Advice wanted about moving from VF 2.0 to VV 3.0

Zar wrote on 11/27/2001, 5:38 PM
You guys have always given me good advice in the past, so I'm hoping to inquire of your wisdom one more time, for a fairly important decision.

I own VideoFactory 2.0 and am considering the $149 VF->VV upgrade offer. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated user of VF, and am sorely tempted to move up to the "big boys" with Vegas. HOWEVER! I was seriously DISENCHANTED with VF's 2.0 release.

It sucked the big one in terms of performance, bugs, reliability, etc. Even though I have the most recent patch set, it still isn't as reliable as VF 1.0. In the forums, I've seen people say that that's because a lot of Vegas features were crammed into VF 2.0 at the expense of performance and testing, and that you need a big box to run it. Well, I have a P3-833 with 512MB, 10,000 RPM disks and a firewire, so I think that my hardware is more than sufficient for the task. That leaves pure performance and reliability as
a major concern.

So what I'm wondering is, does anyone have experience with Vegas 3.0 enough to tell me whether it's reasonably stable and performs well? I was so unhappy with VF 2.0 that I called about getting my money back and was told I could not, and I do *NOT* want to go through that again if I upgrade to Vegas 3.0. If I upgrade, I want it to be worthwhile, perform well and be reliable. Otherwise I'll just use more reliable competitor products like Pinnacle Studio 7 or VF 1.0.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. And yes, I intend to try the demo, but I'm still looking for advice from those with more knowledge than myself.

thanks,
bruce

Comments

Cheesehole wrote on 11/27/2001, 9:36 PM
there are a few people who had frequent crash problems with VV2, but most found it to be very stable. i had no stability problems with VV2, and i've had none with VV3. i've been using VV3 since it came out. (that's 0 crashes) i am also a system expert, so i know my system is configured correctly, which might have something to do with that. (not trying to suggest that your system isn't)

but no one can tell you whether you will have the same problems with VV3 that you did with VV2 or not. there are thousands of system configurations on which Vegas could potentially run. i'd recommend trying the demo, and judging for yourself.

hope it works for you. it's really good, and an incredible deal at that price.

- ben (cheesehole)

OOPS.. just re-read your post and saw you were using VF2, not VV2. i have no experience with VF2, can anyone comment on the performance/stability problems of VF2 compared to VV3?

still, the best thing is to beat on the demo. it's worth spending a little time with.
Zar wrote on 11/28/2001, 1:06 PM
Believe me, I appreciate your comments about system configurations. Since I build and configure my own servers/systems (and we're talking nine of them in my house right now), I'm pretty comfortable saying that these problems aren't system-related. I don't know that I'd call myself a systems "expert", but I do appreciate the relevancy of your comment.

VF 2.0 was a disappointment for me, and I've lost trust in SonicFoundry. I have virtually every program they offer, and until VF 2.0 came out, I could only say awesome things about them. But VF 2.0 hit me in the gut hard, and now I'm gun-shy...

For example, I have VF 1.0 installed on the same system and it runs faster, and drops fewer frames, than VF 2.0 on the same segments. The audio rendering is faster, the program reacts faster than 2.0, stuff like that.

But I'm glad to hear you would call Vegas stable -- that's really what I'm yearning for. I can handle all the rest of the configuration issues if I know the software is performing well and acting stable for others. That's helpful information.

And yes, please, if anyone has used both products, I'd love a subjective evaluation. ;-)

thanks,
bruce
kkolbo wrote on 11/28/2001, 5:51 PM
I am concerned that I read in your post that you were comparing VF2 and 1 with the comment about dropped frames. OK I was never big on SF's video capture utility until I bought VV3. This one is much better. Anyway, I have never had any of the apps, VF1,2 or VV3 drop frames. That is normally a performance issue with your system. I have a PIII 450 with a combo of 7400 and 5400 RPM drives and only 128M of RAM. I capture usually to the 5400 RPM (MAXTOR 80 GIG) drive through firewire. My system is not optimal, but I do not drop frames so something must be right. If you capturing analog uncompressed rather than DV forget this post because my system would choke on that in an instant.

It was suggested on another DV board to use an application called END-IT-ALL before setting up for capture or printing to tape. It allows you to kill any unneeded processes on your system that may be eating up clock ticks and giving you capture rate problems. While no software manufacturer has ever reccomended it, I have used with a lot of success. You may want to take a look at it.

Keith
decrink wrote on 11/28/2001, 6:09 PM
I've been a long time user of Vegas Audio 2.0 and had tons of performance issues with a KT133 chip motherboard. I switched boards and went to WinXP. Vegas Audio worked great and then I switched to VV3.0 the day it came out. Worked with it pretty extensively in the last few days, 20+ 24/48 audio tracks and I just finished an extensive video that I had been preparing. 0 Crashes with lots of info moving. I LOVE THIS PRODUCT! And I still have lots to learn about it.
My 3 cents.
Zar wrote on 11/29/2001, 2:54 PM
I agree about the DV versus "other source" concept, and yes, I occasionally DO capture from sources other than the DV via firewire. So I guess it's fair to say that some of the dropped frames are because of my *choice* of source as input.

However. ;-) I got to play with the Vegas 3.0 demo last night and was pretty excited about the general feature set and reliability EXCEPT in regard to capture. In order to highlight the problem, I deliberately took one of my slower input sources (a USB webcam) and asked Vegas capture to disk for 1 min. This to a physically separate 10,000 RPM disk with 20G of free space, and no tray programs running. It had over 700 dropped frames. I then ran the VideoFactory **1.0** video capture and it had far less dropped frames. Something like 400 if I remember right. Video Factory 2.0's capture came out roughly the same as Vegas (must be the same code base).

THAT tells me that there is something not optimal in the software, not in my hardware or configuration. They've obviously added bells and whistles to Vegas' capture, so perhaps that has caused performance degredations. Without putting a bus analyzer on my system, I couldn't say for sure.

Tonight I'll try capturing from both programs via the firewire/DV combo and see what the results are. If that comes out without dropped frames, I'll probably give it a spin.

thanks!
bruce
SonyEPM wrote on 11/29/2001, 3:02 PM
You absolutely CAN capture without dropped frames. I (and many real-world users) capture and print without dropped frames all the time.

If you are dropping frames it is simply a matter of tweaking your system until frames aren't dropped.

Summersond wrote on 11/29/2001, 3:05 PM
For what it's worth, I just purchased VV 3.0 because I couldn't pass up the price. I own VF 2.0 also, and I wanted the latitude to add more video tracks so I could do more interesting things. I have NO qualms with it so far (have only had it 1 week). I would recommend it.

good luck,
Dave
Zar wrote on 11/29/2001, 5:23 PM
What is there to tweak on a P3-833, 512MB ram, 2 physical 10,000 RPM 40GB (mostly empty, defragged) drives, with virtually no background processes running, no optional settings in capture (i.e., preview off, best rate, yada), capturing to a separate drive, etc? I'd sure like to hear some examples. Maybe just three. Could you share three more tweak ideas with me?

And, explain why VF 1.0 capture drops significantly less frames? From a purely empirical point of view, if two programs running on the same computer, pulling the same data, with NO changes in configuration, result in different dropped frame counts, what does that tell YOU? Sounds like the software to me.

I mean, I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but I know my system pretty well, I've been doing hardware and software for a living for 15 years, and this capture issue really never surfaced prior to VF 2.0 (and Vegas 3.0 demo now).

Just looking at the thread elsewhere in here about "VV3 - print to tape" is a perfect example. A lot of good things to check, and all of those check out on his machine (and mine), but we're both losing frames. If it's not crummy software regressions, then I'd sure like to know what setup YOU have that enables you to have such consistent success without dropping frames...

Hey, if I have to dedicate a high-end computer solely to using Vegas 3.0, that's FINE with me, as long as it doesn't drop frames. But if so, just *say* that, okay?

thanks,
bruce
db wrote on 11/29/2001, 6:00 PM
software vs. hardware ... trying to find the problem is difficult ! many VV users have NO dropped frames ! a few do have dropped frames ..is it the software ? is it the hardware ?

from where i'm sitting i'd say have a hardware problem ( or vegas just doesn't work with your set up ) ? motherboard ? CPU ? something NOT checked ?

you mentioned seagate SCSI drives ... is the write cache turned on ? seagate ships from factory with it turned OFF .. to turn on you need ez-scsi software from seagate ??

pelvis wrote on 11/29/2001, 10:17 PM
ZAR: Your computer sounds like it is more than capable of performing well with Vegas and Video Capture. It is entirely possible that a software bug is at the root of your problem, but as stated earlier, many people have been able to capture and print without dropped frames, so it is far from an impossible act. It is true that some have had trouble, as you have pointed out.

The most common system issues are:

1) IRQ sharing. Many posts about this, but basically, 1394, SCSI, soundcard, and video card should not share the same IRQs, and should ideally have unique IRQs.

2) Not-current drivers for all devices (esp Via chipsets, video cards, sound cards)

3) Drives not defragged (you've done this)

4) other stuff running while capturing/printing (you've done this)

Did VV3 undergo extensive beta testing before release? Yes.

Is the software perfect? No.

Will the software get reasonably frequent updates to fix user-reported bugs? Yes.

We at SF hope that you upgrade to Vegas 3. If you can't get it to work to your satisfaction then we will gladly refund your money and you can find a solution that works better on your system. We'd like to count you as a happy customer at some point.
yirm wrote on 11/30/2001, 12:06 AM
Another great bonus is the Batch Converter. :)

-Jeremy