I think I may be able tohelp you.
1) You CAN scrub with the timeline, but there is no sound. Instead there is the "rate" bar. It's basicly like scrubbing except you don't need to constantly move your mouse. It's right below the list of tracks (in VV3 you can only fo between -2x and +2x rewind/fastforward, but in vv4 it's much fster).
2) The text plugin (or generated media) is quite nice. I can do more with text then photoshop can. I still end up using eigther Photoshop or Gimp for my title overlays (a screen of picture with text), but I used the text plugin for anything else (scrolling text, text that's changing it's shape, etc). Right click on the timeline and select eigther Instert Text Media or Insert Generated Midia to do that.
3) I never understood what "ripple edit" was, but the "s" key will slice a clip where your curser is (if no clip is selected then it will slice ALL clips at that time).

I didn't really notice all the features until I made a couple video's with the program. Now I find it very annoying to go back to use premiere at work. :)

Hi,

I too am working on the trial version of VV4 from PREMIERE and am evaluating to switch.
I find that trimming on the timeline of VV4 is awesome, in my opinion. Highlite the clip you want to trim. By using your numeric keypad, 7 will select the in point that you can trim with keys 1,4,3 and 6. Key 9 will select the outpoint of the clip that you can trim also.
This feature, combined with the ripple edit switch on top of the timeline, becomes very powerfull and rapid editing.

Gilles Vero

1) FWIW, you can scrub using the JKL keys direct on keyboard....I believe there is a way using the mouse (ctrl + click/drag or something)
2) As far as titling, you'd be amazed at what people have done within VEGAS. Check out a whole ranges of vids posted on www.vegasusers.com and there are project files (veg files) posted on www.sundancemediagroup.com (forget where on the web they are but you can search around...) These veg files are really cool because you can download them, open a new project of vegas with the veg file and see for yourself!!!

3) - can't say much on this one...yet!

Best of luck and welcome to the Vegas world!!!

Paul.

Timeline scrubbing with sound works at 4x forward and reversed in V4. Scrubbing can occur at a max of 20x in either direction, but over 4x sound is not present. There are three ways to do it -- use the scrub "Rate" tool to the lower left of your Vegas window; use the J, K, L keys, pressing them multiple times to increase the rate; click on a clip on the timeline, and then find a spot with no active tracks beneath this track. Press and hold the Ctrl key and line it up with the spot you parked your cursor at, (the blinking line) and a speaker with arrow keys should appear -- click and hold your mouse and move backward/forward to scrub.

Titling -- uhm, there isn't any 3D if that's what you're looking for. Otherwise, get creative with Motion Blur; multiple Tracks; Velocity Envelopes; assorted Video Effects filters; Track Motion and Event Pan/Crop; etc...

Ripple editing is a click away from functioning in V4 (or just hit Ctrl+L to toggle it on/off). There are three different ways in which it effects Tracks and Events as well -- fool around with 'em all to find which suits you.

- jim

Its too late. You're already converted. You'll find yourself using Premiere less and less until it becomes a distant memory. Welcome to Vegas!

ericb - I am a hobbyist so not tons of time in either app. I did several projects in Premiere but got frustrated several times.

My last two projects I have done in Vegas. It is a new app, and I had to learn new ways of doing things, but I haven't really found anything yet that I could do in Premiere that Vegas can't do. Yes, it is different. The 'S' key was nice to finally figure out to split a video. It is also nice to just drag your videos up, and if you need to add one to the middle it just works. Premiere I never quite figure out how to add a clip to the middle since the tracks would then be out of order. Vegas just re-orders the tracks so that everything still lines up.

Not sure if that made sense, but imagine in Premiere you have clip A transition to B which later transitions to C. What if you want to add a clip between B and C? Well, you have to place the new video, and move C to the other track. Not so in Vegas, it automatically staggars all the other clips so that it fits. There are lots of other virtues, but this one made me particularly happy.

Another thing that saved me is pan/crop! In Premier I used 'motion' because it was an easy way. There is also a filter you can use for motion that I hear works better. The problem with Premiere's motion is it will automatically resize your image to the render settings before applying the zoom/motion. So even if you have a huge image, it will get pixelly after a 200% zoom. Not so in Vegas, the Pan/Crop works great. I use this a lot in photo montages. Note, track motion in Vegas will do the same thing as Premiere's motion, it will get resized before the motion is applied.

Anyway, I would recommend Vegas. Go to http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/help/kb/kb_files.asp and check out some of the files people have shared so you can see what can be done. Also, download the demo files from the sonicfoundry ftp site. Search in these forums for the user name and password, then download those. Check out some of the cool text effects with shadows and light rays and stuff that have been done. Close enough to 3D!

Have fun.

Thanks for all the feedback. While I did learn a couple of things I didn't know, I guess in general I prefer the direct scrubbing on the timeline that most other apps use. Sure I can build up titles by layering techniques, but wouldn't it be nice to have a "TitleDeko" or Premiere 6.5 level title facility?

I am afraid that you guys are right.... I think I may already be converted ....

If you hold Ctrl+Shift and then drag across events, you can scrub video by position, just not audio.
///d@

I too am a Premiere user and have evaluated V4. I use Sound Forge and VV3 Le to edit audio but cannot find a way of editing multicameras shoots in V4 ( or for that matter in VV3 LE )the way Premiere does. I use two or three cameras for dance and theatre shows and like to leave all three cameras clips in the timeline in sync. I use the multi-razor tool in Premiere to select the edit points between the cameras and just right click to disable the pieces that I do not want to show, very simple and at a large scale it is easy to see the camera flow as all the disabled clips are shaded. I know how to split a clip in VV3 or V4 but cannot find a way of disabling a split clip in the timeline as in Premiere. Am I missing something or is this something that V4 cannot do. I too prefer the scrub in Premiere. I mainly use cuts or very fast dissolves so the fancy transitions are of no use to me. I also cannot find a simple cross dissolve in V4. So you see it comes up short from my perspective in most catagories other than audio for which I already have VV3 LE and SOund Forge.

Ron Evans

I frequently edit 2 and 3 camera shoots using Vegas (I couldn't figure out how to do it easily in Premiere). I will have Vegas laid out as follows:

Track 1: Master (final) video track
Track 2/3: Camera 1 Video/audio
Track 4/5: Camera 2 video/audio
Track 6/7: Camera 3 video/audio

Then for each place where you want to change cameras, just do a CTRL-A, S (select all and split), and move the desired segment to the master track (Numpad 8 works well for this). I have written a script to help simplify this process. It can be found at: www.jetdv.com/scripts/MultiCamDissolve.js.txt

Marty Hedler has also written a complete tutorial on this subject at: http://www.martyhedler.com/homepage/Vegas_Tutorials.html

I too figured that method but it fails to retain the videos in their original form so that there can be changes made repeatedly. With Premiere it is easy to turn the disable on and off( just right click on a clip segment and select enable or disable or many other attributes for that matter) to look at different views without permanently moving anything. The problem arises because V4 has track disable but no clip disable. The option still exists in Premiere to move pieces to the V1a and V1b tracks, as you do to move to the Master track, to apply transitions after all the cut points have been established. I love the audio features of all the Sonic FOundry products but for me the video still is lacking in ease of use and logic. It is an audio editing program attempting to treat video like audio this is obvious in the way the programmers view scrubbing. In video there is a picture every frame so there is no need to have a speed control( the new scrubb features in V4 are just different ways to access the old scrubb speed controller) but in audio it has to play fast enough to hear anything. For video, single frame advance is important but for audio it is useless ( one might switch to waveform view to find an edit point).
The real issues may lie in the poor documentation of all these video editing programs. Most of the useful information seems to be undocumented or at best well hidden !!!!! In my mind none of the present batch of NLE's are directed at the event video market that post edit multicamera shoots and purely want to produce a simple video but at high quality. All seem positioned for film style editing with elaborate effects. I would really like the NLE equivalent of a video mixer with up to 4 inputs that produces an editable timeline ( a bit like the Multicam plugin for Premiere, but with timeline editing after the initial edit as an option). Fast had such a system many years ago in the Fast Video Machine but a true NLE version doesn't exist. Multicam is the only product that attempts to satisfy what must be a large market.

Ron Evans

RonE,

You might try inserting a "Composite Level" envelope on each track. You can then insert points and adjust the opacity levels anywhere on the time line from 0% to 100%.

You can view any particular camera's view by clicking on the SOLO button on the track header. This is how I look at the individual camera shots to determine which camera I want to move to the master track. The thing I DON'T like about the composite method is the fact that you have to lower it on TWO tracks to get to the third camera and, if you don't move it back to exactly 100%, it will cause EVERY frame to be re-rendered.

I understand what your both saying but for this application Premiere is easier to use and more flexible, no re-rendering and instant response.

Ron Evans

I don't know. I've only done one two-camera movie and for me it was just a matter of lining up the videos to sync on two tracks, grouping them, then watching one, then the other in short segments, deciding where I should switch from one camera to the next, using the S key across both tracks and deleting the clip I didn't want. I never used a third track to place the video I wanted above, just kept everything in place. The only time I tried this in Premiere I found it just as hard or harder. I realize there are more sophisticated ways to do this, as illustrated in Marty Hedler's excellant tutorial, but I suppose if I had 3 cameras I'd do it the same way.

I guess I have got used to the Premiere method and find it very easy to the point that other approaches seem difficult. The nice part of the Premiere approach is that nothing need be deleted just disabled something not possible in V4.
Ron Evans

RonE - In Vegas, right click on an event, go to 'Switches' and choose 'mute'. This mutes the individual event only. You can also access the mute switch via the Edit Details window. Hope this helps.

Try this in Premiere:

Six camera shoot. Sync 'em all up, use Track Motion to resize and position each camera in its own space within the frame, hit the spacebar and you're watching six cameras simultaneously - no rendering!

Once you've made your cut decisions and splits, all you have to do is Ctrl/drag a copy of each selected bit to a new Video Track at the top - no Track Motion so it automatically fills the frame. Done. If you want to replace cuts with dissolves, just drag one edge over its neighbour.

Thanks, this looks like the control I was looking for that behaves exactly like the Premiere clip disable. Now if I can find a way to scub one frame at a time I will be happy.

ROn Evans

RonE,

"ALT-LEFT/RIGHT Arrow" will scrub 1 frame at a time.