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"It is able to FULLY utilize the graphics card, especially the Nvidia Cuda based cards and it absolutely FLIES. "

Yes, and as with Vegas there are down sides to Avid too. The audio editing stinks, as does its ability to work natively with numerous formats/codecs. The authoring is not as good either, so pick your poison.

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No. Vegas does have issues which need to be fixed and I'm sure SCS is aware. In fact I'll go out on a limb here in stating that sooner or later SCS will HAVE TO look at, and implement some form of hardware assist for preview. I say this merely because that's the way most every one else is heading and SCS will either do it or get left behind.

But to compare the stability of Vegas to that of something like MC is not at all the same thing. First, MC does not accept anywhere NEAR as many native formats/codecs as Vegas does and each one of them brings their own set of problems. Second... MC is good at ONEthing and that is pure video editing. It is NOT however so great at the other things like audio, authoring and a few others. Third, MC has changed very little over the years. They have allowed a few more codecs but mostly stacked the deck with additional third party programs. Forth, you have to be much more careful with the hardware that you choose to run with Avid. MC for example won't run on M-Audio (creative is suggested by most)

Sooo... yes, MC is a stable platform.... but there is a price to pay for that. Now you have to decide if the price is right/wrong for you. For me... I've played with the trial (and still am) and admittedly it's quite impressive in some areas. And if I was in the film industry where audio is treated as a separate entity from its video counter part and there was no need to churn out disks, or output AC3 files... etc, then Avid would be for me and I would relish its stability.

BUT... since I'm not in the film industry I'm finding MC a bit counter productive because I have to convert everything before importing, export my audio and work with it in Adobe audition, and so on. All this is making me say.... the heck with the stability and smooth playback.... I like my Vegas flexibility MUCH BETTER!

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If that's the only thing you took from what I said then I guess... right back at ya:

"Hmmm... Don't know what to say..."

Rob, you make some excellent points here:

1. MC does not natively accept many codecs. About this you are right. Honestly for my workflow, I don't care. It accelerates it's own codec and gives me the performance I want. If ingest time is a significant part of your daily workflow, then Vegas is a better bet. If like me, you work on projects for days or weeks before delivery, and transcode time is a mere fraction of that time, then this is really nothing to worry over. Since I transcode before going into Vegas anyway, this is a wash for me.

2. MC is good at one thing. Video editing. Yep, and that's all I need it to do. And it's all I need Vegas to do. My needs are not the same as the needs for many others. And that's just fine. For those who need to stay inside one application to do everything, Vegas is ideal. For those who don't mind a collaborative workflow, Avid, FCP, or Premiere are more viable.

3. MC not changing much over the years tells me one thing. It tells me that they have listened to the many, many pros who use the application every day, and have gotten it pretty much right. Over the 23 or so years, I would expect this.

4. In terms of hardware, Avid has certified machines. If you don't meet the spec, your performance will not be ideal. I fail to see this as a problem. I am QUITE sure there are many pros here who use Vegas who would LOVE to have a spec sheet from Sony that says, "if you use our application on these 5 machines, you will have real-time performance, and very few to no crashes." What boggles my mind, and I've mentioned it before, is that Avid has those specs. FCP has them, Premiere has them, Edius has them. And Vegas claims to do everything those other programs do, yet the specs on the box outline a machine that is not even HALF as fast as the other programs. And unlike the others, Vegas doesn't utilize the GPU. So this tells the intelligent person that either Vegas is just super fast and doesn't need as much hardware to get the same performance, or if you buy the machine suggested on the box, it's going to be dog slow. With over 100 posts on this forum in the past year complaining about slow performance, I think I know which side of that argument wins.

Rob, in your case, Avid seems to be the wrong tool. And there is nothing at all wrong with that. That is why there are many NLEs out there. There is something for everyone, and not everyone works the same way. Most of my delivery is not disk based, though I do have to cut DVDs or BluRays once a month or so. I tend to work on my audio outside of Vegas, so I wouldn't really miss that with Avid. I transcode footage anyway, so having to do it in Avid is nothing different. The fact that Avid gives me realtime performance once that is done is quite different though.

You prefer the flexibility, I prefer the speed and reliability. Horses for courses. :)

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