I don't mean to start a Vegas bashing with this, but rather a constructive discussion. I think SCS should include a decent AVC encoder with Vegas, because the bundled one is very handicapped. Compared to another professional NLE (Premiere), a semi-professional one (Edius Neo 2 Booster), and a consumer one (Cyberlink Powerdirector), the Vegas' AVC encoder is the worst of them all. For starters, it doesn't allow to set any bitrate over 16 Mbps. Even the Powerdirector AVC encoder allows to set any bitrate you want, or at least that is allowed by the h.264 specs. In Vegas, try to set bitrate over 16,000,000 and as soon as the encoding starts it stops with an error that can be "The reason for the error could not be determined" or that it had a problem opening a codec.
In Vegas' encoder, you can't even set a simple VBR encoding, let alone number of reference frames, and several other h.264 encoding parameters that you can in the others, the best of them all being Neo 2 Booster, which not only is the best NLE ever to handle AVCHD, but also has an encoder that allows several professional settings that none of the other NLEs that I mentioned allow. And the irony is that it's not a professional NLE, but a smaller version of the Edius 5 pro NLE. And that's precisely my point. The AVC encoder that Vegas Pro comes with is a consumer version, not a professional one. It's an encoder that should be included with Vegas Platinum, not Vegas PRO.
Sure, you can download DebugMode Frameserver, Avisynth and Megui and encode great AVC that way, if you want to keep using Vegas 8.0c for a while until DDFS works properly in Vegas 9. For now, it works whenever it wants. Sometimes it will work right away, sometimes it will work after a few tries, and sometimes not at all. But encoding to AVC in Vegas should not be dependent upon third party software. As great as DFS is, if Satish one day gets busy on something else and can't continue the project anymore, then no more AVC encoding in Vegas, and the same could be said for the x.264, Avisynth and Megui, all of which are needed for this workflow. So we would be constrained to encoding to Mpeg-2, which is great at 40 Mpps, but forces you to spend $7 on a BD-R (decent quality, please don't tell me how you get those piece of crap RiData or Memorex for $2 a piece). For most uses, encoding to 20 Mbps in AVC allows you to author a good BD5 or BD9 that will look great.
So, Sony, please make an update to Vegas Pro 9 with a decent AVC encoder and leave the current one to your Platinum line where it belongs.
In Vegas' encoder, you can't even set a simple VBR encoding, let alone number of reference frames, and several other h.264 encoding parameters that you can in the others, the best of them all being Neo 2 Booster, which not only is the best NLE ever to handle AVCHD, but also has an encoder that allows several professional settings that none of the other NLEs that I mentioned allow. And the irony is that it's not a professional NLE, but a smaller version of the Edius 5 pro NLE. And that's precisely my point. The AVC encoder that Vegas Pro comes with is a consumer version, not a professional one. It's an encoder that should be included with Vegas Platinum, not Vegas PRO.
Sure, you can download DebugMode Frameserver, Avisynth and Megui and encode great AVC that way, if you want to keep using Vegas 8.0c for a while until DDFS works properly in Vegas 9. For now, it works whenever it wants. Sometimes it will work right away, sometimes it will work after a few tries, and sometimes not at all. But encoding to AVC in Vegas should not be dependent upon third party software. As great as DFS is, if Satish one day gets busy on something else and can't continue the project anymore, then no more AVC encoding in Vegas, and the same could be said for the x.264, Avisynth and Megui, all of which are needed for this workflow. So we would be constrained to encoding to Mpeg-2, which is great at 40 Mpps, but forces you to spend $7 on a BD-R (decent quality, please don't tell me how you get those piece of crap RiData or Memorex for $2 a piece). For most uses, encoding to 20 Mbps in AVC allows you to author a good BD5 or BD9 that will look great.
So, Sony, please make an update to Vegas Pro 9 with a decent AVC encoder and leave the current one to your Platinum line where it belongs.