though the thread went a bit "out of subject" ;-)

I have now ordered Vegas 4...and hopefully my employer will by Adobes "creative bundle"..then I will have access to After Effects as well ;-)

Happy editing!

Best regards,

Lazze Z

Hi Carl,
WOW, I never got an email from you UNLESS you use a different name or something. I certainly would have opened it if I saw your name or something in the subject line to indicate it was you. I checked my email address and it is correct, I've had that address for about 3 yeras now. Try email to me again and we'll see how it works.
Don

P.S.
There is no email address listed for you Carl, Hence this message :0
Don

I've had Vegas 3 for a long time but never used it much. After all of the discussion I’m starting to explorer and use it more often. My question is I'm matching up some audio from a minidisc recording. In premiere I would use the razor tool to cut out unwanted segments and move the clips around. How do I do this in Vegas? I've tried opening it up in Sound Forge 6 but that’s just annoying to go from one program to the other, especially when it builds the peaks every time you save it. I've mess around with the trimmer window with no success. Help would be great. Thanks

Are you making one audio track where you save some highlights and discard what was in between? That I would do entirely in Sound Forge.
If these are audio tracks of video it's another story.

Vegas is non-destructive. When you have a track on the timeline you can push or pull its edges back and forth, it does not change anything in your original file. That's what you do if what you want to discard is at the beginning or end of the event. If you zoom in the timeline you can edit very accurately.
If you want cuts like cutting out something in the middle - position the cursor and hit S. This will split the selected track as well as (I think) those that are locked with it.

If you do right-click and choose Open in Sound Forge, Sf will create a take 2 for you in Vegas, and Vegas will automatically start using the new take instead of the one you had. It's not quite like going from one program to another, more like activating a plug-in.

A tip: If these audio event require different treatment (EQ and stuff) you should sort them on separate tracks according to their needs, so you can apply you FXs at track level.

Thats what I needed to know. Thanks!!!

Also, just to be safe, make a copy of the audio (a second track) and open that one in SoundForge. When finished, delete the original if the new one is what you want. You can silence the original track during editing.

Is there a possible way to utilize Mainconcept Codec in Vegas 4? I just installed Vegas last night and played around with the interface, it is very responsive. It is certainly way better than premiere.

Regarding the main concept codec, it is always used when you transcode to Mpeg 2 files when you create them in Vegas so you're covered there. For everything else, by default, Vegas uses it's own codec which is very good. It is much better than the old microsoft codec, although microsoft has improoved theirs. Unlike with Premiere you dont have do go trying to fool Vegas into using the main concept codec. The Sonic Foundry Codec is good. You should leave it alone.

Well, that sounds like I'm covered. Thanks Rob!

Can you export a project straigt from vegas using Canopus ProCoder? In premiere you can, but was wondering if vegas could do the same thing. It's kinda a pain to save it as an avi and than to mp2 with procoder.

Not that I am aware of, but I don't know everything. There may be some kind of frameserving way to do it but I havent read much about anyone doing that, probably because the results are good with the main concept transcoding from within Vegas. It is also realtime for rendered footage or straight avi's.

Check out the Vegas forum, they have a very good and knowledgeable group of people there who are very quick to answer, but search for your answer first, I'll just about guarantee that the ??? has been asked and answered.

You can but The DVD architect doesn't seem to like the output file from Procoder. When I tried to author it it stated that it was incompatible "filename.mp2". I just use the mainconcept decoder built into vegas and it works just as well as procoder with the exception of the batch capabilities of Procoder. Also like you said you would have to render as AVI and then render again to MPEG-2. I hope you have lots of time on your hands ;p.

Vegas & DVDA don't like elementary stream MPEG files. Can you render it as an MPG file instead of an MP2?