Boycott Vegas 12 unless Vegas 11 gets stable!

deusx wrote on 1/25/2012, 9:26 AM

>>>The Hadron Collider comes to mind as an engineering project whose complexity beats writing code for Sony Vegas<<<<<

And it's buggier than Vegas has ever been. You forgot it crashed even before it was started and we had to wait a year or more until it was "fixed". Then even now with all those resources they can't figure out whether neutrinos really traveled faster than light. They continue bitching when it should be obvious that Einstein was full of it and the speed of light is not some magical insurmountable limit. And ultimately this machine has so far revealed nothing.

cybercom wrote on 1/25/2012, 9:30 AM

@John_Cline:

I can tell you that if you cannot even put a clip on the timeline of a Premiere Pro 5.5 project, there is something really wrong with your computer system. I would first check your RAM as that is one distinct possibility. I use PrPro 5.5 with no problems at all with 3D and multicam timelines and it is rock solid. Additionally, it integrates with After Effects and Audition as it should.

I have one problem with Vegas 11: if I try to open a project and am asked if I want to save the already open project and answer "Yes", the program will simply lock up.

Admittedly, I do not push the program and use it for cuts-only editing of 3D *.mvc files. I would like to do more with it, but cannot waste time and from everything I've seen listed on this forum, people are doing a lot of that, so I export my edit and finish in Premiere/After Effects/Audition.

I have tried to use Sound Forge while in Vegas, but it does not work properly with *.mvc files and will not return to Vegas after I've worked on the audio. I chased around for many a ticket trying to get someone to look into why - but to no avail.

Perhaps someday all this Sony software will work as advertised, but for me, for now, I have a workflow and see no reason to join you in the Vegas 12 line.

<")%%%><<(

drrohle wrote on 1/25/2012, 10:48 AM

Add me to the list!
drrohle

Former user wrote on 1/25/2012, 2:01 PM

As for me and my house, we will use Vegas.

The bottom line is this: everyone here WANTS (desperately in some cases) for Vegas to work reliably. People are pissed off because it's not quite up to snuff. The positive take-away is that there is a vocal and loyal user base behind the product.

That said, drawing on my own experience working in the National Hockey League for 11 years, I can tell you it's a lot easier for the players to succeed with positive rather than negative energy and attitudes around them. One stats guy even came up with a (somewhat subjective) method of tracking fan reaction to player performance. What was amazing was that under-performing players did better (as did the team as a whole) when fans were positive, than when they were negative.

When I submit a trouble ticket (which has sadly been too frequent in the case of VP11), I always thank whoever is going to address the problem, and encourage them to keep up the hard work and that I appreciate their product.

Vegas is a remarkable product. I suspect all the FCP users would like a flakey version of VCP rather than what they have now (and indeed some big production houses in LA are now moving to AVID and PPro because they work in multi-year production cycles and can't have their platform suddenly take a downward redesign.

What I appreciate most about Vegas is how fast and easy everything is. I just completed a mercifully short project in PPro (because the client demanded it). In Vegas, a crossfade: drag two clips to the timeline, overlap, that's your crossfade. Preview. Don't like where they start/finish, alt-drag the clip to move it within the clip. Preview. Done. In PPro: input the clips to the project (transcode if necessary), drag the clips the timeline, drag the clips over each other, drag a transition effect to the crossover, preview, adjust each clip in the trimmer, preview, adjust in the trimmer again, preview. Done. Repeat if you have to make adjustments later.

Based on the comments in this thread, little wonder SCS keeps their betas private.

Disclosure: I'm editing projects in VP10e, and am importing the projects to VP11 to test it for stability. When it's ready, then I'll migrate to 11 (which I haven't yet - except for very small and simple projects where the GPU acceleration speeds thing up).

VanLazarus wrote on 1/25/2012, 2:23 PM

John _Cline wrote: "What the **** makes you think that the Vegas software engineers are just sitting around and NOT working every day to fix the problems with Vegas?"

I never said that the software engineers working on Vegas are not putting in long hours, nor did I say that the ONE guy Sony has in their Quality Assurance department is not working hard. :)

What I'm gripping about is what the engineers are focusing on, and the size and efficiency of their QA department. I've worked in software development. Making software reliable is mostly about 3 things... competent software engineers, realistic project schedules, and thorough testing. As I can't view the source code for Vegas, I can't comment on the competence of their programmers. But I'm sure Sony wants them to add new features faster than they are comfortable with.... and I'm sure that their QA department is inadequate judging from the types of bugs breezing through their approval process for release.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. A large QA team is required for any NLE. You can't have a few guys with a few computers try out their pet projects for a few hours before passing a software revision for release. They should have a small army of testers with many different computer configurations using every single type of media that Vegas professes to manipulate in a multitude of test projects that push Vegas to the brink. Every major release of Vegas should go through at least 3 months of tests (with NO new features being added during this time!). Every patch should go through at least 1 full month of testing after code lockdown. All testers should be technically savy and have a close relationship with the software engineers, with a good system of sharing information about crashes and bugs. This is where Sony needs to focus some money. They probably spend a few million on development of every major version of Vegas. All the money in the world won't result in a great, stable product (especially a complicated piece of software such as a NLE) unless they spend a good chunk of that on QA!

Sony also needs to up it's game when it comes to dealing with 3rd party developers. Many of the 3rd party plugins I have (Boris, NewBlue) bring Vegas down like a house of cards!

Is Sony pinning all it's QA testing on a few unpaid beta-testers? I'm curious about the beta program and have even applied to be one. Might as well be an official beta tester, rather than an unofficial one like many of us seem to be!

david-ruby wrote on 1/25/2012, 2:45 PM

Honestly this should have not been released till it was tested better. I am sure Sony felt it would be good to get it out there with a few of their tests being completed BUT this has really become a case of this forum is nothing but beta testers. I run a pro business and cannot aford to keep working with vegas 11. I am sad to even say that. I love my Vegas products. Just not this one right now.

Former user wrote on 1/25/2012, 2:55 PM

As in any professional environment (like my own), I gather you built a properly spec'd platform and tested it independently of whatever production tools you were using before VP11. Then, only when you're entirely satisfied it's stable enough to migrate your production workflow to it, did you do so. So, you're telling me you're still using whatever version of Vegas was most stable and productive for you. Correct?

As I said in a previous posting, I'm using VP10e to get work done, and then taking the projects (when I have spare time) and working with them in VP11. 11 isn't stable enough for me to migrate to (except for the smallest and simplest of projects) , so I'm reporting any errors or issues to support in the hopes of improving the product so I *CAN* benefit from what VP11 offers.

Leee wrote on 1/25/2012, 3:19 PM

Leee:
"Vegas 11 sort of caught everyone by surprise in it's extreme bugginess"

Steve Mann:
"DO NOT speak for me. I and many, many Vegas users are very pleased with Vegas 11. You can boycott all you want, but your numbers ("everyone"??) are so small compared to satisfied users that no one will care. Least of all, Sony."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes we all know from your many posts that you have absolutely no problems with Vegas 11 and of your unspoken accusations that the people that ARE having problems must be doing something wrong.

But I do apologize for using the word "everyone". For those literal-minded folks, I meant to say "a lot of people". And I feel safe in using those words just from going by the number of people posting their problems. As opposed to only a small handful of people reporting no problems at all.

Steve, where are you getting YOUR statistics from? Do you personally know 50 people that have absolutely no problems with Vegas 11? 20 people? 10 people? I haven't even counted 10 people posting in this forum that have said they have no problems.

VanLazarus wrote on 1/25/2012, 3:35 PM

@Andreas_S.... So you're saying that the 3rd patch for a major release (Vegas 11 Build 525) should still be assumed to be unstable? I am not a beta tester. I shouldn't assume that professional software sold to me is bug ridden until I've proven that it isn't. That is not my job! I've paid for the software. I can understand avoiding the first release of a new version Vegas based on Sony's past track record.... but avoiding the 3rd patch? It's an unfortunate state of affairs if one should be wary of the 3rd attempt to fix outstanding problems!

Following your advice, I wouldn't have upgraded Vegas past version 8 as it's steadily been less and less stable, and according to your logic, not usable for paid work.

And if I stayed with Vegas 8, I'd have missed out on some of the useful and stable features added since then.... although, as I've stated before, I'd rather have less of those new features and more stability. It is of course, important to remain current with new camera codecs. Vegas has steadily improved it's support of AVCHD and added RED support, which I think are important.... but stability is still king in my opinion, and that is where Vegas has failed lately. Is it too much to ask for both a few new features and stability?

VanLazarus wrote on 1/25/2012, 3:43 PM

@Andreas_S... You say that you report bugs to Sony. What has been your experience with them in solving the bugs you report? Have they been resolved in a timely fashion? What bugs have you reported?

Former user wrote on 1/25/2012, 3:55 PM

I had four tickets outstanding. They're all listed as solved now. The shortest reply was within a day, the longest took a couple of weeks for a reply.

The bugs I reported were:

o NewBlue Titler Pro Crashes
o Cookie Cutter Bug
o Performance Issue (turned out to be my system)
o Dropped / Colored Frames during render

The staff were courteous and helpful. The problems I had were solved but I was only looking at specific issues that were addressed in updates.

That said, I still experience occasional crashes in 11, but since it's not my primary production platform, I'm not spending a lot of time on it because I can't afford to stress about it. If I find more problems, I'll submit more tickets. If a crash window comes up I'll provide complete info and detailed "what I was doing."

Just trying to be part of the solution.

Marc S wrote on 1/25/2012, 3:59 PM

I've been a Vegas user since version 3 and usually jump in right away but after being a frustrated early adopter of Vegas 9 and 10 I decided to sit on the fence. I'm still on the fence. Seems like a real nightmare release and worse than previous ones.

I think Sony needs to adopt a strategy like Adobe uses with Lightroom by having a 4 month public beta. People are happy to work out the bugs when they do not have to pay to do it.

Former user wrote on 1/25/2012, 4:05 PM

@Marc,

Public beta, more communication, something. The way people communicate is so different now. I'm just fascinated with Microsoft and how they're blogging on Windows 8, AND responding to feedback.

In my experience, even if there isn't a plain and clear solution, it's important for the customer to FEEL like they've been heard (how often do we see "is anyone from SCS reading these forums." You can bet they are. But how would ANYONE respond, without being defensive, to many of the comments in this thread.

RIM is a prime example right now. They have a new CEO. The FIRST thing the new CEO of the company that created the smartphone category was...to call the guy who runs the most popular Blackberry blog/fan site. It signaled a VERY different way of communicating with consumers.

It wouldn't hurt for SCS to have a bit of a shift in that direction, but it's hard to do and requires resources and planning (believe it or not - and I know, because it's what I do for a living now).

VanLazarus wrote on 1/25/2012, 11:39 PM

@Andreas_S.... Unfortunately, my experience with Sony support tickets was not like yours.... I wish that I could show you the email thread, but it seems this forum doesn't keep history back a few years. Is there a way to look at old posts I've made 2 years ago?

I want to be part of the solution too, but honestly, I don't have time to recreate and catalogue the many crashes that I've gotten with Vegas over the last year. Maybe if I felt like I was in direct communication with one of the engineers, I'd be more motivated.

Is there like a crash-bug-solving summit that we could organize at SCS in Wisconsin? I'd fly there with my setup and spend a week showing every glitchy part of Vegas I encounter (keyframe bugs still piss me off greatly!).

It would be great to troubleshoot with the engineers and actually solve problems directly. Submitting tickets that depend on large project with media in the GB's is tough over the internet.

Users mostly just want to feel like their concerns are being heard. I think Sony's silence on this forum is very POOR pr. I know that when David Newman from Cineform takes the time to write on these forums, people respect him and his company more. Right now, SCS is a faceless entity.... seemingly ignoring people's gripes.

I realize that the ticket support system is intended for solving bugs, but a SCS presence on this forum would be welcomed by most I think.

MUTTLEY wrote on 1/26/2012, 12:47 AM

"SCS is a faceless entity.... seemingly ignoring people's gripes. SCS is a faceless entity.... seemingly ignoring people's gripes."

Not exactly true, they make appearances at various trade shoes including NAB and I'll add that everyone I've met thus far in person has been more than gracious. Regarding the second part of your statement I've seen them post fairly frequently about various bugs that they were able to duplicate and were attempting to address. I think its fairly unreasonable to expect them to jump into the fray given the current climate of the forums. Aside from the hostility that has recently been leveled at them by a handful of members, beyond the calls to boycott and general unflattering presumptive accusations, none of these recent threads are specific in their requests. There would be no easy answer. They may have a few things on priority, some things they have been unable to reproduce, some things that are already going into the next update. Regardless of how they could possibly address a thread like this it seems to me that the nay-sayers wouldn't be pleased no matter what they would say and it would only serve to fan the flames instead of put them out.

Van, I'm encouraged by your saying "I want to be part of the solution too". Believe me when I say that I have felt the pain of things not working the way you would like or running into unexpected problems at the worst possible time, been there, done that, got a t-shirt. I'm hoping now that everyone's had a chance to vent we can drop all the finger pointing and see if we cant find better more civil ways to discuss these issues as I believe that the current state of the forums is more destructive and divisive than helpful or beneficial to anyone.

One guys humble opinion.

- Ray
Underground Planet

John_Cline wrote on 1/26/2012, 12:59 AM

" Is there a way to look at old posts I've made 2 years ago?"

Every post which as ever been made on this forum is still available. Just select "Any Date" as the Search By Date.

[r]Evolution wrote on 1/26/2012, 1:58 AM

Just switch NLE's.

Trust me, all the major players are capable of doing what Vegas does once you get in Sync. There just seems too many variables in the PC Hardware world to cover them all.

I've definitely had my share of problems with my system but it sure as hell isn't gonna make me me boycott anything. I have to feed my family whether it be with Vegas, Adobe, Avid, or Apple.

Does Sony still partner w/ Boxx?
If so, I wonder how Vegas runs on it?

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 1/26/2012, 9:35 AM

My name is on the list indeed only for updating Vegas 10, because that is what
i still use.....I dont see the need for ever boycotting Sony Vegas.....You crazy.
Despite the various glitches, Vegas is still ahead of the pack in various ways.
Trust me on that.

Tom G wrote on 1/26/2012, 11:51 AM

you will have a long wait then

Wadro65 wrote on 1/26/2012, 12:50 PM

Agree. Vegas 9e was the last stable version I can use to make money. Anything newer is a buggy toy to play with when slow. Been here since Vegas 4.

jabloomf1230 wrote on 1/26/2012, 1:05 PM

The "problem" with Vegas is the problem with any commercial software written for the PC. The author of the 3rd party software cannot control:

1) the OS version that the software will run on. Notice that in a limited way, Adobe did that by dropping the 32 bit version of PP & AE and just focusing on 64 bit Windows (and the Mac of course).
2) the hardware configuration on which the software will run. 64 bit software running with a fast processor, a lot of physical RAM and a recent generation GPU is going to be more stable.
3) the loose nut behind the wheel, or in simpler terms what the user does with the software.

Although I empathize with people claiming that Vegas Pro 10 or 11 is "buggy", I personally have never encountered those bugs. I'm not denying that they exist. I'm just saying that given my hardware configuration (a one year old dual core workstation, 40 GB RAM, a GTX 580 and Win 7 x64) and the type of editing that I do (no 3D, Red or ancient MPEG files or files needing odd codecs), Vegas works fine. I do remember before I bought my present setup, just about every video package (I use both PP & Vegas + a lot of utilities) used to crash unexpectedly.

If it was solely my decision, I would ditch Premiere and use Vegas Pro solely, just because I find VP more intuitive. And it certainly wouldn't be constructive for me to recommend that everyone just go out and buy a whole new computer. But those people that are complaining about Vegas should think a bit more of why they are having these problems and how much of that is within the control of SCS.

farss wrote on 1/26/2012, 2:40 PM

"But those people that are complaining about Vegas should think a bit more of why they are having these problems and how much of that is within the control of SCS."

All of it is within the control of SCS.
This line of reasoning is wrong. If there are any specific requirements for the code to run reliably the vendor should specify them. If they do not limit a factor and the product fails to perform because of that, the fault lies with the vendor, not the user.

If as you say there is a specific hardware requirment the vendor can easily specify that, SCS fails to do so. In fact many times users have asked for such information and SCS have refused to supply it. They have actively promoted the product as hardware agnostic, take your pick of CPUs from AMD or Intel, video cards from nVidia or AMD.

Bob.

TheRhino wrote on 1/26/2012, 3:16 PM

I'm a big fan of Vegas and SCS, but I can get 10e to crash VEG files that are rock steady in 9e. This crash is repeated on all (5) workstations which are rock-steady. Some have just the bare Vegas essentials and one has Office, CS5.5, etc. which all run fine.

I can deal with all other shortcomings if SCS fixes two major flaws: The replace footage flaw & the render to black flaw. These flaws are really easy to miss when I just want to make a small last-minute change & re-render before completing a job.

For instance, at the last minute the client wants to change a title within the video - just a 2 minute fix and re-render. The render takes 2 hours on a 6-core 980X machine... At the end of the two hours, there is a 20 second black section towards the end of the video - a portion of the video that was unchanged since the title was at the beginning...

IMO I cannot see why this cannot be fixed. If it cannot be fixed then there must be a major flaw within the inner guts of Vegas that can never be fixed... In that case even the most faithful will have to look elsewhere...

Again, I am a HUGE fan and Vegas saves me time over all other NLEs. But these two bugs are really driving me nuts...

MUTTLEY wrote on 1/26/2012, 4:13 PM

jabloomf1230: "But those people that are complaining about Vegas should think a bit more of why they are having these problems and how much of that is within the control of SCS."

Farss" All of it is within the control of SCS. This line of reasoning is wrong. If there are any specific requirements for the code to run reliably the vendor should specify them. If they do not limit a factor and the product fails to perform because of that, the fault lies with the vendor, not the user."

Bob, I'm a little surprised by your hardline reply, jab's suggestion that people who are having problems explore the possibility of what might be wrong with their system outside of Vegas isn't just reasonable but exactly what people should do. It's not that there are "specific requirements" being held back as you propose but the fact that there are millions if not billions of possible configurations from user to user between what hardware, software, drivers, operating systems etc etc etc. You can have everything Vegas requires and still have something be wrong with your system and its not always easily apparent. Personally speaking I've nearly lost my mind trying to fix something that I thought was a software issue or a particular program only to find out that my power supply was going bad, once it was some weird obscure setting for the memory I had that needed settings changed in the bios, once it was an external hard drive that was about to die, I've had bios updates I was unaware of, registry settings that had gotten changed somehow, a codex I didn't have, a loose cable, bad file, virus, spyware and on and on and on and on. If you saw in another thread I recently had troubles with timeline playback with V11 even with a 3gig GTX 580 where I was getting under 1fps with a single file on the timeline, didn't matter what file I used. Spent the entire day uninstalling, reinstalling, rolling back Windows updates, updating just about every driver on my system, eventually something took and now Vegas 11 is running frikkin amazing.

This is not to say that it's never a Vegas issue, that's where these forums really come in handy as we can compare notes and find out if it's just us or a reproducible bug or, like the black frame and replacing media issue, something that's affecting many but not all.

The point I'm trying to make is that although Vegas may crash for some or behave in some erratic way for others it is not beyond reason to suggest that quite often this is just a symptom of some other, often seemingly unrelated issue entirely.

- Ray
Underground Planet