Oh my goodness, I think Sony has just gone insane sometimes. I want to be able to render out fully finished video and deliver it to make sure Pro 13 works well, and they pull this crap? What is wrong with them? And what is so crazy about just saying somewhere that this will be in the trial version? Am I just crazily generous by thinking that you should mention this to editors?

Watermarks are/were quite common in trial software

I didn't run the Trial this time before buying, but usually they tell you when you install or via a "more info" type of link on the screen where you either continue the 30 trial or buy a full version.

Did they not have that?

So the reason for not just saying it will be there? Is the distance from the Sony programmers' hands to their keyboard some kind of suicide trek if they want to put this on the trial download page? These people are college educated, right?

They must of added it to version 11 or 12, but if it renders out with a water mark it will render w/o it.

Thanks for the info, though until I try it I'm skeptical Sony does anything right with Vegas.

Watermarks are/were quite common in trial software

That's more of a lower third than a watermark...

Cracked/hacked copies of Vegas are quite popular with the gamer crowd, perhaps SCS is merely trying to make it more difficult to pirate their software. I have no problem with that.

"Oh my goodness, I think Sony has just gone insane sometimes. I want to be able to render out fully finished video and deliver it to make sure Pro 13 works well, and they pull this crap? What is wrong with them? And what is so crazy about just saying somewhere that this will be in the trial version? Am I just crazily generous by thinking that you should mention this to editors?"

I don't get it? You want to have full capability complete to delivery/publish in a trial version? And you think SCS has somehow messed up because it doesn't????

Basically you get what you pay for. Just sayin'.....

You can use the new witness protection fx to blur it out. ;-)

tom

"I want to be able to render out fully finished video and deliver it to make sure Pro 13 works well, and they pull this crap? What is wrong with them?"

The key phrase here is "deliver it", what makes you think that Sony should allow you to deliver finished product using trial software? Well, you can deliver it, but it will say "Created with Vegas Pro 13" on it.

John Cline wrote, "The key phrase here is "deliver it", what makes you think that Sony should allow you to deliver finished product using trial software? Well, you can deliver it, but it will say "Created with Vegas Pro 13" on it."

I got the impression from the first couple of posts that he was mostly "annoyed" because they didn't tell him ahead of time. Not so much that it was there.

The trial versions always used to add random beeps in the audio. Sonic Foundry never told anyone about that, but no one seemed to complain. We could try the software and decide whether it worked or not, taking all the time we needed. If we decided it wasn't for us, we didn't spend a penny. If we did buy it, the beeps went away after activation.

I like this arrangement a lot better than some of the other trials i've used, where we get complete functionality with no limitations, but only for 15 days. Sometimes i can't get around to trying the software well enough to judge it in that time.

The OP is obviously a Vegas owner if he is posting here -- I'm guessing Vegas 11 based on his previous posts.

At first I didn't feel his complaint had much merit, but if I understand correctly his complaint is that the watermark is a new situation -- Vegas never did that before -- and came without warning. He downloaded the trial to see if he could do a real project in it, and now is stuck because he probably can't load that project into 11.

I think I'm more sympathetic now than I was when I first read this. I do think Sony is fully justified in watermarking the video rendered from a trial version, but if I understand his situation correctly, I'm also sympathetic to the OP's plight.

Well, at first when I installed Vegas 13's trial, Vegas 11 would no longer even open. I managed to fix all that and get the trial of Vegas 13 running, but yes, I expect Sony to let you try the trial software without a watermark. Trying it for 15 days is a good idea.

My reasoning? Insecurity when dealing with customers is never good. You want people to discover that your product is great, not hope it is. If Sony wants Vegas to do better (and I'm not sure they do given how little they put into fixing bugs and making improvements, as well as promoting it) then the best way to do that is to show even more generosity and appreciation for customer experience by letting you try it without the watermark and assuming that losses from people using it for 30 days or whatever and then getting rid of it is worth it when compared to how many people will end up thinking the software is great and buying it. But that means making a great product and trusting that you'll get the customers you deserve.

Putting a message like they do isn't that. It's a shortcut to winning customers and getting them to upgrade. It's a way of very subtly sabotaging the connection with customers who want to see great software. Putting your software out like that always involves some risk, but you have to show that you deserve the best customers and know you'll get them, and not to try and measure carefully how much customers can get out of the trial version.

I'll almost certainly buy Pro 13 (it runs so much more smoothly than 11, and I want to edit 4k video, which 11 basically cannot do), but it's not because they idiotically put on that picture at the bottom of the trial. It's in spite of it.

And yes, not saying it's going to be there is even more obnoxious than just having it there. It's a weirdly arrogant way of dealing with people, which is to not tell them that you have something that they want. It's so subtly incorporated into the video loaded into Vegas with no mention of it anywhere as being part of the trial that I almost wondered whether it's in the full version, or if I somehow have the incorrect version. Or like it's some kind of weird feature that comes when you start using a new version of Vegas.

The watermark is a horrible idea. I feel it shows disdain for the user. Just have the trial time out. So what if people can sell finished projects for 15 or 30 days before paying. It's more than good will - it's more a recompense for treating users as beta testers. Let's face it - that is unfortunately the way software delivery works these days. I'm not just thinking of Sony.

Once you've gotten to the point of Rendering... you should know whether it's worth it for you to purchase or not. Anything beyond that and you're just wanting to get something for free.

SCS promised a 'TRIAL', and that's what they delivered.
Buy it if you want the watermark gone... or find a workaround, same as others in your boat.

No sympathy here.

Quite agree with [r]Evolution. You can even see if Vegas renders properly with the watermark there. One should not be using the trial to produce work for clients, so the watermark is not a problem.

I don't like timed trials because i usually run out of time before i've put it through its paces.

" I want to be able to render out fully finished video

LOL!
Talking about "trust" and "best customers"!
This is EXACTLY why SCS places a water mark on the video, so YOU, a.... "trusted" customer can't make money on something you haven't paid for yet.

The watermark allows you to test the software to its full extent. You wanna deliver a finished product? Then pay for the software first.

You don't get customers by sniffing your nose at them, saying they should know whether Vegas renders correctly, or saying you have to pay to see trial software work. I can get trial software of izotope to clean audio (though a lot of features are disabled), I can try lots of other trial software plugins to work with Vegas.

You're showing the same arrogant attitude that has a blind spot for where you'll get good customers by showing you trust them.

Louis CK did that and it paid off handsomely. He put no DRM, no restrictions build into the video of his stand up specials he sold on his website, and basically trusted fans to do the right thing. And for the most part, they did. It never hurts to let people have a stab at you if it means showing the utmost appreciation for good customers, something you guys must not know about.

Showing you're willing to reach out to good customers wins against your narrow, smug attitude every time. Look at how T-Mobile pays early termination fees for people switching from other cell phone providers with no contract. You guys should tell their CEO that people can just switch, get T-Mobile to pay, and then cancel their service because they have no contract. He could be squeezing them for two year contracts, so what's he thinking? That he'll provide great service and people will want to go back to T-Mobile? What's a great service?

Non-sequitor. If T-Mobile wants to provide that service, that's up to them. That doesn't mean other companies have to provide something else you want.

YOU are the one deciding if Vegas 13 performs up to your specs, not your customers. What they expect from you is a good, finished product. They don't care whether you're using the latest version, trialing it, or still using what worked last time around. So, the trial period is for you to test the software. Until you've decided to make the new version your official tool, you shouldn't be using your customers as test subjects. Continue using what you know works until you are satisfied in making the switch.

There's absolutely no nose-sniffing going on here. Sony has graciously allowed you to test out the software first, before you buy it. Note the key word there, "test".

That's the ultimate cop out card to say "If they want to, they can." Yeah, no idea why they'd want to do that, right? It has no parallels to this whatsoever? T-Mobile isn't snatching up customers way faster than Sony because of this?

There's no reason to say my clients are test subjects when I'm using the trial software unless you just want to disingenuously argue that I'm taking shortcuts to service clients.

Face it, you're just perpetuating a narrow, grinch like view of running a business. No big deal, some people are just like that and don't understand the purpose of reaching out to customers instead of looking in. But I'd just be honest about my position since it lets me identify my mistakes better (an admittedly un-Chineworks method). I enjoy treating my customers better than that, though, and they treat me well for it. Sony should be perpetuating that kind of generous attitude. Even when people pirate my videos (don't you go Chienworks on me and say something dishonest about my customers again-these are my personal videos), the time and energy needed to stop it isn't worth it when there's enough to go around for everyone, and more people are going to find my videos as long as I make ones they like.

Imagine a company running themselves like that. Whoops! Chienworks doesn't play like that.