Why would you need Vista?

Why not XP x64, a proven Windows version that actually works?

Let me see how this pans out.
In order to maintain the long extinct hardware agnostic dogma and run our 8 bit cobbled NLE faster we're going to have to run under Vista. Last time I checked Vista is anything but hardware agnostic, we're going to need high end GPUs to get all the eye candy that Vista has to offer and yet our NLE will remain about the only media application that doesn't use the GPU.

Or to look at another way, our NLE will not use the GPU because that's too unreliable so we'll run it under an OS that does use the same unreliable GPU. I guess this gives the programmers a great out on any problems, they can blame the OS.

Bob.

Damn folks! I do professional productions in Vegas every day in both SD and HD. Vegas works JUST FINE for me and probably 99.9% of the other Vegas users. You .1% that have requirements that Vegas can't handle, buy something that will. If you need to do really high-end work, then you have no business trying to do it on a $524.96 piece of software. It's as simple as that. A mildly tricked out Avid Symphony Nitris is only about $90,000.

Dang, John, why do you sugar-coat it like that? Tell 'em how it is! ;o)

Farss, come one saying that HDCAM is inferior to HDV... You don't belive this statement yourself. HDCAM is a perfect shooting format supperiort to any recording format out there. ...The kind of things you can do with the image in the post! Even though i never use it on low budget jobs as i know if the production can't affort proper online post house they'll suffer i would still shoot on any any day and pick Sony's F900 over ANY camera out there -- it's just so good.

I believe there's a great misconception about the speed advantage of 64 bit processing. I've used SunOS(unix) for years, which has always been 64bit. The reality of 64 bit is that it has higher mathematical precision than 32 bit, as well as higher processor speed. The urban legend(promulgated and encouraged by the marketting guru's)is that it is a higher speed, but, ignored the fact that the speed is all but eaten up by the higher requirements of the increased precision. Bottom line, 64 bit is a push, doesn't buy you much with a 64 bit appy. Now, there is a speed advantage with a 32 bit appy, but, the overhead of running 32 bit on a 64 bit machine is problemmattic.

Going 64-bit is not about CPU speed, it is about ability to utilize all your RAM (a good desktop motherboard allows you to plug 8 GB of RAM). And having more RAM available does increase preview/rendering speed. But...

On a laptop you are still limited to 2 GB anyway. Most desktops are 4 GB and you'll be able to use 3.5 GB instead of close to 3 GB (in XP32 with 3GB switch) now on 32-bit system.

64-bit really helps significantly on high-end systems only /shrug

And, by the way, going to 64-bit platform is a good time to upgrade Vegas to 10-bit ;)

You beat me to it.

First of all, Sony really hasn't said much about this 64-bit effort except that they're working on it.

The assumption on this forum seems predominantly to be that this will be a 64-bit offering instead of a 32-bit Vegas. I've not read anything one way or another but it seems to me that dropping the 32-bit version would be out of the question. I expect the 64-bit version to be in addition, not in place of.

Glenn's statement about hardware compatibility is probably not well phrased, or maybe not well explained. What I think he's referring to is just that win32 isn't compatible with 4GB or more of RAM. The problem being that all x86 architecture maps I/O devices to memory addresses starting at 4GB and creeping downward. This takes those same addresses away from installed memory, and it all happens before an OS ever even loads. For example, we have PPro2 systems with Axio hardware, 512 MB gfx cards, and fiber cards. Out of 4GB installed, 2.4 GB is addressable. If the software and hardware could run on a 64-bit OS we'd have all 4 GB available (the second 2 GB would get remapped to start at the 4GB address on these machines)

PPro2 is a memory hog. Much more so than Vegas. Just yesterday we were trying to export (think "render as") a program and couldn't complete it because we'd run out of memory. PPro2 desperately needs to be 64-bit.

Vegas runs out of memory on renders if there are a lot of Tiffs in the timeline. I'm sure other image formats are trouble too. Vegas is currently working in 8-bit space. While memory problems aren't dire for Vegas yet, if they want to move forward they need to offer a 64-bit version.

Also consider GPU coprocessing. Vegas doesn't currently use it but it seems like the newer Vista graphics driver model encourages this. If so, people will be inclined to use graphics cards with lots of memory. Since the graphics card is memory mapped I/O, more memory on the card reduces available system memory. Using 2 graphics cards with 512 MB each? Better be running a 64-bit OS on a motherboard that supports at least 8GB, and it'd be prudent to look for boards that support 16GB.

That MMIO hole from 4GB and down will still be there with any motherboard. If MMIO uses 2GB of address space and you have 8GB installed in a board supporting just 8GB, you'll have 6 GB addressable.

Most applications written for win32 are built to use no more than 2GB of RAM. Setting the /3GB switch is helpful if your application can actually use more RAM but it's a patch, not a solution.

As far as Vista being the 64-bit OS of choice...yeah, I suppose so. I understand that if you buy Vista off the shelf you get the option of installing the 64-bit version. It's on the disc and I don't think MS has ever done this before. It says to me that they're encouraging the adoption of 64-bit Vista by the general public. Perhaps more drivers will be available. You can pretty much be sure that future development of 64-bit drivers will be for Vista. Like it or not.

Rob Mack

<<"I would love to see 10 bit, a wonderful titler, auto subtitle clip creation, and "octopus" render---that is Vegas seizes anything with a processor and uses it for rendering. Also a warning menu prior to rendering saying you do not have enough memory to render this project. Maybe a menu warning your color levels are too high or autocorrection prior to rendering. The third party scripts are doing things that should already be incorporated in Vegas. And I think the mov codec and player should be included also. Maybe THX sound. Bluray & HD-DVD render to standard discs.
JJK">>

That's why, now that the UPS man has rung my doorbell with a big Santa smile and a huge box containing the new quad Xeon Mac Pro, I plan to save up my remaining sheckles for FC Studio 2. Does substantially all of the above,though of course I plan to use Boot Camp and keep running good ol' Vegas. For the near future....

It just strikes me to read that in the first two months of its release FCS2 sold over half a million copies.

It just strikes me to read that in the first two months of its release FCS2 sold over half a million copies.

Just curious (no agenda), do we know how many of that half million was first time buyers?

Or (agenda) how many were current users who were desperate for improvements?

;-)

Rob Mack

64-bit can improve performance somewhat since there's more registers available. Something like that. Arstechnica.com and techreport.com should likely have info and benchmarks on that. It's a small boost in performance (whereas GPU acceleration/coprocessing can potentially give you a performance boost that is much, much bigger).
To use some random benchmarks, some 3d renderers are about 10% faster with 64-bit (versus 32-bit) while MBE2 is ~6-7X faster with GPU acceleration. However, MBE2 is not very compatible since it only works on one brand of video card (ATI/Mac, Nvidia/PC I think). Whereas 64-bit optimizations will be compatible with whatever hardware you have in the future... you don't need to buy a particular brand of video card, you just need to be running on Vista. And most people will be running on Vista in a few to several years from now (???or 64-bit XP???).

2- AFAIK, 32-bit processors can do floating point calculations in 64-bit (and 80-bit). This is because the bits are referring to different things... a 64-bit processor can have addresses that are 64-bits.
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/x86-64/x86-64-1.html

I think the point is that there are much more attractive, productive and useful paths for the talents at Madison to be pursuing than 64 bit, or at least it would seem so without development intent info coming from Sony. Or has Sony management forgotten that it's users who buy Vegas. If it smells like a duck, walks like a duck, etc, etc.

It doesn't smell like a duck at all. If they want to develop new features that people ask for repeatedly then they need to develop a 64-bit version. This also gives them the opportunity to pursue other features while within that budget.

The nearest PC competition is PPro and they're at the end of their rope in the 32-bit world. I'd love to see Vegas get there at about the same time. I don't think they'll release a 64-bit version before Adobe though.

Rob Mack

I think the 64bit version is going to be the platform on which Sony will be able to build all the features that everyone here is screaming about. It isn't going to be as simple as porting the old 32bit version of Vegas to 64bit. In many ways, they will be starting wth a clean sheet of paper and can more easily give us 10bit video and much, much more. It's entirely possible that Vegas will not only match FCP, Premiere and Avid in the few features that they have that Vegas doesn't currently have, but blow right past them. From my perspective, the future is looking pretty bright.

Everyone was counting Intel out of the race and AMD the winner, until Intel came out with the Dual and Quad core chips. Now AMD is hurting. It could be that Vegas will do the same in the mid-level NLE market. Don't count them out yet, this stuff takes time.

We can surmise, fantasize and wring our hands until Sony says something about their plans. Unfortunately, proprietary parochialism will keep us all doing the St Vitus dance until we get so tired of the discussion that we go find something that works, and works now. I'll tell ya, IMHO, VISTA is a disaster for a professional editor. I have no intention of moving to Vista. I'll do UNIX before that.

"that we go find something that works, and works now.

Like I said earlier, if your needs really are high-end, then you have the budget to spend on something much more expensive than Vegas to get the job done. I don't expect my Acura TL to win Formula One races.

"VISTA is a disaster for a professional editor"

And the very same thing was said of Windows XP when everyone was running Win98 or Win2k.

Vegas people are spoiled. They want everything. I know I do.
JJK

Well as many have stated that I guess were not around for my first two threads. I did not have the HDCAM option only the Kona Proprietary DVCProHD footage. Anyway, I have managed to get the master tapes (HDCAM) now with a last ditch effort, prior to any editing, this is my situation. I have a C2Duo 2.44 with 4 g RAM and a 1.5 terabyte raid external drive. No high end capture card I ask, What is the most cost efficient Capture Card to ingest the HDCAM footage and maby the most cost efficient HDCAM deck to rent for this monster ingest. All and any suggestions besides go buy the workshop dvd would be apreciated. This is out of pocket so be nice. I want this to play well in VEGAS 7E. I have been a loyal VEGAS user since it's original version and want to stay that way. So this is my last ditch effort to prove our NLE to HDNET so help a brother out.

L.T.

Black Magic Decklink is the lowest cost, but I'm more trusting of the AJA Xena card. Drivers are ROCK SOLID.

For a VCR all you need is the JH3, obviously rent that!
I'm pretty certain Cineform can capture via HDLink so you will not need a massive super fast RAID.
If not then that's where you hit the crunch.

Now here's another way to really do this on the CHEAP, no one laugh OK.
Edirol do a box that goes from HD SDI to HDV, cost for the box is just under $10K, again rent the thing. A JH3 and the Edirol gets you HDCAM onto your T/L as HDV, damn the compression, full speed ahead :)

Bob.

Fair enough. I'd not jump to Vista with an edit system that's in production unless I was sure it would work. That's very reasonable behavior.

You are vey right that no one knows what the roadmap is for Vegas, except that there will be a 64-bit version. Some of us think this bodes well.

There's no reason not to go find something that works. Spot's testimonial that HDCPro HD can be made to work was an example of a client who was willing to help. LT's client was not. I think you could make the case for pointing a finger at FCP since the word here is that you can use the format as long as FCP didn't write the files.

Where there's huge issue is in finding this out ahead of time and that's where Sony could be providing a LOT more support.

Vegas is a $600.00 program running on off-the-shelf hardware. So go get another NLE. Vegas upgrades are cheap, it's something you can afford to keep and maintain for as long as it's useful and still have another NLE.

As far as getting something that "works now", that just depends on what you want to do. Our PPro systems do 10-bit "right now" but they can't always finish a job "right now". We tried to export ("render as") a program yesterday and the best we could do was run out of memory "right now".

So maybe having two systems is just a good idea.

Rob Mack