Congratulation Magix! Vegas Pro 19 is a charm!

Ottonis wrote on 11/1/2021, 4:37 PM

This is just a very small review / appreciation. I am a long time user of Vegas, starting at V13 (I think) all the way up to v18.
I am not a professional. Not even close. Occasionally, I do some multi cam work on concerts, services, talks, presentations, retreats or even parties. I don't have time to spend endless hours researching how to use a video editing tool. I want to import my media, get some titles done, cut and blend the clips I want and to just export it.
My first steps were with Adobe premiere, which I found was way too complex for my taste, but when I tried Vegas for the first time, it was like "wow". I didn't have to even read a manual. As if there was some sort of telepathic connection between me and this program, I just started working entirely intuitively and I loved how Vegas understood me instead of me trying effortfully to understand Vegas.

Sure, occasionally I had to look up some settings, but it was mostly a matter of a minute or two to find an appropriate solution or tip on google to any kind of problem or question.

What I also loved was the cool bundles with Soundforge, numerous extra Video plugins e.g. from NewBlue of BFX.

Still, I was pondering a lot whether or not to upgrade to Vegas Pro 19, and this is why: While I truly loved Vegas Pro for its super intuitive workflow, I hated its instability. 3-4 years ago, I was rendering a 20 min video file that had to be presented at our Christmas party. The party was about to start at 8 pm and it's been already late afternoon, while my PC was "chewing" on the rendering and simply stopped some 5 minutes before end of video file. Nothing really helped. No settings, nothing.

Ultimately, I rendered each video track separately with all the tansitions, blendings and text renderings and combined those rendered tracks again in a new Vegas project to render again the final video.
Trith be told: This happened to me with ALL versions of Vegas ....... - before Vegas v19 entered the stage!!!!

I have done a couple of video projects with v19 and - knock on wood - this is the very first version of Vegas that yet didn't crash while rendering a project. Not once!

The look and feel is more responsive, it feels snappier, and it feels just stable. It really feels like a very mature, yer sleek piece of advanced software that one cannot help but enjoy every bit of it,

I do remember a user survey by Magix 1-2 years ago about what things were important to me/the user for future versions of Vegas. And my response back in the day was: 1. Stability, 2. Stability and 3. Stability. And then add some more stability.

And you know what: Magix delivered. And more than delivered on that stability.

For my needs and my amount of time I spend with this hobby, Vegas 19 is just the perfect combination between ease of use, complex tools and stability.

For Vegas 20, I would wish for some more improved text/titles functionality. Now, we have dozens of cool presets, however, I think of more cinematic/serious presets and cinematic fonts.

All in all, big thumbs up to the guys and gals form Magix for advancing and refining this wonderful piece of software, Keep it on!

Comments

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 11/1/2021, 6:16 PM

Ottonis, Refreshing to hear a positive compliment on Vegas Pro 19 for a change, Thanks. It truly is deserving of these praises, it has indeed come a far way and is on solid route to keep getting better.

But sadly, you will soon have some commenting in this post with much negativity and eventually turning it into their own personal rant.

Continued happy editing in your Vegas Pro workflow Ottonis!

Former user wrote on 11/1/2021, 6:39 PM

But sadly, you will soon have some commenting in this post with much negativity and eventually turning it into their own personal rant.

Continued happy editing in your Vegas Pro workflow Ottonis!

@Steve_Rhoden It could be comedic ironic satire.

@Ottonis what are your PC specs, do you have any tips or tricks for VP19 users, anything you change from default settings?

What is the source material you've been using for editing in VP19? codecs, frame rate etc

Thanks

Ottonis wrote on 11/2/2021, 2:03 AM

But sadly, you will soon have some commenting in this post with much negativity and eventually turning it into their own personal rant.

Continued happy editing in your Vegas Pro workflow Ottonis!

@Steve_Rhoden It could be comedic ironic satire.

@Ottonis what are your PC specs, do you have any tips or tricks for VP19 users, anything you change from default settings?

What is the source material you've been using for editing in VP19? codecs, frame rate etc

Thanks

Ottonis wrote on 11/2/2021, 2:27 AM

Comedic ironic satire? Not at all. It's just my honest appreciation, not more and not less.

The machine I am running VP19 on is a very new Acer Spin 5 convertible laptop with Tiger Lake 11.gen Core i7 CPU, Intel Xe iGPU, 16 GB of RAM and 1TB SSD.

VP19 was a fresh install without any previous versions. And it was on a clean and fresh Win10 system.

The source material I am using is h264 encoded mp4, never above 1080p, 24bit wav audio files, digitized VHS video material (mp2), photos (jpg), and titles generated in Vegas.

I have activated GPU acceleration in the settings and for export/rendering I am using Magix h264 codecs with QSV accelerated encoding, (1080p).

My "signature" effect are very long video crossfades (5-10 sec).

I never use more than 4-5 video tracks and 2-3 audio tracks and 1-2 titles tracks in one single project.

I have to admit that I haven't been following the forums lately, so color me puzzled and surprised about other people complaining.

RogerS wrote on 11/2/2021, 2:36 AM

Thanks for sharing this- helpful to see what others users are experiencing and that the Tiger Lake Intels are working well for you.

There's not much reason for users who aren't having problems to come to the forum, so it's not surprising the forum in general shows a litany of problems.

Mohammed_Anis wrote on 11/2/2021, 2:41 AM

Ottonis, Refreshing to hear a positive compliment on Vegas Pro 19 for a change, Thanks. It truly is deserving of these praises, it has indeed come a far way and is on solid route to keep getting better.

But sadly, you will soon have some commenting in this post with much negativity and eventually turning it into their own personal rant.

You are a prophet, sir. (my way of agreement, not sarcasm)

Former user wrote on 11/2/2021, 2:42 AM

I also mainly work in 1080P, various AVC sources and resolutions, they usually have AAC audio though, not WAV. I could see your playback being fine at 1080P30 with same source. With higher resolutions and frame rates I find VP18 plays back smoother. Stability, rate of crashes for me seems similar to VP18, compatibility with file types, some many years old did not increase.

I see that you're genuine with your praise and leave it to other people to share their positive VP19 stories

Ottonis wrote on 11/2/2021, 4:33 PM

Thanks for sharing this- helpful to see what others users are experiencing and that the Tiger Lake Intels are working well for you.

There's not much reason for users who aren't having problems to come to the forum, so it's not surprising the forum in general shows a litany of problems.

Agreed, many people who are happy with a product don't bother finding a forum in order to express their experiences.

To be honest, I joined this forum a couple of months ago in order to ask whether or not my older BorisFX Plugins from VP18 would continue working in VP19. I was very pleasently surprised by quite the number of responses. These friendly and helpful replies certainly contributed to my decision to upgrade to VP19, as this seems to be a community that contains quite a few very interested, competent and caring people.

Maybe one more word w/r to TigerLake: While this is definitely an improvement over the older Skylake architecture, they are certainly not a "breakthrough" - experience. I am seeing this everyday in when using my DAW with a handful of audio plugins: I can easily "freeze" the system anytime I add just one more CPU-hungry plug in.

I guess that VP19 is making good use of and is maybe optimized to efficiently use Intel's iGPU and in particular the QSV encoding machine.

Ottonis wrote on 11/2/2021, 4:37 PM

Ottonis, Refreshing to hear a positive compliment on Vegas Pro 19 for a change, Thanks. It truly is deserving of these praises, it has indeed come a far way and is on solid route to keep getting better.

But sadly, you will soon have some commenting in this post with much negativity and eventually turning it into their own personal rant.

Continued happy editing in your Vegas Pro workflow Ottonis!

Many thanks for the positive attitude and your good wishes. Most probably VP19 will crash sooner or later even in me, but until then, I am enjoying it :)

Ottonis wrote on 11/2/2021, 4:45 PM

I also mainly work in 1080P, various AVC sources and resolutions, they usually have AAC audio though, not WAV. I could see your playback being fine at 1080P30 with same source. With higher resolutions and frame rates I find VP18 plays back smoother. Stability, rate of crashes for me seems similar to VP18, compatibility with file types, some many years old did not increase.

I see that you're genuine with your praise and leave it to other people to share their positive VP19 stories

Thanks! Most of the time I record audio separately with a dedicated mic/recorder (Zoom H4n pro) in 24bit 44.1 kHz, get the audio heavily cleaned and processed (denoise, EQ, comoressir/limiter). I keep the original audio that was recorded in camera just for reference/alignment purposes and ultimately ungroup and delete it in favor of the processed wav file.

By that, I don't need to use any audio Plugins anymore in VP since they can be real CPU hogs....

True-H wrote on 11/2/2021, 5:43 PM

I did not face stability problems with older versions so I can not tell if v19 is more stable or not. However compared to v18, I love and appreciate the new modern look and dark colors. Keep it up Magix