My experience at a local Videographer's Association meeting.....

[Richard Alvarez]

Glenn,

Have you never heard of Avid XpressDVPro???

I think a lot of people are ignorant of different programs strengths and weakness. It's possible to download a demo version of all of these programs, but to really understand a programs strengths and weakness, you have to use it on a day to day basis, mastering it's specific workflow. How many people have the time and inclination, (let alone money) to master FCP, AVID, Premiere, Vegas et al. Sure, a quick test drive and tire kick maybe, but master it? Hell, even dedicated Vegas users will confess to "learning a new trick" every so often.

All of these programs have shortcuts, that make them strong, and workarounds for their weeknesses. Seriously, look at any debate between platforms and you will see "XYZ will do this, can your program do that?" and the answer is "Well, I can if I do this first, but I don't need that application." or, "Well I use (insert third party app here) for that feature."

It seems like Vegas has a deep and loyal following, which is great. The complaining "We don't get no respect" really grows out of the fact that it's relatively new on the scene. The film industry has litterally billions of dollars and hours of time invested in Avid technology and training. Try turning that battleship around. Not going to happen overnite. Instead, FCP went after the small indy shops, and is making a serious inroad there. Serious enough for Avid to trickle down the high end features to it's "prosumer" line. One of the big selling points for Avid XpressDVPro is that if you master it, you can pretty much walk in to an Avid Composer or Symphony and start editing. That's important to people who want to work in the industry, cutting FILMS.

Premiere got it's leg up by marketing as a bundle with hardware packages for years. It's still the most widly used prosumer editing software. If Vegas were to ship bundled with millions of computers or hardware cards, it too, would be the household name that premire is.

In short, if the program does what you want and makes you happy, don't get hung up on what other people think about it.

Make movies.

[Brian Mitchell Warshawsky]

>>>>Do you think maybe we can petition Sony to change the name?

Why?

If it helps, think of the following acronym:

“Video Editing, Graphics And Sound”.

This sums it up the product and touts its strengths.

When I first heard the name, I too immediately dismissed the product, sight unseen.

While researching my needs for a full length feature project, the choices increasingly became limited to fewer and fewer products until only Vegas was left. Since I picked up my copy, I haven't looked back.

I know what works for me, and anyone who knocks what I use gets filed under the category of "someone else's problem".

I'm too pre-occupied with my full-length feature, (coming attractions trailer coming soon) made possible partly through the existence of Vegas, to be concerned with non-believers.

Brian

[Peter Jefferson]

"problem is that first impressions count, so some people will still think that Vegas is a simple basic consumer editor"

Ive also had some snide comments made about it being "an effects box" or an "audio editor with video bolted on"

funny though that Vegas was one of the first NLE's with a timecode filter option.. also the first NLE to be able to run DX plugins...

then Pinnacle went out abnd bought another companies technology (Steinberg) (as they did with Liquid) and theyre going to slowly try to integrate that element into liquid to compete..

Thing is, ive been messing with L6 now and i still cant do half the shit i can do with Vegas..

Prem Pro 1.5 really does kick ass with a MatroxRTx100... without it, u can forget it.. but one thing even with HW.. it still needs to render certain elements..
also Encore doesnt create sceene selection menus based on yoru chapter headers with autolinking, as u can easily do with 2 clicks in Architect..

theres alot Vegas can do and from where i stand thers only TWO weekness
I am a ProVideo Supplier to about 80% of Sydneys Videography ommunity, and for them to take this app seriously, i really ahve to sit with them for over an hour.. when they sit with me, i say
"tell me what you want me to do.. what do u do that annoys u in ur current NLE"
I can usually recreate their request in a matter of seconds without needing to go into copious amounts of screens and menus as i would with PremPro, Edius, FCP and Liquid.
Once they see what it can do in realtime during the preview process, they usually shut up abou the "unprofessional" results.

Another problem with the above (ie tryin to turn people) was the sydney VASST tour.
There were two minds on this. The first was the existing user base who loved it and want more, which would be great coz i missed the initial VASST intro tour at Brighton Le Sands. Id love to attend the next one :)
The second are the ones who knew nothing of it (Vegas), and were die hard Prem users with matrox and digisuite boxes...
in their words, the tour didnt convince them to change, or show off what V5 can realy do.
Thats just feedback i have recieved as a supplier of Vegas. Im one of the few actual stores that offer this product as an Editign Solution.. here in Oz, its really REALLY hard to throw up PremPro side by side with Vegas and say "Vegas is better for you because... yadda yadda) due to the "realtime" element that these other kits can offer.

moving on..

the second thing thats screwing over Vegas, is exaclty that.. realtime.. ssure i can run filters etc etc etc.. but i still HAVE TO render out which is not realtime..
I can throw on a Project in Prem Pro and run multiple track layers and it will render in realtime.. to do the same thing, with vegas were looking at 5-6 times slower than realtime (for eg a composite greenscreen segment, with some overlays, colour correction, 16:9 Mask plus afew titles...)

i love vegas dont get me wrong, but since prem pro has bought out their single track editing as opposed to AB editing, theyve caught up a lil..
I can assure you that Vegas will NEVER have support for a Hardware unit like a Matrox RTx100.. you WONT ever find a card being released to give Vegas full frame output of mulitple video tracks..
Its just not in Sonys interests to do this.. maybe if Sonic Foundry were still in control, there may have been the option there sometime in the future, but now that Sony own Vegas, its not gonna happen (apart from the realtime SDI card, which Vegas is already unofficially compatible with)

Its a pity really, coz its an awesome program and of the zillions of apps out there, i chose it years ago and stuck with it to the current version, but it seems these other companies are catching onto Vegas' workflow system (ie Liquid, PremPro, Edius) which give them an advantage..

well see what Vegas 6 holds next year.... Im hoping for a particle generator (as found in MainConcepts Main Actor) as well as a more efficient and optimised use of the CPU and Ram of the host machine, coz rght now, its really not taking advantage of the balls in the box........
And as for rendering.. for todays pace in product output and wear and tear on equipment (ive nuked 4 HDDs already with 20hour renders that the drives cant handle), im REALLY hoping they do something about its render management..
Im dreading having to think about HD Rendering with Vegas..

[Dylan Couper]

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff :
<<<-- Originally posted by Dylan Couper: Do you think maybe we can petition Sony to change the name? -->>

Since I don't use PC's I have no experience with Vegas, but it does sound nice and my experience with Premiere on the Mac is enough to keep me away from it. But I've never understood that name either. Why would you want to associate your product with "Vegas?" To me it conjures up images of expensive, tasteless glitz with no substance and gambling against impossible odds where you are pretty much assured of losing your money? ;-) -->>>

Exactly!

Josh: I like Happy Fun Edit.

Everything is in a name. First impressions are the only ones that matter if you are selling something. Look how many cars Dodge sold before they change the Dodge Enchillada to the Dodge Viper!


From now on I'm going to qualify my use of Vegas to people that don't know it.
"Yeah, I use Vegas. It's like Avid, except it was designed in this century, like FCP except it never crashes, and like Premiere, except it's twice as fast to use."

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

> now that Sony own Vegas, its not gonna happen

Well, as a very basic FCP user, I have followed this thread with much interest. It does seem that Vegas is sort of like FCP for the PC. Now regarding real-time, it strikes me that it really doesn't matter. The power of FCP in my view is the way it uses Apple's hardware so well, so you don't really need extra hardware. The pros are used to spending a lot of money on NLE so they will buy realtime hardware anyway, and Apple lets them use it and that's ok too, but I don't really care. I think with computers getting faster and faster, we will end up using off-the-shelf computers more and more and their performance can already rival real-time hardware-based systems. So I think there is a big future for Vegas, and there is also a big future for FCP. I wonder what would happen if Vegas and/or FCP were to go multiplatform. Some competeition would benefit users of both, but probably neither Apple not Sony would want to do it. Since Sony also makes computers, it is in a similar position to Apple, or could be at any rate if it took Vegas and it's users seriously.

[Josh Bass]

I bet whatever they add in Vegas 6, they won't add a better scrub tool or fix the Win XP/media bin glitch.

[Glen Elliott]

<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Bass : I bet whatever they add in Vegas 6, they won't add a better scrub tool or fix the Win XP/media bin glitch. -->>>

I don't know about that- in Vegas 5.0b they fixed a few things that I, in particular, brought to their attention. I've found Sony can be very receptive.

[Josh Bass]

I'm just saying. . .be nice if they did, but they'll probably do a bunch of other stuff instead. I haven't upgraded, because I looked all the new stuff, and decided 4.0 was fine for now.

[Nick Kerpchar]

Josh,
Is there a Vegas users group in Houston. I'm new to Vegas and DVD Architect 2 and sure would benefit from contact with experienced users.

Thanks, Nick

[Josh Bass]

No idea, friend. Sorry. I don't associate much with the locals.

[Hugh DiMauro]

Dylan Cooper said:


<<Tell the FCP people what I tell them.

"Vegas is like Final Cut Pro for the PC. Except Vegas is fast, and stable.">>

Funny, FCP Mac G5 users say just the opposite: FCP with MAC is more stable than Vegas with PC.

Interesting... I like.

[Glenn Chan]

I've used both and have experience crashes with both of em :/

Vegas seems to be more stable, but you will experience a low level of crashiness with it.

Final Cut:
Updates can break your system. OS X, Quicktime updates in particular.
First versions are buggy based on user reports in forums (FCP3, FCP4). Personally I found pre-patched FCP3 to be extremely crash-prone.

Vegas and Final Cut:
No configuration issues. Your hardware will work, unless using certain combinations of firewire devices.

Rarely the application will just crash for no explainable reason.

2- IMO, Vegas is NOT like Final Cut Pro. I started with FCP and Vegas made no sense to me workflow-wise.

Vegas is also a lot more powerful than Final Cut without extra help.
audio, compositing, and effects are fairly strong in Vegas. Vegas has lots of powerful tools, but you can't easily get out of Vegas if you need some special.

Final Cut has OMF export and automatic duck so you can move your project to specialized applications or online edit suites. Audio in Final Cut is weak compared to Vegas.

[Pat Chaney]

I think Microsoft should buy it and rename it "My NLE".

[Josh Bass]

Or Apple could buy it and call it iEdit.

[Simon Wyndham]

Apple can stay well away from my beloved Vegas!

I am utterly amazed though that despite the name more people haven't taken notice. After all look at the response V5 got at NAB this year, plus all the glowing reviews it has had across the board in magazines online and in print.

If there was one drawback with Vegas it's that I always end up messing around with it to see what else I can get it to do rather than getting on with serious work!