Any ex-Premiere Pro users here?

[Rick Steele]

After 4 years with Adobe I'm considering changing from PPro 1.5 to either Vegas or <gasp>, Avid Liquid for wedding event videography post production.

If you came from Premiere, what made you switch to Vegas?

What do you like about Vegas that Premiere doesn't do (or doesn't do as well?)

I'm really struggling here as the next NLE I pick will have to be the one I stay with for a while. (Not only the expense but the learning curve - I'm getting too old for this).

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Rick Steele

After 4 years with Adobe I'm considering changing from PPro 1.5 to either Vegas or <gasp>, Avid Liquid for wedding event videography post production.

If you came from Premiere, what made you switch to Vegas?

What do you like about Vegas that Premiere doesn't do (or doesn't do as well?)

I'm really struggling here as the next NLE I pick will have to be the one I stay with for a while. (Not only the expense but the learning curve - I'm getting too old for this).

I'm trying to wrap my head around Liquid right now...still VERY VERY strange to me. Just picked up Avid Express ProHD 2 weeks ago, that was like putting on old socks, very easy to get going in based on past experience.
Vegas has the shortest learning curve by far, IMO. I have never been a dedicated Premiere Pro user, gave up being dedicated to Premiere back at 5.02c, but...still have PP 1.5 on my system.
There is a thread in the Vegas HDV forum on this very subject.

The short of it is, if you're doing weddings/events/specialty/corporate work that stays mostly in-house, then Vegas is the bomb. If you need to export to other NLE's, compositors, or outside houses, I'd look at ExpressProHD or FCP, and I don't dare comment on Liquid yet. Just doesn't "feel" right to me.
You give up flexibility for compatibility, you give up speed for the same. Vegas is FASST compared to anything else. That's the main benefit, given all it can do. It virtually never crashes, stable as a rock.
But...I'm sure there are some others here that have been more dedicated to Premiere Pro than I have been.

[Dennis Wood]

This article didn't present Vegas as terribly quick on the DV for preview, then MPEG2 encode:
http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/Read...ArticleID=9762

Chart here:
http://www.eventdv.net/articles/read...articleid=9786

I'm wondering if these have ever been discussed?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Dennis Wood

This article didn't present Vegas as terribly quick on the DV for preview, then MPEG2 encode:
http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/Read...ArticleID=9762

Chart here:
http://www.eventdv.net/articles/read...articleid=9786

I'm wondering if these have ever been discussed?

Coupla comments regarding that article.
Until last month, Jan Ozer was pretty open about not liking Sony Vegas. Then last month, he did a shoot out of all NLE's, and I'll be damned, Vegas won the shootout hands down against every other major NLE. Was a shock to everyone.
Anyway, Vegas *isn't* the fastest renderer out there, but it also is overall more accurate. Render a page curl in any app, and look at Vegas doing the same. You'll not spy any aliasing in the Vegas page curl. (Anything else will work as a test too, just page curls make it very evident)
As far as not being quick for preview, that's simply absurd. Just another one of those "Ozer-isms" when it came to Vegas. When Vegas 2.0 came out, he wrote that Vegas had an excellent chromakey if you didn't mind waiting all night for it....well....given that he was accidentally rendering to uncompressed, that would account for not just quality, but slow render time too.
Vegas was the FIRST NLE to have external preview without hardware, and has always been render-less to see what your filters are applying.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=54577

Final scores are as follows:
Premiere Pro - 18
Final Cut Pro - 21.5
Xpress Pro - 14.5
Liquid Edition - 17.5
Vegas - 23.5

[Ron Evans]

If you want real speed editing DV then Edius Pro3 is probably the fastest especially with Canopus hardware. If you do any fancy effects with cropping and keyframe controls then Vegas is the best but you will have to wait for the render. So if you have a multicamera shoot with colour correction, PiP etc then Edius will do this realtime out to DV recordable to tape not just at a preview frame rate. Edius does not have keyframe control other than for the 3D PiP so if this is needed then Vegas or Premiere are the only choices and with this Vegas is the clear winner because the user interface is much easier to understand what is happening. I had mainly used Premiere 6.5 ( with Canopus DVRaptor RT2)until I got my FX1 and needed to move to a NLE that would edit HDV. In evaluating all the choices I ended up with new version of Edius Pro3, Premiere Pro1.5.1 and upgrading my Vegas Le ( that I only used for audio) to Vegas 6. Since spending a lot of time over the first 6 months of 2005 playing with HDV and mixes of HDV and DV I now edit DV with Edius Pro3, still mix audio in Vegas and crop HDV to DV in Vegas. Vegas and Edius have the advantage in being able to mix clip types on the timeline natively, will edit HDV native and have similar color corrections controls. Premiere does have some nice features.. nice batch capture capability, fast smart render and I happen to like the titler.
Ron Evans

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I like the titler in Premiere too, fairly robust for the cost.
Don't know if I'd be going down the Canopus road right now though...who knows what lies ahead. Good company...but who knows what lies ahead with Thomson taking over. Then again, many people said that about Sony, too.

[Niki Shrode]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

I'm trying to wrap my head around Liquid right now...still VERY VERY strange to me. Just picked up Avid Express ProHD 2 weeks ago, that was like putting on old socks, very easy to get going in based on past experience.
Vegas has the shortest learning curve by far, IMO. I have never been a dedicated Premiere Pro user, gave up being dedicated to Premiere back at 5.02c, but...still have PP 1.5 on my system.
There is a thread in the Vegas HDV forum on this very subject.

The short of it is, if you're doing weddings/events/specialty/corporate work that stays mostly in-house, then Vegas is the bomb. If you need to export to other NLE's, compositors, or outside houses, I'd look at ExpressProHD or FCP, and I don't dare comment on Liquid yet. Just doesn't "feel" right to me.
You give up flexibility for compatibility, you give up speed for the same. Vegas is FASST compared to anything else. That's the main benefit, given all it can do. It virtually never crashes, stable as a rock.
But...I'm sure there are some others here that have been more dedicated to Premiere Pro than I have been.

I see you are an old hand at this. I've just got Avid Xpress Pro HD and I bought a graphics card that I'm not sure will work, so I have not opened it yet. I got a deal on e-GeForce 7800 GT with a fast nVidia chipset, but it's not listed in the Avid compatability list? Do you know anything about this? I don't want to open and install a card that won't work or is incompatable.

I was using Premier, but liked what I have been reading about the Avid Xpress Pro HD software, and I'm getting ready to possibly buy the new Panasonic HD camcorder.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Niki

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Niki,
All I can say is that if you use a card not supported by Avid, don't expect tech support, but that doesn't mean the card won't work. Avid is very conservative about their testing.

[Niki Shrode]

Ok, thanks for the heads up. I guess I'll take it back and get one of the supported card off the internet.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Niki Shrode

Ok, thanks for the heads up. I guess I'll take it back and get one of the supported card off the internet.

Like I said, it might well work...just that their tech support's ears shut off when they see you've got something that they haven't officially endorsed.

[Dan Euritt]

Originally Posted by Rick Steele

What do you like about Vegas that Premiere doesn't do (or doesn't do as well?)

be aware that you will be giving up the automatic magnet function that premiere has had for quite awhile... i don't know about vegas 6, but the titler in vegas 5 is pretty bad, especially from the standpoint of project organization and being able to perform simple functions like title export and save.

i think that liquid edition has tremendous potential, in that it's designed for hardware acceleration with off-the-shelf video cards, something that none of these other editors do... but if it still has that marginal single-pass mpeg2 encoding capability, don't plan on being able to use a frame-serving function to encode off of the timeline to, say, procoder... the l.e. people refused to release the minor code satish needed to implement his free frameserver, maybe that has changed now that avid has taken it over?

[Rick Steele]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

i don't know about vegas 6, but the titler in vegas 5 is pretty bad, especially from the standpoint of project organization and being able to perform simple functions like title export and save.

No. It's still the same in Vegas 6. And yes I still like the titler in PPro.

Avid's titler in Luquid is still the old version of TitleDeko from Pinnacle days (even the titler in Pinnacle's $89 product is better). I don't think this has changed in Avid Luquid 7. Folks sure do swear by this NLE though - if you can tolerate the day and a half it takes to load. I'm with Douglas on this one - I just can't seem to get into a decent workflow with it. (It's like doing something left-handed).

I'm wondering what 1st quarter '06 will bring to Premiere Pro when Adobe launches its new creative suite. I hear it will have onboard DVD menu functionality. (Encore built in?) plus multicam support.

These answers are only a few months away and I'm tempted to wait and see.

[Peter Jefferson]

"I'm with Douglas on this one - I just can't seem to get into a decent workflow with it. (It's like doing something left-handed)."

im the same, we used to distribute this, (still do) and there was ahandful of diehard fans...when 6 came out with the BoB, it was a gosend to capture using that.. but the chipset and USB funcinaltiy was very meticulous.. once we got it working (after 4 system rebuilds) it worked a treat..

for a Software based NLE, liquid has the potential ot beat the lot, with its powerful GPU link up and background rendering, however its design and implication within the workflow sux the big one.. i hate the databasing system (which apparently has been retweaked in version 7) everythign is convoluted and drawn out, i cant apply a filter without going through menus and screens and that jsut shits me.. i wanna apply a filter, lop the area, and tweak as needed... u cant tweak and preview at the same time like u can with Edius and Vegas, not even premier lets u tweak and preview. I know the Matrox RTx has that, but as soon as u add a keyframe, forget it. u gotta start it again.. u cant conintuousy loop... in vegas u can.. this is a MASSIVE deal if your playing with lights, surround pans, and various trackmotions...

As for the HDV.. i despise the native format.. M2t, is just a horrible format.. very messy in alot of NLE/s id rather be cuttin SD 4.2.2 DVCPro 50 than HDV.. but thats me.. i liek to colour grade EVERYTHIGN i do.. as soon as u add filters in some of these native editors, they jsut kill the whole thing..

I also feel that Vegas works buch better AS AN EDITOR (forget rendering) but as an actual hands on piece of SW which is used to cut and mix, i find the workflow is far FAR superior to anything else...
Even with "realtime" rendering cards, you stil have to prerender.. with Vegas, u can render overnight and reimport that segment with no loss in quality..also alot of teh cards dont even supoport progressive scan...
rendering is only an issue if im on a deadline, but clients are advised of teh limitaitons..

If Vegas however was to be released with a Mojo like Break out box, with a DV/HDV accelerator, the it would definately be even more of a threat to the way things are done in this industry...

the ol school way of working and the line of thinking that theres only one way to do things is no more..
Use vegas, njoi it, learn from it (coz it WILL teach you ne things... ) and take the time to really understand why it does what it does and how.. youll then relaise that it really is the most powerful and user friendly of the lot..

[Rick Steele]

Sorry but my Vegas trial died last week.

So what I'm hearing is Vegas does not pre-render? Can you render only a portion of the timeline for preview? Is it as slow at rendering as some people claim?

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Rick Steele

So what I'm hearing is Vegas does not pre-render? Can you render only a portion of the timeline for preview? Is it as slow at rendering as some people claim?

Yes, you can pre-render in Vegas. The biggest problem with Vegas pre-renders is that they're easy to "lose". However, you CAN pre-render.

If you're only wanting a very small portion of the timeline for preview, though, RAM preview might be a better option in many cases.