Thinking of switching to Vegas.

[Brian Boyko]

I'm a Mac FCP Studio 2 user at home, but at work, I'm using Sony Vegas Pro.

I've got a quad-core Intel computer with 4 GB of RAM, 2 TB of HD space. I've been working with HV20s but I'm switching to tapeless soon when I get my HG20.

Here are the pros and cons of the switch:

Cons:

1) Color Correction in Final Cut Pro is much simpler than in Sony Vegas. I'd consider using an external program, like Magic Bullet Looks, to handle the color correction, but I'm not sure if I have as much control over it as I would in something like FCP.

2) Ditching FCP for Vegas means ditching LiveType. I'm not sure what the alternative would be for Windows. All I know is that I can do more with FCP when it comes to manipulating type.

3) I've never had a whole lot of luck rendering from Vegas as anything but WMV, and I much prefer H.264 compression. If there's a way to do this, this may not be a con.

4) All my raw footage for my current project is in .mov files.

Here are the pros:

1) No more Dual Booting between "Gaming" and "Editing"

2) My computer has a quad-core Intel and 4 GB of RAM, and I -think- Vegas can take advantage of all 4 cores, and all 4GB. FCP, at least with the current version, can only handle 1 core, and 2.5GB RAM.

3) I can transfer files to and from my work computer (which uses Vegas) easily.

4) Finally get to say "FU" to Apple.

What do you guys think?

[EDIT]

There's also the fact that I'm going to need to do pulldown with the HG20, something I've kinda gotten down to a science with Compressor. Can Cineform Neo Scene do automatic mojo?

[Jeff Harper]

Friend of mine uses FCP, with motion, etc. and his DVD menus are so cool (3d and all of that) they blow me away (and I'm sure his customers). I'm very envious each time I watch one of his recent weddings. Live Type is very cool.

What is unfortunate is it is both programs have their strong points that cannot be duplicated with the other.

You might not be utilizing FCP to it's full capacity as my friend does. His units are higher end for Mac, about $8K each, and all of the guys I know with these level of Macs (and I know three) create some of the finest videos around.

It sounds like you have a dislike for Mac, which is fine, but I also think you would be frustrated with Vegas' limitations such as titling. Vegas has ProType Titler, but I've never heard it raved about. It has huge potential, and some people use it to great effect. But it is NOT the same as LiveType.

If it were me, I would think I would push the FCP direction with latest and greatest of everything and utilize it more fully. If you need the things that FCP offers that Vegas doesn't I don't think you'd never be happy with Vegas.

I like Vegas fine, but I think it is more common for people to switch to FCP than vice-versa. I don't know this for a fact and am not interested in debating this, its just my uneducated opinion.

FCP is more of a standard in the world of professional video, Vegas is not.

[Mike Kujbida]

Brian, put Boot Camp on your FCP rig and you'll get the best of both worlds :-)

[Brian Boyko]

Originally Posted by Mike Kujbida

Brian, put Boot Camp on your FCP rig and you'll get the best of both worlds :-)

That would seem more to me like the worst of both worlds, actually. I could put a windows partition on my FCP rig, of course, but there's no easy way to get the advantages of one workflow in the other.

I suppose my main question is whether I'll see a marked increase in rendering times if I switch to Vegas on a 4 core, 4GB Ram machine, compared to an equivilant FCP, which can only take advantage of 1 core, and 2.5 GB of RAM.

[Brian Boyko]

Mmm, you know what, I think I'm just going to stick with FCP for now... and switch to vegas only if it doesn't pass the stability tests I'm going to put the computer through.

I think I may have isolated the problem, I think it's just that the CPU got too hot, which was causing the kernel panics. Probably.

Yeah. Probably.

We'll see. I'm putting all four cores to work in compressor now... should fly.

[Jeff Harper]

Brian I saw a thread about FCP and using the right amount of memory. According to the thread I read (forget where) having the right amount of memory in each slot is critical, more than having a large amount of it. One guy said when he went from 6GB of RAM to four individual 1GB sticks his Mac behaved like a different machine, and he said it was like machine's hands became untied for the first time.

Don't know if this info would be of help to you or not.

[Adam Letch]

I love the way the programs workflow and simplicity so much, everything else seems 'clunky'. But if ever at the same time a program could frustrate it's Vegas, and it's hard to troubleshoot as some people never have a problem, and others like myself have lost all our hair being up and ungodly hours of the morning trying to render out our projects that continually crash.
ProTitler apparantley is ok, but I wouldn't know, if I use it crashes, yet another of these anomolies!
I infact just bought Edius and it's quite stable if you want a PC based NLE, but in honesty, I long for the time I can afford a decent Mac and FCP and take my game to the next level.
Another good thing is there are heaps of free scripts written for it, but the plug-in support is thin.
I still use it whilst learning Edius as I have a large project which I've been working on to finish first. Which of course falls over once RAM exceeds 2.2Gb of the 4Gb of RAM I have installed. So I have to cut up my project into multiple smaller projects which I'll nest later, provided that doesn't also crash. And this is as basic an install as I can make it, with XP Pro and SP3, and Cinescore and Edius installed.
Mate if they rectify the probs in Version 9, hopefully there will be one! Then I'll be riding the Vegas train again.
So I guess if your using it currently on a work computer, install the trial version on your home pc and make sure it works, and also if your testing stability, make sure it's something over 30mins long with titles, colour correction etc. And at least 70 to 100 clips long to get and idea.
Sorry for ranting, I'm really not a Vegas Basher at all before people jump in, as I said, I love it's workflow, but to save you becoming a part of the minority who've had to move to another NLE, please do a proper trial before parting with your cash.

good luck

Adam

[Sean Seah]

Vegas can do H264 with avc codec mpeg4. MB Looks can do pretty fine CC controls. Only thing is motion and Live type is too cool to give up!

But yes, Vegas renders very fast in my opinion. When i upgrade for dual core to quad core, the speed change was significant. Now I can get almost 1:1.2 with some CC work.

[Brian Boyko]

In the end, it looks like a moot point. I tried to build a Mac on the semi-cheap with an EFIX chip, but while the OS technically -ran- it wasn't stable... and I'm not so sure of my abilities to get it running stable even if it's fixable.

It's a learning experience, to be sure, and I knew the risks getting into it.

I'm reformatting my computer as Windows XP for right now, probably will eventually re-reformat it as Windows Vista 64-bit, but I just want to make sure that the system instability was an EFIX/MacOSX thing.

I have a MacBook Pro and I guess I could continue to use that with FCP... but other than FCP, there's really no reason to use it. I suppose what I'm going to do is end up selling it. If I need some fancy titles done I can sell the MacBook Pro for $1500 and pay someone $1000 for the titles and come out $500 ahead.

The only reason I got the MacBook Pro in the first place was because of FCP - it rendered much, much, much, faster than Adobe Premiere- and Sony Vegas didn't quite hit the prime time at the time I started looking. Now that Sony Vegas is a viable editing solution, I really don't see a reason to stay with the Mac platform.

[Perrone Ford]

I work in Vegas nearly every day. To be honest, it has some lovely upsides, but under certain circumstances, it is absolutely maddening.

1. The interface to quicktime files is slow. It works, and it's solid. But it's slow. Vegas want's to use the VFW/AVI file containers and works well doing that. Problem is that it's all 8-bit. In more advanced settings, this becomes a significant limitation.

2. If you want to use off-board processing for your work. Like using other applications for color, sound, titles, etc. Vegas is a royal pain to export out of and back into in many instances.

3. If you need to collaborate with other folks using FCP or Avid. Vegas can be a pain here as well because Avid and Sony don't seem to get along. And Sony and Apply aren't friends either.

4. Color space. Vegas is maddening here again. The various color space options and conversions (studio RGB, Computer RGB, others) can be tricky and painful.

5. Support for 64 bit codecs is spotty right now.

6. The titler is awful. Sorry, it really is.

There's more, but these are the primary gotchas that I've run into.

If I was choosing a system right now for a pro or semi-pro, I'd almost surely choose Avid. FCP may be awesome, but darn is it clunky. I'm not a big fan of Premiere, having jumped ship some time back. Edius looks strong, but not sure how interoperable it is.

That's just how I see it from a semi-pro user.

[David Newman]

Originally Posted by Brian Boyko

There's also the fact that I'm going to need to do pulldown with the HG20, something I've kinda gotten down to a science with Compressor. Can Cineform Neo Scene do automatic mojo?

I didn't see this part answered. Yes, CineForm Neo Scene can remove pulldown automatically for you.

[Brian Boyko]

Originally Posted by David Newman

I didn't see this part answered. Yes, CineForm Neo Scene can remove pulldown automatically for you.

I'm testing out the trial of Neo Scene on my work computer using some HG10 clips recorded in 24p. It's giving me errors - specifically, it's giving me -these- errors:

Will not convert files from HG10 at all. Getting this error:

Error: m_graph-> ConnectDirect(outputPin, inputPin, 0) (0x80040240 - IDispatch error #64) in (DirectShowGraph.cpp at 298)
Error: GetPin(pUpStream, PINDIR_OUTPUT, &outputPin) (0x80004005 - Unspecified error) in (DirectShowGraph.cpp at 296)
Error: m_graph-> ConnectDirect(outputPin, inputPin, 0) (0x80040207 - The owner SID on a per-user subscription doesn't exist) in (DirectShowGraph.cpp at 298)
Error: ConnectPin(VideoDecoder, cfEncoder) (0x80040207 - The owner SID on a per-user subscription doesn't exist) in (ConvertGraph.cpp at 3079)

[David Newman]

That is a support question. Please file a ticket at cineform.com/support

P.S. I just checked HG10 conversion under Neo Scene, and it works fine in my system, so it is likely a system config issue. I'm not saying there couldn't be a bug, but support has to handle it so we can work that out what it is.

[Brian Boyko]

Originally Posted by David Newman

That is a support question. Please file a ticket at cineform.com/support

P.S. I just checked HG10 conversion under Neo Scene, and it works fine in my system, so it is likely a system config issue. I'm not saying there couldn't be a bug, but support has to handle it so we can work that out what it is.

I'll try the trial at home today. Don't know what the config problem could be, though.