A Valedictory -- Goodbye Vegas

Hitime wrote on 10/29/2012, 9:41 AM

I have been working with Vegas since the Sonic Foundry days, my first version was v2. Because of this long association, I think I owe it to Vegas to explain why I am leaving, in the hope that the issues will be addressed in later releases. As a software designer and programmer myself, I am well aware how GUIs can become dated and more cluncky as time progresses. The temptation always is to add on just another feature without stopping to assess how busy the GUI is becoming.

I know that large changes are difficult to make without upsetting the user base but it can be done, if properly managed. I would cite the introduction of Sonar x1 by cakewalk as an example.

I was badly let down by v11 on 2 quite different machines in the spring (search Hitime in this forum to find it). As a result, I stopped using it and started looking at alternative systems whilst waiting for the upgrade. I have had a long wait so I have had plenty of time.

Comparing Vegas with its competitors was an eye opener. This is not the place to give a detailed comparison of Vegas rivals, but there are many. Some of the newer and much cheaper products have improved enormously.

Having started later than Vegas, the are at a stage in there development cycle were they can be more agile and this shows. In particular, the strides that Magix have made surprised me. There are still features in Vegas that are not in even Magix X4 (eg Multi cam is better in Vegas). Nevertheless, most of what I use is there (even MTC sync!!) and the interface is better -- much better. The integrated DVD functionality is a big plus.

When v11 builds 700/701, at last arrived, in September, I tried it and the stability problems were still there on a, time sensitive, hour long project. Because of the good Magix GUI, I was able to transfer the project and complete it.

Reading this forum, it seems that v12 has not sorted the problem. I asked for a free update to v12 because I found v11 to be not fit for purpose. It was refused.

I shall not look back

cheers Hitime

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/29/2012, 10:15 AM

You've found you prefer Magix over Vegas?

Laurence wrote on 10/29/2012, 10:26 AM

For what it's worth, V11 was a total unusable waste of a generation. I never could make it work during it's entire lifespan.

V12 on the other hand rocks! Yes it does crash occasionally and there are a few bugs, but nothing that stops me in my tracks. I LOVE the new features. The proxy feature is my favorite. HD video off my DSLR edits like SD DV used to.

I almost gave up on Vegas because of V11. V12 has me back firmly in the fold.

VidMus wrote on 10/29/2012, 10:26 AM

Vegas 11 works great here. Vegas 12 is a bit below par and waiting on the next build.

It does not matter to me. I do not want to learn a different NLE. I did that when I switched from another NLE to Vegas.

I have established the workflow that I want and that helps me a lot in getting things done efficiently. Of course if I had all or even some of the issues that other have/had then that would be a different story.

There are a lot of things outside of Vegas that can cause problems that might not be triggered by another NLE. There are video file types that cause more problems than others. There are work-flows that cause more problems than others.

I did a test-fresh install of Windows 7 on an extra hard drive and installed the trial version of Vegas 12 on it. I tried a render and Vegas 12 immediately crashed. I made a few changes and no more crashes. I do not remember what all I changed but it was logical and all is well on it.

I did the test install in preparation for the new system I will start building soon. Just a way to get the procedure the way it needs to be.

Finally, sometimes the grass looks a lot greener on the other side of the fence but has a lot of hidden weeds that bite!

Good-bye, have fun and best of luck to you!

Former user wrote on 10/29/2012, 10:36 AM

I have been a big fan of Vegas for a long time, but I stuck by Pinnacle Studio for quite a while because most of the time, I only needed basic editing functions. It was faster. I have gotten very used to Vegas now and can move really fast in basic operations. I am staying with V11 32 bit because it seems very stable on my 64bit computer. With money tight, I don't see features in 12 that make me want to spend it right now.

But surprisingly, many of the lower cost applications (Pinnacle, Magix) are coming on strong with many of the features of Vegas, stereoscopic, HD, AVCHD support, BluRay authoring. It does make you curious about them.

Please give us feedback, competition does not hurt anyone.

Dave T2

Laurence wrote on 10/29/2012, 10:46 AM

For me, 64 bit is a really hugely positive change for both my music and my video.

The big difference in Vegas when working with 64 bits is how it handles photo and graphics animation. 64 bits lets you work with huge graphics files so much more smoothly.

In music, I use Reason 6.5 and what the 64 bit version lets me do is work with enormous sampled instruments without streaming them from hard disc. I still have to use the 32 bit version of Reason when I rewire it into Pro Tools since Pro Tools is still a 32bit only program. There are certain sound libraries that I just can't use because of their file size in 32 bits.

I can see where someone doing video editing only in Vegas wouldn't see the need for the 64 bit version. Do a little graphics and photo animation though and the whole thing changes. 64bit Vegas suddenly is just so much faster and stabler than the 32bit version. For me, with the mix of video and graphics animation that I typically use, 64bits is an obvious necessity.

Hitime wrote on 10/29/2012, 11:17 AM

it is both 32 & 64 bit versions that are crashing on both my m/cs

Hitime wrote on 10/29/2012, 11:19 AM

For what I am doing yes -- I like the GUI better and SO FAR fairly stable on projects transferred out of V11

_Lenny_ wrote on 10/29/2012, 12:45 PM

My first 'proper' NLW was Magix Movie Edit Pro 10. In many ways it was like Vegas - without having used MEP, I would never have migrated to Vegas - and in some ways better - timeline, storyboard, and scene overview which is a great way to make a very rough cut.

It also had the trimming features that Vegas has only just adopted.

The built in DVD creator was good, but soon became limiting. Quite unusable for advanced productions.

Audio tools were good, too.

Slow motion was always a pain. Due to a never-fixed bug, when using slow motion, the field order was reversed which caused terrible jaggies on the finished product. Another bug was failure to complete a render. The render indicator would reach 100% and stay there. Very frustrating.

Keyframing was rudimentary and ill-thought out to the point of being unusable (a bit like Pro Type Titler!)

Extremely good value, though, and I did love the program. Maybe some of the issues I had have been resolved? It is an application I would consider using again.

(The installer liked to install a load of junk, too, which was very annoying).

Hitime wrote on 10/29/2012, 2:28 PM

I can imagine that, one day, I might run out of power in Magix X4 DVD but, If this happens, I still have DVDA 5.2. Until then, for simple DVDs the integrated work flow is very helpful.

The REALLY big Magix plus is that it handles my Nikon and Panasonic footage native, without the re-rendering I need in v11 to stop it stuttering badly.

I decided to go for X4 not the cheaper MEP mainly for the two screens and MTC support -- Multi cam is poor in MEP too. The clincher was finding it for £227 on Amazon not much more than the v12 upgrade.

musicvid10 wrote on 10/29/2012, 4:04 PM

So this thread is really an infomercial for Magix?
Sorry I asked, didn't see that coming.

fldave wrote on 10/29/2012, 6:42 PM

My 32-bit V8 plays my Panasonic GH2 footage Best Full at full speed on my Core i5 machine. That said, I am upgrading to V12 finally tonight or tomorrow. It's time.

VideoFreq wrote on 10/29/2012, 7:38 PM

HiTime, I almost would agree with your frustration, except I have used sooo many different editors that I picked one that met all the things I wanted to do. That one is SVP. I almost went to Magix except that it is a small fish in the big pond and will not have the full third party support so needed by an NLE. I did like its interface as it was intuitive but I already had software and hardware that Magix said I couldn't use.
I do believe that SCS lied about compatibility of Vegas with other programs as well as graphic cards and third party hardware. For sure SVP 11 and 12 require newer cards with a CL 2.0 or better. Also, SVP 11 or 12 wont work with Boris Graffiti and many other plug-ins. I UNDERSTAND your frustration. I think SCS is forcing its users to play the game of upgrade and expand. They goofed with 11 & 12 though I think 12 is a step in the right direction.
FYI, I use Pinnacle for photo montages but don't like Avid Studio. It's too different. I use SVP for most everything else. I love its color correction. Its the best I've ever used. I used to use AVID MC5 converting from Xpress Pro. I have also tried and still use Adobe Premier Pro CS4 & CS5 but abandoned it. It's not as tricky to use as AVID but its not as fast or elegant as Vegas Pro. I use the CS5 suite for Final FX, Photoshop and Flash. I have also used various versions of Power Director, which I REALLY liked but it did not produce professional looking DVD's or BluRays and choked on large AVCHD projects.
My all-time favorite, don't laugh.... AVID Liquid. It really simplified the whole process as well as repetitive tasks plus used every device and plug-in I could throw at it. I would use it now except, it can't handle AVCHD and I don't like to transcode. When AVID abandoned Liquid I saw that it could also happen to Magix.
Sorry to see you go. Good luck.

wwjd wrote on 10/29/2012, 7:52 PM

I have a weak machine with only 2 gig of ram. out of the 8 or so trials I did, Vegas worked AMAZINGLY where everything else was too slow, choppy, weird to use. Vegas was the best for my situation.

bigrock wrote on 10/29/2012, 8:08 PM

AVID Liquid. That's where I came from to Vegas as well.

PeterDuke wrote on 10/29/2012, 8:34 PM

I lust after smart rendering of AVCHD, and therefore have been stuck on Vegas Pro 9c for some time. Due to occasional crashes, swapped media, etc., I looked at Magix Video Pro X4 for a while and while a bit clunky and restrictive it seemed to do most of what I needed to do. Then I found bugs in the AVCHD smart rendering. Magix blames Main Concept for that and have advised them.

I then tried Cyberlink PowerDirector and also found a bug when smart rendering AVCHD. I am still laboriously struggling with customer support on the matter.

I also found a problem with Corel Video Studio, but haven't followed that up lest I get confused with PowerDirector, since response time can take many days (faster than SCS?).

I am back to Vegas 9c again, augmented by other versions and other software as required.

Ron Windeyer wrote on 10/29/2012, 9:18 PM

My experience is similar to many here. I'm only a home user, but I like to dress up my movies a bit :)
Totally happy with Vegas 8 and 10; 11 was a disaster (How many more times can this thing crash?????)
Vegas 12 is a breath of fresh air. Love the new editing tools, extra rendering options, and it is rock solid. I'm here to stay.
BTW, even though my video card is not one of the "chosen ones", the program still runs well. I render using CPU; just gives me the chance to drink more coffee....

Hitime wrote on 10/30/2012, 8:35 AM

I use Sonar X1 (Change x2 when Magix is settled in) mainly with NI's Kontakt. I used to have sonar on one m/c and v9-10 on the other and synced by mtc. Not always in this mode but I find it useful. I am doing it on one m/c now that I have upgraded (using loopMidi).

Magix X4 is the only other windows based NLE below £2000 that does this, that I am aware of. FCP does it (so I am told) on a Mac.

Time will tell whether I can get the capacity from Magix X4 but it comes from a music/audio background (like Vegas from Acid) and I have been pleasantly surprised by its audio side.

The problem for me about 64 bit only is running it on a laptop when in the field.

Hitime wrote on 10/30/2012, 8:38 AM

It is dslr footage that is the problem .