Re: Vegas 4.0.....Running 2 NLEs on the same system- conflicts? at DVinfo.net

Glen Elliott · May 22nd, 2003, 12:10 PM

I currently work primarily in Premiere 6.0 via hardware Pinnacle DV500 support. I was thinking about picking up a copy of Vegas 4.0 but was worried that there might be some sort of conflict between Premiere which is intertwined with my hardware capture card (Pinnacle DV500).

1.Does anyone know if installing a second NLE on a system already running an NLE with hardware support will cause any sort of conflicts?

2.Beings I use my DV500 card to capture via IEEE, I guess I'd have to use my Soundblaster Audigy's fire-wire port if I wanted to capture thru Vegas.

lastly 3.Is Vegas that much better than Premiere? How does it stack up against FCP? I'm thinking about making the switch because of the moodyness Premiere can exibit. I need a more stable editing platform. The only thing I'll miss is my real-time monitoring via the DV500 break-out-box!

Edward Troxel · May 22nd, 2003, 12:16 PM

1. Vegas should cause no conflicts with Premiere. If anything will make Vegas behave badly, it's Pinnacle software.
2. Vegas requires an OHCI compliant firewire card (don't believe the DV500 is - the audigy port should work)
3. Many people think so and have switched from Premiere. FCP is a little different story since it runs on Macs instead of PCs and would also require a new hardware investment.

Rob Easler · May 22nd, 2003, 03:39 PM

I used to use the Pinnacle DV 500 and Premiere and I switched to Vegas last year. I love Vegas. I had no conflicts with Premiere and Vegas on the same machine. Vegas runs fine. I capture though my the OHCI compliant firewire on my motherboard. You get good previews on NTSC with Vegas through firewire so I don't miss the 500 much at all. It's nice to do complicated effects without crashing all the time which is what Premiere did to me. I have removed the 500 card from my machine. Want to buy it? Then you could have two...

Garret Ambrosio · May 22nd, 2003, 05:59 PM

I run:

Premire 6.5
Media Studio Pro 7
Avid DV Xpress 3.5 w/ Power Pack
Vegas 4.0 + DVD
Studio 8.0

No problems running these on the same PC other than sometimes one of these suckers like to re-write my codecs and will have to re-install.

Glen Elliott · May 23rd, 2003, 06:30 AM

Thanks for the input guys...

Rob, I know EXACTLY what you mean. Whenever I'd try something experimental like reversing the clip at say (-65%) and duplicated it via virtua clips and ran a few filters it would either 1.CRASH, or 2.Not play back from the timeline correctly.
So you say Vegas can output to a monitor via IEEE? See with my current (DV500) setup I run the output to a 12" TV, not pro-NTSC editing monitor. I figured it was a deal at Sears for only $69...lol. Ok so to output to a monitor in Vegas, it can be done thru the IEEE- where does the IEEE connect to?...Directly to the NTSC monitor (I have no experience with pro-editing monitors...didn't know they have IEEE input?!) OR do you output to camera via IEEE, then to TV via A/V out on the cam?

Lastly, what kind of capture codec does Vegas use? A proprietary Vegas DV codec? Will I have problems outputting projects into Procoder to render MPG2s for DVD export. I know Vegas has a version with MPG2 export but how is the encoder- is it fast. How many settings can you tweak- can it do CBR and VBR....etc, etc? If I stick with using Procoder- what do I have to do...export project as DV AVI from Vegas timeline then import into Procoder? I'm asking because currently Procoder has a Premiere plug-in...currently all I have to do is encode right from the timeline- without the added step of outputting it as a DV AVI first.

Rob Easler · May 23rd, 2003, 08:53 AM

Ok, you output from the OHCI 1394 port to the DV cam and output to the TV or VCR or whatever through the analog output of the camera. Remember it it preview output only. The audio for previews doesnt export. To export the audio and video you will have to "print to tape" which will require rendering first.

I don't beileve there is any codec used for capture. It is just transferred informaiton. The codec will be applied when you render. Therefore I don't believe you should have any issues importing captured files into other applications. Others please correct me if I'm wrong here.

The SF codec is VERY good, as good as the infamous Canopus codec.

The MPEG encoder in Vegas is also very good. It uses the main concept encoder. It has all the settings you will want. VBR CBR etc. It does not have 2 pass VBR but you don't really need it. The quality is good. It is about real time depending on your processor speed and your settings. That is, if you have already rendered the effects. You can encode directly from the timeline without exporting an avi. I will not debate if Procoder is better. Procoder is a very good encoder but I doubt you will have complaints about the encoder in Vegas.

There is a chance you could frameserve to Procoder, there is a way Vegas may be able to do that but I don't know how and dont care to. The Vegas encoder is good.

Adrian Douglas · May 23rd, 2003, 09:28 AM

Glen,

I have both Vegas 3 and Premiere 6/DV500 running on my system. They both work quite happily together. Vegas sees the DV500 but says it's unavailable. Therefore I can't capture using Vegas but one the video is in the computer I can edit with Vegas without any problems.

Glen Elliott · May 23rd, 2003, 10:25 AM

Adrian, beings you have the DV500 as well mabye you can confirm it's quirkiness. Do you encounter problems when trying to work with virtua clips and multible affects?
Also having used both Premiere and Vegas which do you prefer and why? Could you make a small list of pros/cons of both.... Thanks!

Rob, isn't VBR 2-pass much better? I thought it does an initial pass to judge where the bit rate needs to be upped and where it can be lowered due to lack of motion. How would VBR do this on one pass?
Also, how are the render times in Vegas. I'm comming from being used to using Cleaner 5 which took eons to encode. 12 hours or more for an hour project- with Procoder it renders at 6x the speed, roughly 12-18fps to MPG2.

Rob Easler · May 23rd, 2003, 11:24 AM

I'm sure 2 pass can be better in some situations but CBR has also proven to be as good as VBR in situations that don't have a lot of fast movement...like weddings. The point is that at the average rate I usually encode to 7,500,000...the visible quality appears almost as good as DV. That's all I need. For more expert dialog about bitrates theory I direct you to VCDhelp.com. There is a lot of good info there to go through.

Adrian Douglas · May 23rd, 2003, 11:29 PM

Glen,

The DV500 can be a tricky animal to work with, especially if close attention isn't paid to what it plays with. It took me nearly a year to get everything working and stable. Most of the problems were caused by the buggy first versions of the Pinnacle drivers, I got one of the first DV500s in Australia, actually about a week before it was released for general sale.

Now with the V4.0 driver I am running everything is great. The card is now very stable, under W2k SP2, and I have no problems at all with it. I need to upgrade my processor, I'm still using a PIII 667, so rendering times can be quite long especially with multipul effects and the like. The real-time features of the card work well but remember this card is now 3 years old, that's a lifetime in the NLE world. Edition would be the next step if you want to get better performance from your DV500.

As for Premiere vs Vegas, they both work well and you should never limit yourself to just one tool. Different tools do different things well. If I find I can't do something in Prem, I fire up Vegas and have a go in there. I do the same with graphics work as well, I use Photoshop and Fireworks, and Illistrator and freehand.

Mark McCarthy · May 26th, 2003, 11:06 AM

Hello all.
I am working with Vegas 4 alongside my trusty XM1s camera.
Up until to now I have had no problems...BUT!
I have no problem capturing footage from my camera, but all of a sudden I cannot use my TV (via my camera) as a preview monitor, nor can I print to tape. The picture freezes and goes totallly mad! LOads of small colour dots etc, all over it!
So it captures fine, but I can't send anything out through the firewire cable. It was fine for weeks up until now. Any ideas? I have checked everything I can think of! It is so frustrating. I haven't changed any settings etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
regards
Mark

...isn't Vegas 4 great by the way?!

Adrian Douglas · May 27th, 2003, 05:45 AM

I'd check your output settings first then maybe consider that the card has spat the dummy.

Edward Troxel · May 27th, 2003, 01:48 PM

It could also be the cable and/or the camera.

May 22nd, 2003, 12:10 PM	#1
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Re: Vegas 4.0.....Running 2 NLEs on the same system- conflicts? I currently work primarily in Premiere 6.0 via hardware Pinnacle DV500 support. I was thinking about picking up a copy of Vegas 4.0 but was worried that there might be some sort of conflict between Premiere which is intertwined with my hardware capture card (Pinnacle DV500). 1.Does anyone know if installing a second NLE on a system already running an NLE with hardware support will cause any sort of conflicts? 2.Beings I use my DV500 card to capture via IEEE, I guess I'd have to use my Soundblaster Audigy's fire-wire port if I wanted to capture thru Vegas. lastly 3.Is Vegas that much better than Premiere? How does it stack up against FCP? I'm thinking about making the switch because of the moodyness Premiere can exibit. I need a more stable editing platform. The only thing I'll miss is my real-time monitoring via the DV500 break-out-box!

May 22nd, 2003, 05:59 PM	#4
Garret Ambrosio Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Vallejo, CA Posts: 263	I run: Premire 6.5 Media Studio Pro 7 Avid DV Xpress 3.5 w/ Power Pack Vegas 4.0 + DVD Studio 8.0 No problems running these on the same PC other than sometimes one of these suckers like to re-write my codecs and will have to re-install. __________________ "USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population." -David Letterman

May 23rd, 2003, 09:28 AM	#7
Adrian Douglas Trustee Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Chigasaki, Japan. Posts: 1,660	Glen, I have both Vegas 3 and Premiere 6/DV500 running on my system. They both work quite happily together. Vegas sees the DV500 but says it's unavailable. Therefore I can't capture using Vegas but one the video is in the computer I can edit with Vegas without any problems. __________________ Adrian DVInfo.net Search for quick answers Where to buy? From the best in the business...DVInfo.net sponsors

May 23rd, 2003, 11:29 PM	#10
Adrian Douglas Trustee Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Chigasaki, Japan. Posts: 1,660	Glen, The DV500 can be a tricky animal to work with, especially if close attention isn't paid to what it plays with. It took me nearly a year to get everything working and stable. Most of the problems were caused by the buggy first versions of the Pinnacle drivers, I got one of the first DV500s in Australia, actually about a week before it was released for general sale. Now with the V4.0 driver I am running everything is great. The card is now very stable, under W2k SP2, and I have no problems at all with it. I need to upgrade my processor, I'm still using a PIII 667, so rendering times can be quite long especially with multipul effects and the like. The real-time features of the card work well but remember this card is now 3 years old, that's a lifetime in the NLE world. Edition would be the next step if you want to get better performance from your DV500. As for Premiere vs Vegas, they both work well and you should never limit yourself to just one tool. Different tools do different things well. If I find I can't do something in Prem, I fire up Vegas and have a go in there. I do the same with graphics work as well, I use Photoshop and Fireworks, and Illistrator and freehand. __________________ Adrian DVInfo.net Search for quick answers Where to buy? From the best in the business...DVInfo.net sponsors

May 26th, 2003, 11:06 AM	#11
Mark McCarthy Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Westcliff-On-Sea, Essex, England Posts: 154	Firewire only working one way! PLease help! Hello all. I am working with Vegas 4 alongside my trusty XM1s camera. Up until to now I have had no problems...BUT! I have no problem capturing footage from my camera, but all of a sudden I cannot use my TV (via my camera) as a preview monitor, nor can I print to tape. The picture freezes and goes totallly mad! LOads of small colour dots etc, all over it! So it captures fine, but I can't send anything out through the firewire cable. It was fine for weeks up until now. Any ideas? I have checked everything I can think of! It is so frustrating. I haven't changed any settings etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated. regards Mark ...isn't Vegas 4 great by the way?!

May 22nd, 2003, 12:16 PM	#2
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	1. Vegas should cause no conflicts with Premiere. If anything will make Vegas behave badly, it's Pinnacle software. 2. Vegas requires an OHCI compliant firewire card (don't believe the DV500 is - the audigy port should work) 3. Many people think so and have switched from Premiere. FCP is a little different story since it runs on Macs instead of PCs and would also require a new hardware investment.

May 22nd, 2003, 03:39 PM	#3
Rob Easler Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Naperville, IL Posts: 219	I used to use the Pinnacle DV 500 and Premiere and I switched to Vegas last year. I love Vegas. I had no conflicts with Premiere and Vegas on the same machine. Vegas runs fine. I capture though my the OHCI compliant firewire on my motherboard. You get good previews on NTSC with Vegas through firewire so I don't miss the 500 much at all. It's nice to do complicated effects without crashing all the time which is what Premiere did to me. I have removed the 500 card from my machine. Want to buy it? Then you could have two...

May 23rd, 2003, 06:30 AM	#5
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Thanks for the input guys... Rob, I know EXACTLY what you mean. Whenever I'd try something experimental like reversing the clip at say (-65%) and duplicated it via virtua clips and ran a few filters it would either 1.CRASH, or 2.Not play back from the timeline correctly. So you say Vegas can output to a monitor via IEEE? See with my current (DV500) setup I run the output to a 12" TV, not pro-NTSC editing monitor. I figured it was a deal at Sears for only $69...lol. Ok so to output to a monitor in Vegas, it can be done thru the IEEE- where does the IEEE connect to?...Directly to the NTSC monitor (I have no experience with pro-editing monitors...didn't know they have IEEE input?!) OR do you output to camera via IEEE, then to TV via A/V out on the cam? Lastly, what kind of capture codec does Vegas use? A proprietary Vegas DV codec? Will I have problems outputting projects into Procoder to render MPG2s for DVD export. I know Vegas has a version with MPG2 export but how is the encoder- is it fast. How many settings can you tweak- can it do CBR and VBR....etc, etc? If I stick with using Procoder- what do I have to do...export project as DV AVI from Vegas timeline then import into Procoder? I'm asking because currently Procoder has a Premiere plug-in...currently all I have to do is encode right from the timeline- without the added step of outputting it as a DV AVI first.

May 23rd, 2003, 08:53 AM	#6
Rob Easler Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Naperville, IL Posts: 219	Ok, you output from the OHCI 1394 port to the DV cam and output to the TV or VCR or whatever through the analog output of the camera. Remember it it preview output only. The audio for previews doesnt export. To export the audio and video you will have to "print to tape" which will require rendering first. I don't beileve there is any codec used for capture. It is just transferred informaiton. The codec will be applied when you render. Therefore I don't believe you should have any issues importing captured files into other applications. Others please correct me if I'm wrong here. The SF codec is VERY good, as good as the infamous Canopus codec. The MPEG encoder in Vegas is also very good. It uses the main concept encoder. It has all the settings you will want. VBR CBR etc. It does not have 2 pass VBR but you don't really need it. The quality is good. It is about real time depending on your processor speed and your settings. That is, if you have already rendered the effects. You can encode directly from the timeline without exporting an avi. I will not debate if Procoder is better. Procoder is a very good encoder but I doubt you will have complaints about the encoder in Vegas. There is a chance you could frameserve to Procoder, there is a way Vegas may be able to do that but I don't know how and dont care to. The Vegas encoder is good.

May 23rd, 2003, 10:25 AM	#8
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Adrian, beings you have the DV500 as well mabye you can confirm it's quirkiness. Do you encounter problems when trying to work with virtua clips and multible affects? Also having used both Premiere and Vegas which do you prefer and why? Could you make a small list of pros/cons of both.... Thanks! Rob, isn't VBR 2-pass much better? I thought it does an initial pass to judge where the bit rate needs to be upped and where it can be lowered due to lack of motion. How would VBR do this on one pass? Also, how are the render times in Vegas. I'm comming from being used to using Cleaner 5 which took eons to encode. 12 hours or more for an hour project- with Procoder it renders at 6x the speed, roughly 12-18fps to MPG2.

May 23rd, 2003, 11:24 AM	#9
Rob Easler Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Naperville, IL Posts: 219	I'm sure 2 pass can be better in some situations but CBR has also proven to be as good as VBR in situations that don't have a lot of fast movement...like weddings. The point is that at the average rate I usually encode to 7,500,000...the visible quality appears almost as good as DV. That's all I need. For more expert dialog about bitrates theory I direct you to VCDhelp.com. There is a lot of good info there to go through.

May 27th, 2003, 05:45 AM	#12
Adrian Douglas Trustee Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Chigasaki, Japan. Posts: 1,660	I'd check your output settings first then maybe consider that the card has spat the dummy. __________________ Adrian DVInfo.net Search for quick answers Where to buy? From the best in the business...DVInfo.net sponsors

May 27th, 2003, 01:48 PM	#13
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	It could also be the cable and/or the camera.