MM was released WELL before it was ready and by all reports it's still far from ready for prime time.
Then again why not blame it on uStuff, they've saved countless software developers careers. When you're out of time and over budget blame it on uStuff, standard ploy in the industry.
It wouldn't hurt the Vagas team to learn a bit from uSoft about customer support or about how to get a release beta tested either.

And well at least Apple have owned up, when do we get to hear about the core design errors in Vegas and what it'll take to get them fixed. Let me guess, the whole code base needs a rewrite. Yeah I know doesn't make for a good career move breaking that kind of news to the boss "sorry no new widgets for a few years, we gotta spend all that time rewriting everything".

As much as I hate to admit it at least FCP can perform the most basic of functions, no I didn't say it was foolproof but it wasn't designed NOT to be able to do it.

Bob.

others who have installation problems due to Microsoft’s shoddy code. This shouldn’t take away from the robustness of Sony’s implementation of Media Management. It is an incredibly powerful tool. Too bad Microsoft’s SQL Server has given it a bad rap.

Sony's MM is not robust if it doesn't work on my machine.

As an NLE customer, am I supposed to know that there even is a Microsoft SQL server under the hood?

That's like saying that British cars in the 1960s through the 1980s (at least) were very reliable. It was their Lucas electrical systems that didn't work.

(Company named after Lucas, the Prince of Darkness, although auto mechanics were referring to Lucifer more often).

There are many other desktop open-source or free SQL servers, and a possibly better alternative for many or all users: a simple B+ tree that just works.

Does Vegas really need full-blown SQL functionality? What percentage of the SQL syntax does it use? 1%?

And well at least Apple have owned up, when do we get to hear about the core design errors in Vegas and what it'll take to get them fixed. Let me guess, the whole code base needs a rewrite.

I don't know the internals of Vegas, but I'm wondering if its proper use of everything Windows (that served it so well for a long time) is now hampering its progress, because Microsoft has turned into a bureaucratic morass that can't get anything done, and the APIs are not evolving.

Microsoft's problems may be most obvious currently in the "Hasta La Vista" continual delays, and also in the bug-ridden MS Office that is celebrating the 10th anniversary of some common still unfixed problems, with customers who are saying "enough already!"

I'm suspecting (but am ready to be proved wrong) that Vegas 10-bit video is hampered by some old Microsoft APIs that should be updated or replaced pronto.

Adobe did it in a Windows environment, although they are certainly not without weaknesses too. Still, Premiere Pro and After Effects work well with 16-bit video and even 32-bit float.

Apple controls also the OS, so they have it a little bit easier. Final Cut Pro works well with 10-bit in and out, but plug-ins are restricted to 8-bit results. That limitation has been worked around, and there are specific reasons to think that a new, parallel high-end version of FCP will be announced at NAB next month.

Not to replace the new FCP5 universal binary version, but to complement it at the high end (which often means Avid replacement, and Avid still has VASTLY better media management for teamwork on more complicated projects).

Amazingly, you can get a full Final Cut Pro Studio (Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, and DVD Studio Pro) as an upgrade from any single Apple video or audio app from the last few years, for only $199 through the end of 2006.

That's gotta be the deal of the century, except if you need the new FCP Extreme or whatever it will be called, who knows how much that upgrade will cost?

By comparison, Adobe's upgrade to Production Studio has generated widespread anger, for offering duplicates of what a lot of people already have, at very high prices. I can't see how they won't be forced to drop those prices soon...

At least we have to give Adobe credit for biting the bullet and rewriting a lot of old code at the expense of exotic new features. I think the new Production Studio is in many ways the overall smoothest desktop environment for high quality editing, compositing, effects, and DVD production today.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your flame throwers... :O)

I don't like it, so that's at least one.

I wasn't thinking specifically of 10 bit support, rather how Vegas doesn't handle EDLs correctly, all edits reference start of file, not source time code. This is a totla show stopper for anyone working in a broadcast environment. I'm loosing significant business opportunities becuase of this. Question is, do I want to switch to Avid or PPro after investing so much time with Vegas, will Vegas ever be rewritten to do the job properly?
The one saving grace is the new internal VidCap that reads a standard XML file, combine that with some code of my own and I might get this thing to fly. However having two totally different ways of capturing video is kind of wierd, says somethings wrong under the hood that goes back to the original design.

But yes, lack of 10 bit (or greater, why not go for 14bit) is very worrying. So is the totally useless audio capabilities over SDI, that's just insane, this is an audio app and it can't handle broadcast audio as defined by Sony. Take Sony broadcast level decks and try capturing the audio from them in Vegas, oops, sorry only 16/48K and only two tracks out of the 8 on the tape.

And then there's the mess with the PDX10, yes that one you can blame uStuff for and Vegas for being totally reliant on the uStuff internals and yet one guy working part time can code around the problem.

Now I'm perhaps one of the very few here complaining about these issues but that doesn't make them any the less important, in fact I'd suggest it makes them THE most important. Thing is very, very few people at the pointy end of the business would even waste their time (read money) writing this post. When you've got $100Ks worth of gear tied up and clients paying by the hour you don't bother pointing out what's wrong with a $1,000 bit of software, you just buy another $1,000 bit of software and move on.

And so what you might ask, well everyone of those people that have moved on generate a huge number of sales because all the wantabees buy what the top dogs use, that's how Avid stays in the game, they make the bits that must work, work. No frills, arcane workflow, zillion things wrong with their stuff but the core bits that must work, work.

At the moment Vegas kind of seems like this luxurious boat, every creature comfort known to man, every technological marvel is in place. Only problem is the damn boat will not float, so now it sits in dry dock and it's a great place to be and the temptation is to add even more chandeliers instead of making the thing float. Problem is all the guest have gotten so used to all the opulance that they'll stage a mutiny if the gold taps have to go to make the boat float.

Bob.

Bob, useful comments. The retail market really buys bells and whistles, while the manufacturer needs tools to do the job on time and on cost. People show me their new and wonderful digital SLRs and mostly have no idea what many of the buttons and menus actually do. The difficulty is in getting your message through to Madison. Sales volume is probably retail.

I neither like nor dislike MM. I just don't need it

I have to admit I haven't explored MM yet. I'm wondering if anyone here has compared MM and Adobe's Bridge? I am preparing to install After Effects 7.0 and in reading about Bridge it sounds like it would be good for managing my resource images and clips. Other than the integration with Vegas, what are the pros/cons of Bridge vs MM?

-jerry

I really like the fact Adobe Bridge is a seperate application. If I need it I load it, but when I open Photoshop I don't have to load an extra piece of software that slows down startup... Now Acid has it's media manager, vegas as it's own, why not a separate app that integrates with both ? (and sound forge for that matter)

Good comments Bob. I said this before, if FCP or Avid changed their interface from being so arcane, I'd switch. I'm willing to live with Vegas only because of the interface being as free form as it is. I'm not tied to software anymore and certainly would use a more universal editor if I could operate as smoothly as I can with vegas.

Q: why do the british drink warm beer?

A: they own Lucas refrigerators...

> Sony's MM is not robust if it doesn't work on my machine.

Well it does work on my machine and I’ve built PC’s from the ground up and it works right out of the box. So you have to ask yourself what is different aboout your machine that causes it not to work? What services have you tweaked or turned off that it needs? Every PC that I’ve built and installed XP and then ACID or Vegas has worked. I don’t tweak XP at all and right out of the box it works. So there has to be something about your PC that is different than the standard install.

I know Grazie can’t get it working on his PC for Vegas, but it works fine in ACID! Go figure that one out. That is definitely a Vegas bug.

> As an NLE customer, am I supposed to know that there even is a Microsoft SQL server under the hood?

Obviously not, but apparently there are NLE and Audio customers in these forums who buy Vegas or ACID and complain that it’s installing SQL Server and condemn the Media Manager before they even try it. You are right; they should not care what goes on under the hood but the reality is that they do know and some people won’t use it because of that.

> I don't like it, so that's at least one.

OK, ya’ got me there. ;-)

> Now Acid has it's media manager, vegas as it's own, why not a separate app that integrates with both ? (and sound forge for that matter)

ACID and Vegas share the SAME Media Manager. It’s a common shared component. Change the media database and one and when you open the other, that’s the current database. Add an ACID loop while in ACID and it shows up while in Vegas. There is only one Media Manager. That’s one of the things that make it so powerful. ALL of your media is found in one place.

Look, I was being a bit facetious with my original post and I know it doesn’t work on some PC’s but I was really shocked by the number of people that simply complained that it used SQL Server before they even tried it.

~jr

I was reminded of Vegas Media Manager's use of a hugely complex SQL server when I saw one of Monty Python's favorites on PBS last night:

Using rocket-propelled grenades to kill mosquitos.

As an aside, I can't help think of my GoldMine multi-user customer database. I have about 8,000 customers in there, with lots of fields and lots of text for each, with many keys to boot.

In eight years of daily use, I have never lost any data even once, nor have I had access denied because of a technical problem.

They chose a simple dBase database. Simple, it just does what it's supposed to do and nothing else. No frills, minimal overhead.

GoldMine made some user interface decisions that I'm pissed of about. They are obviously using very old MS Windows libraries (classes), which makes some things more tedious than they could have been.

Still, would I abandon this reliability for another product with feature diarrhea?

No way.

"ACID and Vegas share the SAME Media Manager. "

Then what happened to me then?

G

> Then what happened to me then?

It looks like a bug in Vegas. Especially since it worked in Vegas 6.0b and broke in Vegas 6.0c. The fact that you can drag media from the Media Manager interface in ACID and successfully drop it in Vegas suggests to me that the Vegas GUI for the Media Manager has a bug that is affecting your PC.

~jr

Sounds good to me John. - g

"...feature diarrhea..."

Good one. I'll have to remember that.

I dont like it.

Oh, wait a minute I dont use vegas 6,, but bet I wouldn't like it!! :)

I think I would prefer SQLServer to any file-server (e.g., dbase) solution. One of the most frequent complaints about the Photoshop Elements media manager (which uses an Access database) is that it runs out of steam after you load up several thousand photos.

>They chose a simple dBase database. Simple, it just does what it's supposed to do and nothing else. No frills, minimal overhead.

Media Manager is TOTALLY BRILLIANT!

I think I have changed the way I approach videoing and editing 'cos of Media Manager.

I can shoot clips of 4 to 10 seconds of stuff I want to make a video of. Get this back to my pc and do all kinds of searches which will "bring" together an idea.

I have 7 media drives. I have AVIs; ACID loops; JPGs; PNGS; PONGS; Gifs and Gaffs . .anyways a gazillion bits and pieces. I'm a flighty messy editor. I like rummaging and discovering video and audio bits that can make a whole - a narrative or whatever.

I can scrub a piece in Thumbnail Chooser, I can drag it to the Trimmer and scrub and grab JUST the piece I want. I can even drag it directly into SteadyHand for improving the stability of the clip.

I forget stuff and where IO leave it - and squirrel like I can be seen sometimes - PRE MM - scurrying about and searching wildly through Explore for the stuff - Vegas Explorer doesn;t show thumbies - right! Anyways, All I need to do is type in ANYTHING I can remember about the clip/loop/graphic, in the quick search box, and it comes back at me immediately! Now THAT is worth it for me!! I can even select against all the media attributes too AND make conditional searches. MMis totally wonderful!!

I do have gripes about it - sure - but these are only to make it better:

1/- Can we have a drop down "Quick text search" history? This would allow me to pick a previous search, without needing to retype it in? Bit like "Trimmer" history - yeah?

2/- Can we have "Drag 'n Lasso/Select" over Thumbnails view too? We have it in the LIST VIEW - where we CAN'T see what I'm selecting - but NOT in the actual view THUMBNAILS VIEW where I CAN see what I'm looking at? That's odd?

3/- Having Lassoed a selection in LIST view, what I've selected appears selected in GRID - good, but not in THUMBNAIL view?

. .I'll think of others as I use it . .

To all those who dismiss it on overhead costs, fine. I understand. But to dismiss it out of hand 'cos of a thought that it aint the best or that it is tantamount to something akin to bloaters, then I'd say you are cutting your nose to spite your face - serious! Even if you DON'T need it - and yes I can see that maybe editing in the classic way you wouldn't ( maybe) - but I just wish you could see me fling stuff about and scrub and splash media about. .. well maybe you shouldn't . . To me MM has busted open my video work and given me a means to scrub and scour my footage and audio for work I have done in no other way that I've known from a piece of software.

For me, this is exactly how GOOD software shoud, work. Will I use the TAGS and the Funky TAG Icons .. maybe, maybe not .. I'll see . .. but just ion this Explorer relational "Search and Deploy!" ( like that!?) its a complete winner.

Media Manager? Best thing since Dr Who!

Grazie






Oh yeah . .did I say I loved Media Manager?

I guess what really bugs me about Media Manager is that I want to create discrete libraries such as "Sound Effects", "Royalty Free Media", "Stock Photos", etc. I don't want any other files referenced in there but the files I point to and that's it!

Fine! So I create the libraries, then I start editing a project, then I move onto another project. All of a sudden I notice my Media Libraries are messed up with all the vegs, pictures, video and sound that I used in my last project, which are now archived. So they're just in the way! Did I ask them to show up? No! I just want the sound effects I pointed to in the "Sound Effects" library and I don't want anything else.

So I've tried deleting the extraneous stuff, I've tried deleting the whole library and reloading, but all I want is for it NOT to add files I didn't ask it to.

OK! After blowing my top, will someone, some expert, tell me how to prevent Media Manager from putting the extra stuff in there. This may not matter to some, it may even be good for other's workflow, but until I can be sure I always have the same library without additions (until) I put them in there, I'm using things like Media Monkey and Picasa.