Premier Elements vs. Vegas

[Peter Racanelli]

Hi,

I am more of a still photograher than a video guy. Since I am in the process of learning PS CS3 (for still images) does it make more sense to get Premier Elements since this is also an Adobe product. Will the similarities in the softwares be helpful for me to learn Premier Elements quicker than Vegas?

I have a brand new copy of Vegas that does not seem to work on Vista so I need to upgrade anyway. The upgrade will cost me $50 vs. the $99 for the full Elements version.

Thanks for your input.

Pete R.

[Jack Walker]

If you want to do basic editing, plus output DVD and add music and so forth, you might look at Studio 11 ultimate.

If you are beginning the road to complicated editing on full professional NLEs, Studio is not the right choice.

But if you just want to edit your own videos, and have a lot of bells and whistles besides, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate (there are several Studio versions, see below for a link to a chart, I suggest the ultimate version--or at least the plus version) has a lot to offer in an inexpensive package. It does SD and HDV, DVD and Blueray, has music tracks and a lot of other features. It supports most if not all of the newest video formats used at the consumer level.
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/Studio_Demo/index.html
There's a link (right side middle) to a comparison chart of the different versions of Pinnacle Studio:
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...ltimate+11.htm

Like the poster before me, if you are looking to learn a professional editor, with a clean interface and dependable work flow of just about any format, look at Edius. You can download a full copy of Edius to demo for 30 days from the Canopus site;
http://www.canopus.com/canopus/press/whatshot.php

I don't think the similarities in interface between Photoshop and Premiere Elements would be much help. Studio offers a lot more. But Elements works for basic editing and has some nice features. There is also a demo you can download of Elements:
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/

[Ervin Farkas]

Peter,

First, and most importantly, ditch Vista as soon as possible if you want to make your life livable. Second, Vegas is (as someone put it already) from another planet - a totally different approach to editing.

Sure, you can go with anything you want, but the best answer to your question is: yes, it makes all the sense in the world to stick with Adobe products if you already have Photoshop. All of them have the same general approach to multimedia, the interface is similar, the work manner is similar.

No, Adobe products are not perfect... neither are the others, any of them. There are pros and cons with each and every one video editor. If you want to go pro, you might want something more sophisticated, but for home and prosumer work the Adobe suite is probably the best because it offers absolutely everything you need, and they integrate into each other like no other bundle.

[Simon Wyndham]

As you might expect from me I'm going to tell you to ignore that and definitely try Vegas if you haven't! It can do more out of the box than the others combined, and is only unwieldy if you are trying to make it work like a traditional NLE editor.

Vegas handles footage more like an audio program like Acid. But it is actually far more powerful an editor than many of the others out there (and I might add a lot cheaper in many cases). Vegas is resolution independent and can handle almost anything you care to through at it.

As the others have said, Vista is a pain. But I don't understand why you can't get Vegas to work on it. It should work just fine on Vista. Which version is it?

[Peter Racanelli]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

As the others have said, Vista is a pain. But I don't understand why you can't get Vegas to work on it. It should work just fine on Vista. Which version is it?

It is actually version 7 which is not supported under Vista, but version 8 is. I also want to make sure it is clear that I am speaking about Vegas Movie Studio not the pro software.

Thanks

[Simon Wyndham]

I can't find of a single reason why a software intended to editors shouldn't work like one?

It does work like a video editor. Its just that the Vegas guys rightly questioned why traditional NLE's were as they were and thought things could be better. So they thought outside of the box.

Themis, just because you haven't taken the time to learn the software, or are currently unaware of how to do things, it doesn't mean that the software is useless. There are plenty of pro editors out there who use software like FCP and Avid on a daily basis who highly rate Vegas and who admit that they would use it more if it had more industry penetration.

[Seun Osewa]

I can mention about a million things that can be done in an instant with Premiere, Edius and even Avid, that are a real headache in Vegas.

Can you mention 5 to 10 of those million things that Vegas can't do as well?

[John Miller]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

It does work like a video editor. Its just that the Vegas guys rightly questioned why traditional NLE's were as they were and thought things could be better. So they thought outside of the box.

Themis, just because you haven't taken the time to learn the software, or are currently unaware of how to do things, it doesn't mean that the software is useless. There are plenty of pro editors out there who use software like FCP and Avid on a daily basis who highly rate Vegas and who admit that they would use it more if it had more industry penetration.

I fully agree. Indeed, Videomaker magazine seems quite love struck with it. They have awarded Vegas (Pro 8) Best Video Editing Software for 2007 and they have a February 2008 review:

http://www.videomaker.com/article/13469/5/

citing its power and intuitive operation.

Personally, I love Vegas. I was a hardened Premiere user ever since version 1.1 in 1994. Things were fine up until 6.5. I also tried Ulead MediaStudio Pro but failed to ever get it to work without crashing - a statement I can apply to Premiere, too. Along came EditDV in 1999 - a wonderful program that put all the other contenders to shame in the amateur/prosumer world. Sadly, it was an orphan and bounced around from one software house to another until eventually being laid to rest.

I couldn't get to grips with Premiere Pro and, late last year, jumped ship to Vegas. Like Vegas itself, I have a history of audio sequencing (e.g., Cakewalk) and I find Vegas' interface exceptionally intuitive. Sure, it is different from conventional NLEs but that doesn't mean the latter are necessarily better. It's just that is what the die-hards are used to. Old dogs and new tricks.

I also like Vegas because of Sony's licensing scheme - install it on as many PCs as you like with the same license key as long as you only use it on one at a given time. Unless it has changed since 1.5, you can't do that with PPro.

[Aaron Courtney]

Vegas was developed based upon Sonic Foundry's SoundForge audio mastering software, presumably by the same developers - they're only about 60 miles away from me (in Madison, WI). I've used SoundForge for 12 years and remember when both Vegas and Acid were released by Sonic Foundry. Everything looked just like SoundForge and that was done by design. SF was not marketing either of these products to pro's already using a chosen NLE. The company was pushing both Vegas and Acid on its installed Sound Forge base. That's why the interface between the products is practically identical. They wanted to create a consistent experience across the company's software suite.

Obviously, a lot has changed after Sony essentially purchased the development team from SF. Fortunately, however, for those of us who have been long time users of SF's original products, the user interface has remained the same over the many versions of these products, and appears that it will continue to do so.

[John Miller]

Vegas can be installed to different systems with the same license key. I'm working on a project in one location - say my office. I have to be away from the office so I have my laptop. I also have an external drive with all the project files on. Ergo, I can continue to work on the project.

You can't do that with Adobe's licensing. Heck, you can't even install it on a new operating system to see if it will suit your needs without phone Adobe and uninstalling it from the existing OS. Not very friendly.

Everybody's intuition is different. One style of software suits some, another suits others. Because it is so individual, it isn't right to say mine's better than yours. Both vendors (and others) provide trial versions. Any prospective customer should try each version that fits within their budget, test it by performing tasks pertinent to the requirements and decide which option is better.

When I tried Vegas for the first time, I was sold. I had struggled with Premiere for years. On the other hand, you are sold on Premiere and cannot understand the attraction of Vegas.

Either way, the focus of this thread should be comparing Premiere Elements with Movie Studio, not their more expensive cousins.

[Glenn Chan]

Some high-end systems like Smoke and Mistika will only work with a very small number of formats. Pretty much everything either comes in via SDI or image sequences. They do not edit DV or HDV natively (convert that stuff to SDI).

In some very high-end environments, format support is very limited. (And it's fine for their needs, which are different than most desktop editors.)

2- Vegas can handle a lot of different formats, but not all of them. Then again, no NLE can handle all the formats out there.

Vegas can do DV, HDV, SDI. HVX footage needs third-party tools. Not sure what the deal is with AVC HD since it changes fast (but I'd expect it to be real-time in the future and not need transcoding).
It can handle most AVI and MOV codecs and formats.

Of those formats above, Mistika only handles SDI (and AVI and MOV uncompressed).

3- Compared to other editors, I've found Vegas to handle a lot of formats well (e.g. reasonable performance). All NLEs I've tried have particular formats or format combinations that don't work well (format combinations as in multi-format timelines... multiple formats on the timeline tends to be slow in other NLEs).

Video is a very different way of working than Photoshop... I don't find that the tasks are analagous/similar. I find that the designers remade Premiere Pro to be more Adobe-like, but I find it annoying because it is not ideal for video work.

[Simon Denny]

New learning takes some time before one can master anything.
I would give Vegas somemore time and you just might suprise yourself.
If not..... at least you have learnt a new NLE.

You know i think that Avid and Premier are backwards in its approach to editing, i find Vegas makes sense to me.

Have fun
Simon

[Simon Wyndham]

The colour correction in Vegas is actually very good (and since the latest version of Vegas can work at 32bit colour accuracy it is hardly behind Premiere or the others). Vegas also has vector based keyframeable layer masking built in for composite work (and in fact an absolute ton of tools built in that are great for compositing and keying, as well as panning and cropping etc). In fact Themis, one reason Vegas users don't hanker as much about After Effects integration and PS integration is because they can actually achieve many of the required functions from within Vegas itself without the need for an external program.

Certainly you won't get the same out of it as some very complicated composites and particle effects as After Effects. But a fair old chunk of the kinds of stuff you need to go to PS and AE for can be done right within Vegas.

Regarding DVD straight from the timeline, I can do this from within Vegas. In fact I can go one better and burn a Blu-Ray disc straight from the Vegas timeline.

I can perform multi-camera editing from within Vegas, up to 32 cameras out of the box, or up to an infinite number of cameras using the VASST plugin.

Need more functionality in Vegas? No problem. That's why it has scripting

This is nothing to do with being a fanatic, the fact is that the real meat and potatoes stuff plus more is in Vegas. Things like On Location (which I might add is only for Windows machines) are extra candy for Premiere.

The real comparison is when you can see Vegas does most of what Premiere does, and then some more (while Premiere has extra stuff in other areas). Vegas costs over $200 less than Premiere and also comes with a full on professional DVD creation software in the form of DVD Architect.

[Glenn Chan]

What I was trying to say was that Vegas has a lot more format support than some very professional systems. In practice, what you should be doing is to figure out what formats you're most interested in and see if your potential NLEs support that format well.

If you take any two random editors, it's likely that one will support some format that the other doesn't. And vice versa. So I'd only look at the formats you are interested in.

Vegas definitely has its weaknesses (e.g. some people don't find its interface intuitive; I didn't). But to say some of its strengths are weaknesses is just erroneous... e.g. format support and color correction are very good in Vegas. I give you the benefit of the doubt since those items are subjective... people have different needs in the formats they use and their approach to color correction.

But to make overly broad and sweeping generalizations (e.g. "It's good to know the limitations, though, and in Vegas they are numberless.") is just not helpful.

[Glenn Chan]

In my experience, knowing Photoshop didn't really help with Premiere. Video and still photography work is pretty different.

Also, Photoshop is kind of backwards in how its filters work. In all NLEs, you can change the parameters of filters. In previous versions of Photoshop, you couldn't tweak your filter settings; everything was destructive. Smart filters fixes this, but you still have to convert images into smart objects (which you don't have to do in any editing app).

In video apps, you can do more complicated layering that what you can do in Photoshop.

Retouching work in video doesn't work that well / is a different beast. It tends to be a lot slower if you need to adjust every frame; rendering takes longer.

So anyways, videos and stills are very different beasts in my opinion. Knowing Photoshop just didn't help me much with Premiere. Photoshop kind of helps After Effects since many filters are the same... but then the similarities end there.