agree with laurence and grazie....

i've stopped beta testing with 11, pointless really since i don't know what causes crashes.

meanwhile it's obvious that the newblue titler seems crash prone and little is being done by newblue about it - otherwise there should have been an update long ago. i would have preferred that scs developed protype into a more use friendly app and kept the the titler in house and under control.

as for 11, since the last update it does seem much more stable, but following the steps listed in various threads here crashes are easily replicated. and in my case i often have a crash report after exiting the program for no apparent reason...

i have cs5.5 suite sitting in a drawer - but am really wanting scs to get vegas back to what it once was (robust, reliable, stable) in the very near future before turning to ppro, or maybe edius as an alternative 'professional' nle.

it's sad to say that expertise was obviously dissipated on such gimmicks as 3d* rather than core functions - and this now leads to the unrest and angst among loyal, and serious business users....

*i realise there's a few users of 3d here, but i do believe they're in a minority and 3d could have easily been incorporated into vegas studio as an 'added value' gimmick rather than shoe'd into what was once a reliable product.

IMHO SCS downsized the wrong people. Now what we are seeing is rookie mistakes.
JJK

Just want to add my 10p's worth to the thread.

"One of the reasons I haven't simply switched to Premier Pro is that I have so much money invested in Vegas specific plugins"..

Same here. So far, im guessing near to £1000 or more (about $2000). Thats on software alone, nevermind hardware upgrades. For a non business user like me, thats a LOT of investment. I dont want to simply walk away.
My current gripe (apart from NB crashing at will) is the way Vegas renders levels - its just wrong! And i do not hear anyone from SCS trying to fix this. I do NOT want work arounds like black tracks and levels fx - thats nonsense. Get it right.
I also run PP5 (not 5.5) and you know what - ZERO issues. It even renders the same speed as Vegas (close enough).
But i have no plugins for it. So thats the show stopper - it means even more investment :(
Now then, i have been with Vegas for about 3 years now, since 9 really. The ONLY thing i would miss is the really great user interface - its the best feature Vegas has. Dead simple and instant crossfades etc.. And good audio bussing and fx like VST intergration. I would miss that.
BTW, anyone seen PP6 yet? I have, and the audio bussing and mixer looks pretty good now. Much better interface it seems.
Very much sitting on the fence at this time. Watching the blogs, reading the news, keeping one eye on PP6 when it comes.
Bottom line - we are editors, we want to EDIT. Not send in crash reports or get renders that are 'not quite' correct. Yes, im a software guy too, but when i am editing - this is not a skill i want to even think about. Creativity is crushed as soon as you have to start thinking exception handling..
oh well.

Paul.

"Creativity is crushed as soon as you have to start thinking exception handling..

Amen.
As for the whole Ppro V Vegas ease of use thing even after almost 10 years I still don't buy that apart from for audio. Sure it's simpler to get going but things that editors need seem lacking in Vegas. Asset Management is one but even more basic things such as ease of doing 4 point edits. Because most of my work has mostly been events rather than drama I've not been realised this until recently.

The other thing that puts me off V11 is it no longer looks and feels like Vegas. The Vegas plugin GUI was very simple but perfectly functional. Sure it didn't have the gravitas of AE etc but it did work. V11 now looks and feels like someone just tried to do "something" with it, with no real thought and broke things in the process. Most disconcerting.

Overall I suspect all the problems stem from SCS not having any close relationship with frontline editors. That means that neither the stability or the functionality is subjected to rigorous inhouse evaluation.

Bob.

Overall I suspect all the problems stem from SCS not having any close relationship with frontline editors. Yes, you do say you "suspect", so speculation, yeah?

That means that neither the stability or the functionality is subjected to rigorous inhouse evaluation. And now your suspicion has turned into a "that means", but it can't be fact as you've based it on that suspicion.

But within all what you say is a most scary kernel of possibility. Do you think SCS bug reporting process as a means of employing what you want?

Bob, as always, a good post to ponder over.

G

"Do you think SCS bug reporting process as a means of employing what you want?"

No, pretty much useless.
You need the immediacy of the one on one contact. You need to "feel" what the person is doing.
As a developer one of my greatest frustrations is not being physically beside a user.
Asking them to describe a problem is fraught with issues and I can spend more time defining the problem than solving it.

That is frustrating enough just for bugs but orders of magnitude greater with usability. You need to see first hand how the user's process works in realtime. This is why we go to classes, for our benefit and for the teacher's benefit. That will always be the case until we develop some form of direct neural communications so we can get inside another persons head.

Bob.

And THAT dear hearts, one and all, is really what should be happenning.

As it says:"Right here ..... Right Now!"

Bob, let's start lobbying for it to happen.

G

I had hoped the latest released with the latest WHQL Nvidia drivers had fixed the stability issues on my system. Seemed fine when I would doing some editing that didn't involve any of the new VFX features (Sony Text and NB Titler). But then I started a new project with two title segments with each of these features and Vegas crash, both with and without GPU acceleration on.

It's back to V10e for me. Not upgrading until V11 if fixed unless V12 is free...
Bummer.

Mike

People cost money and I've seen nothing happening at Sony-at-large that tells me there will be an investment anytime soon at SCS. If anything, it could go the other direction, IMHO. (I was going to say 'go south,' but in deference to my Australian brethren I'll refrain. BTW, do you say 'go North' down there? ;-)

That being said, I'm sure the same pressures are on every company. Adobe has its challenges, too. When Vegas was "software centric" and tied into Windows as tightly as it did, it was tops and way ahead of the game. Editing software coming out of the hardware centric world had a ton of baggage (unless you wanted to pay a huge price and have dedicated editing machines). That's what many of us escaped from -- and we liked it.

Now, Vegas is moving into a more hardware dependent world. We've come full circle. And with that, we get the added anomalies of video cards and drivers. The optimistic in me hopes SCS gets it figured out. In the meantime, we're obviously going through a frustrating adjustment period that will be very much impacted dependent upon the human resources SONY is willing to throw at the problems. I'm not holding my breath.

tom

Sony has spent a lot of time developing and promoting Vegas over the last three years unlike with ACID. That gives me hope that they'll fix this but on the other hand they've left ACID to stagnate so their approach is inconsistent. VP 10 had its stability issues and v11 has inherited these and developed new ones. I think that's why I'm concerned about the future and wondering if I should change to ppro.

I currently only use After Effects but it is very stable. When it rarely crashes the whole process seems much more explicable because messages pop up that explain what's happened and the project is saved even if it hangs or crashes.

As for the NewBlue plugin crashes I don't have much faith in getting support with those from NB. When I tried to upgrade their plugins to GPU I couldn't find some of the ones I'd bought listed in my "account" (that would be too grand a word for their registration system) so I contacted NB to try to find out how to upgrade these. I got a very brief reply that didn't answer my question so I emailed again and the reply seemed very curt and slightly irritated. Eventually I figured it out but my impression is that NB don't like to waste words and give the bare minimum. That irritated me because I own 6 of their plugin packages and even after contacting them about reg problems they still don't show up in my account and the ones that do still don't register that I've upgraded them to GPU. Believe me I've gone through the NB reg process a number of times for each plugin but it makes no difference.

On that basis the NB/Sony partnership does not inspire me with confidence.

"I currently only use After Effects but it is very stable. When it rarely crashes the whole process seems much more explicable because messages pop up that explain what's happened and the project is saved even if it hangs or crashes."

Despite the seeming great complexity of AE it is much lighter than Vegas in the demands it places on system resources. Ppro is the same as well.
It seems to me that the difficulty of getting Vegas to run reliably is related to it doing everything in real time. So many pieces of code are competing for system resources it is not hard to imagine how easily any slight glitch can bring the whole show into a complete inelegant collapse.

Bob.

That's a good point. After Effects has to render each time it plays back whereas Vegas doesn't need to do this. I assume Ppro will need to render as well - I haven't explored it properly. That's why I prefer Vegas but this probably causes a lot more strain on the system.

I also use Vegas since version 4 - and I am also not satisfied with the actual stability of Vegas Pro 11. There is one point is that things seems to become better - the latest build has become better in terms of stability, even if it is still not perfect. I hope that SCS will improve that further... more: I am sure they will do so. :)

A few months ago I started a thread asking just what was different with the various versions. Don't recall many responses, but from what I've been able to deduce on my own, the more recent updates were:

V7d (the only one I use for HDV): utterly stable, improved window layout
V7e: Sony AVCHD editing
V8: AVCHD editing, 32-bit floating point option, Vista compatibility
V8.1: 64-bit editing
V9: 4K by 4K video editing
V10: stereoscopic video project compatibility, image stabilizer
V11: video card render support

I have not downloaded any trials on anything beyond my trusty V7, so I'm sure I've missed any number of other milestones which others can fill in.

My question is, at what point did Vegas appear to get crashable? As I've said before, I think I can recall on one finger the number of times V7 has crashed on me. Maybe.

For me it was version 10. I've never had it on the screen long enough to even begin exploring it. 9 is rock stable.

VidMus, please add your GPU driver to your spec list. As you and I have almost duplicate systems, I'd like to compare my Driver to yours. I have double your RAM. I have keep up to date with Drivers and have made many MemTest passes to ascertain that my RAM is running true and squeaky clean.

I don't believe I can do much more than I have already. Always willing to learn.

However, I do have a plethora of plugins. Maybe we should be comparing Name, Type and Number of Plugins we have too?

Cheers

Grazie

Going against the grain here, so expecting to be flamed :-)

I would just like to thank SCS for their latest update 595 64bit.

I am quite new to Vegas Pro and my 1st version was the previous build 521, running on W7 Ulimate 64 bit, Intel i7 3.07GHz, 16G Ram, NVIDIA GeForce GT 440.

I hate to say the previous version got to be total unusable and I was about to bin it and find something else.

NVIDIA released an update before SCS which some people said fixed some Vegas issues - but it didn't for me - Vegas was still unusable.

Installed Vegas build 595 with a view of "give them a chance", fired Vegas up, and gingerly started a new project - nothing fancy, just pixalating number plates (license plates) for some motorcycle training videos. 90 second project, took about 30 minutes to complete and NOT ONE SINGLE CRASH - FANTASTIC.

Previously, doing the same project on build 521 would have taken hours, with 100s of crashes and having to save the project after every single add, change or edit.

So i will be sticking with Vegas Pro 11 - IMHO, the latest build 525 is great, and so far crash free.

HowieP, you wont get flamed for saying v11 is working for you, thats a great success story.
However, i think people are interested in how this can be so.

There's a lot of fustrated v11 users out there looking for answers and not really getting them. Each new version build of v11 has addressed multiple BUGS clearly listed in the update log and has made v11 a bit more stable every time - i think its fair to say that. Its certainly my observation.

I totally reject the 'your PC is faulty' stance. Maybe in some minority cases that may be true but the majority of us know how to build or where to buy a good quality PCs and components. Those machines too have failed with Vegas in the past so that assumption simply does not hold up. There will always be someone claiming they know better than the rest of us, even calling us lazy.. Well thats actually quite offensive really. Negative posts like that do not 'help' resolve issues for anyone.

Its funny, when v11 first came out, and there were many crashes reported by multiple users, and there were some shouting at us saying "my v11 does not crash at all, so its your fault".. words to that effect. And guess what - SCS FIXED a lot of the crashing... Ohh, so it was Vegas's fault after all. Remeber that. And its still not quite right yet for some. Thats where we are right now. SCS are listening, thats at least helping to resolve issues. But releasing a half baked beta version from day one was a bad idea guys..

Me personally..., i think i may have had enough. maybe. My thoughts about the way Vegas renders out levels have been repeated too many times already. And my bashing on about NB titler crashes are sounding old news too.. Its going to take some fixing.

Paul.

Paul,
from where I sit, my experiences over the past few years and what many here that I've known for nearly a decade are going through I have to agree with all you are saying.
Some of the arguments put forward to shift the blame are plain daft.

If Vegas will really only run reliably on certain hardware SCS are at liberty to do what Avid used to do. They have not exercised that option so if that is the case the fault still lies with SCS.

If it is related to drivers then why in the world release code that is only perhaps going to work after nine months of fixes by a third party. Surely at the least the vendor should have warned users of this. Plus how did they ever test their own code. Makes no sense.

If it is related to bugs in plugins surely SCS should come out and name and shame those vendors.

Bob.

"If Vegas will really only run reliably on certain hardware SCS are at liberty to do what Avid used to do"..

And there is the catch 22 situation. My not so recent comunications with SCS explained to me 'Sony (SCS) company policy is to not recommend any specific hardware or manufacturer...' Not an exact quote but words to that effect. They can't do it.

"If it is related to bugs in plugins surely SCS should come out and name and shame those vendors"...
Same again, company policy... blar...

So where does that leave us?

Well, i too am starting to point fingers at suspect plugins. I do think there is mileage in this way of thinking. And its not just the third party plugins.

Paul.

"What a lot of people here do not realize is that not only are there some bugs in Vegas, not all crashes are from Vegas itself! Systems with sub-par power supplies and other hardware that cannot handle the extreme load will cause crashes. Problems with drivers, bad DLL's and Windows files, compatibility problems between applications, anti-virus software preventing needed things to work and so on."

What a lot of ignorant rubbish! Many of us use Adobe CS5/5.5 software that runs flawlessly. Some of us had no problem with VP v9/10. So tell me, why does VP 11 crash and hang on the very powerful and advanced systems using the latest drivers that many of us have?

If you're just here to make ignorant abusive posts then you aren't helping solve this problem unlike the rest of us who are actually in communication with Sony and sending crash reports which actually might help them solve this problem.

'Sony (SCS) company policy is to not recommend any specific hardware or manufacturer...'

That policy is dumber than a box of rocks. And it's why Vegas is worthless for the most part as an NLE. Adobe has minimum specs related to supported graphics cards. SCS should have stuck to their guns and only supported those cards they KNEW to work with VP11.

Ditch the support for Radeon and get on with nVidia's CUDA tech. Adobe's apps run solid on my so called "Old" hardware - albeit not as snappy as newer stuff. But they ONLY support nVidia CUDA based cards.

Vegas is more or less useless to me. I gave it one more go on a simple 5 minute project just last week and after more than a dozen crashes with applying only the Vegas 3 way color correction and levels I gave up and had to MANUALLY recreate the project in Adobe PPro CS5 because once again, SCS hasn't seen fit to create a fully functioning AAF exporter. The ONLY time PPro has ever crashed on me was when I tried to import an AAF created by Vegas Pro.

Talk about a total EPIC FAIL.