The final format is up to YOU. Vegas can render anything from DVD ready Mpeg-2, to uncompressed AVI, web ready Microsoft video formats to Real Media files, MPEG-1, etc..

I always get a kick out fo anyone claiming hardware assisted rendered is more "professional", that's pure BS. No Vegas doesn't support any hardware rendering, never has, hopefully never will because it ties it to certain hardware cards. There's no need, it adds greatly to the cost and Its OLD technolgy, not newer. With today's fast CPU's and tomorrows only going to be faster still there's no need.

Vegas is already superior to Avid in many areas. A better question would be when will Avid copy some of what Vegas does? That "P" thing did exactly that with their last version.

Vegas IS great software. One reason why is it does certain things differently. That takes a little getting used it if you're coming from other applications.

You are sort of right, technicaly DV25 is not broadcast quality. That said an aweful lot of it gets broadcast!
Yes PP and Avid system ar more geared to "Broadcast" BUT to make them do that in the case of Avid you're not talking about Express DV, you're looking at their higher end systems and some pretty serious money. PP I believe can do it but firstly you need to have some form of "Broadcast" interface, say SDI I/O and the rest of the hardware has to be able to keep up and your costs escalate very seriously although they are coming down all the time.
But once you have that hardware then surprise surprise even Vegas can support it, well it can edit it once you capture it. At this stage I don't think it has native support for any of the SDI I/O cards for capture or PTT but no drama there, those who make the cards supply code for doing the PTT and capture.
If you really want to go down that path you could look at the new Sony J 30 VCR to capture a DV proxy of your 'broadcast' tapes via firewire as DV25. Edit that and then capture via SDI, render out and PTT in 4:2:2. Very neat trick.
You probably also don't realise that for a long time Vegas has been able to edit even HiDef video all the way upto 1080i. Again if you can afford just the lens to go on one of those cameras, well I can think of better things to do with that kind of money.

Beugnet,

Vegas will read, edit and render using whatever video codecs are installed on your machine. In addition to DV, I regularly use MJPEG files and also have the Avid codecs installed, so I can move stuff back and forth from Vegas to Avid systems.

Regardless of what BB said in the message above, the DeckLink cards from Blackmagic Design (an Australian company) will soon be certified for Vegas v5. You will be able to import, edit and export uncompressed 10-bit SD & HD footage with Vegas via SDI & component video connections. It doesn't get more professional than that! Sony had a system set up at NAB this year running Vegas and a Declink card using HiDef material. It was beta, but I was there and saw it working. Anyway, here are a couple of links to the DecLink cards:

Blackmagic Design's web site

Videoguy's Blackmagic Design DeckLink page

Note that the DeckLink Extreme SD card is only $895.

I do agree with BB on this one point (and just this one), why would Sony want to make Vegas more "Avid-like?" This would just screw up a perfectly great piece of software.

John

Ok guys, sorry to interrupt but do you know of any site that would give good basic info about "broadcast standards" ?
I mean:
-4:4:4 vs. 4:2:2: vs. etc...
-plugs: component, composite, rgb/yuv, etc...
-info about all the scopes
-PAL and NTSC
- everything one must know to start from...

Thanks. I could do numerous searches on the net but my guess is that one of you guys know *one site* that covers all the basics...

(maybe there's nonsense in some topics I mentionned above: one more proof I need that info! ; ) )

http://www.adamwilt.com has a lot of good color sampling information. Nothing about scopes. Nothing about plugins. lots about component vs Svid/Y/C, lots about composite. Many comparison charts.
Most of it stuff you don't need to worry about at all, excepting that you understand what DV is. Adam is finally starting to like Vegas too, which is really great.

Cline never seems to "get it"... To spend $1,000 or more for a hardware card to reduce rendering time is penny wise and pound foolish. If you routinely get yourself into a bind that you're sweating the clock waiting for a render to finish, that typically points to you not being a very good editor chasing after deadlines.

A project takes as long as it takes.

Since rendering is one of the last steps it should be a minor percentage of the time invested in any project. Sorry, I can't help giggling if as some say they spend anywhere from days to weeks or longer on a project, then bellyache it takes X hours verses Y hours to render. Its a none issue as far as I'm concerned. Depending on project size, I either go for a leisurely lunch, long walk or bike ride or simply go to bed. When I return or wake up, the project is rendered. Life is too short not to take time out to smell the roses. <wink>

What's "broadcast" mean for quality? I setup a couple DVCPro decks at a TV station last year. All they used for many years before that was VHS & SVHS, so to them SVHS was "broadcast." Now, your whole "profesional" statment goes out the window: since a TV station does broadcasting, they are profesional, and they can still use analog equipment!

:D

However, I haven't seen any visual difference between what I've captured in Premiere with a DVCPro codec & what Vegas captures. Of course, unless a satellite dish is hooked up to a Digital VCR (DVCPro, DigiBets, DVCAM, etc) with a digital connection, you couldn't notice any difference anyway. I've outputted DVCPro AVI's from Vegas many times. However, didn't look any better then the DV ones (again, because of using an analog connection for reciever to VCR)

Also, why would Sony make Vegas like Avid? Vegas is an inovation, not a copy. :)

"Cline" is talking about using a Decklink board to get something other than DV (i.e. SDI) on and off the system.

BillyBoy, i don't see anything in John Cline's post about hardware rendering. The DeckLink cards are used for importing and exporting HiDef material. He didn't even mention the word "render" in relation to these cards.

BB,

What color is the sun on the planet on which you live? You're the guy that never seems to get it. The DeckLink cards aren't about faster rendering, they are about getting professional format video in and out of Vegas. The pro world has pretty much standardized on SDI as an interface, not Firewire. (Hmmm, there's no Firewire port on my DigBeta deck...) When you can easily get SDI in and out of Vegas, then professionals will take Vegas more seriously and give Avid a good run for its money.

You know, some of us DO have deadlines, particularly in the case of live television. It isn't considered good form to keep 10 million people waiting to see the piece you just cut using footage you got less than an hour before. You may have time to take a "leisurely lunch" (and from the looks of it, you do that more often than you probably should) or "simply go to bed", but while you're doing that, some of us are actually working.

John

I think mostly the quesitons have been answered but I figured I would sort of add a few things and more directly answer - being the vocal Premiere user around here. ;)

>>> Vegas is only DV oriented right? <<<

Yes and no. Depends on who you ask and in what reguards. I have brought up some issues in the past and been answered with "Vegas is for DV, yes it can do other formats but it is primarily aimed at DV" (And to be clear - DV meaning consumer/prosumer Mini-DV) However on the other hand some of the same people will also tell you that Vegas can, and does, do higer end editing - such as Hi Def.

So - to break it down a bit more:
For deck control - currently DV only.
Time code reading - Up to Vegas 4 it was pretty much DV only, and no proxie time code reading unless it was a DV proxy. Vegas 5 can read a bit more time code, but is is still based on firewire and DV. (more on this down a bit)
Output (PTT) - Currently firewire only and mini-DV based only. The JVC HDV will not output (or capture) native even though it is firewire based.
Editing - anything you can put on the timeline that will read in windows should read in Vegas.
Output (Render) - any codec you have that will allow a render you can use. Thusly you are unlimted in rendering. This includes rendering to Hi Def or HDV formats with the built in Mpeg codec.

So is Vegas "only DV oriented"? Depends on how you look at it.

>>> Meaning that whatever you do, the final format will not be "Broadcast" ?<<<

Pretty much been answered already but if you look at what I said above all you have to do is find a way to get your non mini-DV based "broadcast" material onto a hard drive and you can edit and render to your hearts content. Than take your non mini-DV based "broadcast" footage and get it back out to that format you are set.

>>> Does Sony have any plans to make the Sotware work with somekind of hardware (to, again, have the ability to work at professional level)? <<<

Already been said - DeckLinks Black Magic card. Do a search in this forum for more detailed info from SonyEPM.

>>> I guess my general question is mainly, does Sony intend on making Vegas an Avid like software? <<<

More than likely no. However people have asked/discussed project moving between other NLE's for various reasons. For example - does Vegas offer any sort of film match back option? No. Avid does and if a person wanted to do this that you would need to go with Avid. Does Vegas allow for project based (*.veg) export that can be read in another NLE? Not really - but it can be done with limitations. EDL support is limited, but many have reported being able to export, via a script, a CMX formated EDL that can be loaded into an Avid. Currently the reverse of that doesn't seem to work too well. Again - do a search in the forums here for more detailed info. Vgeas 5 does things a little different in this reguard than prior versions so if you have Vegas 5 make sure you put that in the search.

The white paper on Vegas 5 and indy film making using the Sony HDCam deck and XPRI system along with Vegas is finally out so if you want to get an idea of workflow that is a combination of DV and HD download it.

Vegas is vastly superior to Premiere Pro in just about every way. It has some serious color correction tools that outclass premiere, avid and final cut pro.

Vegas is incredible at panning,cropping, scaling,rotating clips, compositing, fx, it has built in masking tools, 3d compositing....

The ONE single thing that will probably drive you nuts is that Vegas is really poor at prerendering files. I'm talking in Premiere terms here, where you have to prerender your clips to get a nice fluid framerate. Vegas can do it, but its very dumb and forgets prerendered clips. You also cant work with them as easily, and by that i mean you can trim prerendered clips, etc. Anything you do to the clip will cause vegas to dump the connection to its prerendered avi. That includes simply moving the clip.

There are no nested timelines in Vegas either.

Vegas also lacks a little bit in the trimming workflow compared to premiere, but its more UI than anything. Though there are one or two trims that premiere can do that vegas cant.

Vegas is very fast to work with, with incredible soundtools, dynamic speed controls of clips etc.

Vegas really is great in so many ways... but it has its nagging problems.

Another nagging problem is the lack of nearly ANY plugins. Vegas has litterally no support from 3rd party plugin developers. Premiere Pro as you may know... Uses After FX plugins and has a ton of plugins itself.

Avid as well, has plenty of really nice plugins that most of us dream were in vegas. But i guess its only fair because Avid Express Pro users are dreaming of a lot of features in Vegas :)

Its a good app... Try the demo and figure out if it fits your workflow style.

Wow!
I wasnt expecting so many answers :)
Thanks, everything seems to be clear now. I guess what I was after was the proxy bit.
I have tried Vegas, and found that it is in many ways more professional than Premiere "Pro".
Editing was a bit weird at first (I prefer the scrubbing in Premiere, but this has been discussed in an other thread, and I do find the trimmer view pretty much useless in its current form), but overall the tools are great... and fast!

Thnks for clearing all this up.

Beugnet