As a user, Vegas is now in a great situation, given that it has found a home in strong, innovative company. To me, this is a great situation for the future of Vegas and the team that built it! SoFo has chosen a worthy partner in Sony.

Some months ago, I purchased Vegas (despite my concerns about the financial decline of SoFo) because of the product, the support and the community of users. Now, in my mind, Sony's pending ownership of Vegas only ADDS to the compelling reasons to own Vegas.

As a shareholder of SoFo, I understand your concern about the direction of SoFo, product development and the creation of shareholder value.

I got into VV at the 2.x stage because I was never satisfied with results from the company to which my previous loyalty was directed, Pinnacle Systems. As my first foray into video editing, it didn’t bother me so much that the Pinnacle stuff didn’t always work right, after all, “we” were blazing into new territory.

At some point, I read about the unlimited video and especially audio tracks offered by Vegas, and I was hooked to try Vegas even before actually making my purchase.

Discovery of this forum (contrary to what some Pinnacle users claim, I found their forum to be a good source of problem solving from users and staff alike), the frequent fixes posted by SF, and, most of all, the straightforward interface that allowed me to complete my “creative” visions led me to totally abandon Pinnacle for Vegas.

I find it a bit sad to learn that the software will fall into conglomerate hands. I don’t know that the forum's predictions of doom and gloom will be born out in time, but, Vegas always gave me that special feeling one gets from the knowledge that one is using software (or any other tool) that is far and away the more capable, less demanding (for computers, in terms of hardware requirements), and comes from a relative upstart – not from the same old giant corporations who always seem to be dictating what we will use when.

Vegas is (has been) truly a better idea, from top to bottom. As an NLE, it does a better job than anything in its class from Adobe, Pinnacle, and, from what I read, FCP on the Apple side.

As a musician, I especially appreciate its audio capabilities.

Everything in life runs its course, however. My special “affection” for Vegas will continue until version 4 is supplanted by some new Sony (or other) product that addresses some new (even if contrived) hardware advance that addresses some new direction in NLE as yet to be determined.

Which of these “whiches” is chicken and which are eggs remains to be seen.

But time and technology continue to march on. SF, wisely or not, has decided to abandon their desktop efforts. Their decision could be simple business economics, could be the result of redirected creative juices, could even be they’ve decided that their desktop products have matured to the point that future development would not be sufficiently profitable for them.

For the time being, I am happy that, for a change, I’ve managed to purchase, before the end of its production run, a Duesenberg for the price of a Buick. I intend to enjoy its quality and speed until running it no longer makes sense.

Thanks, SF, and, while I doubt I’ll have need of your future products, I am truly greatful to be an owner of your Vegas line.

Caruso

The only development that will upset our use of Sound Forge and Vegas in the production flow is if they are incompatible with some future manifestation of Windows. My partner still uses Vegas 2.0g (and SF6) to edit sound in his AVID box, despite having V4 installed! Friday I installed a Canopus RES-100 turn key box built around a Canopus DVStorm2. Didn't have time to do much editing, just enough to make sure the connections were okay but it appears Vegas can work with the codec. If it can't, no problem, we'll use V4 and SF6 for the audio editing, just as we do with the AVID Media Composer. Vegas is my personal preference for video editing and format conversions and even if development were to cease today, I'd still be able to use it for short form 16:9 DVCAM/BetaSX videos.

A very large part of the Vegas 3/4 advantage was the added value of a great SoFo support team in the persona of Dr. Dropout, Dithermaster, SonicDennis, etc, not to mention the plethora of freebies SoFo offered in veg files, scripts and tips. I seriously doubt, given their history to date, that Sony will continue this tradition. It's just a crying shame.

Stuff happens...

Not privvy to all the inside info of course, but it would appear at least that Vegas will still be around - could be worse... Especially from the standpoint of SOFO had they been forced to close the doors.

Please consider Matrox a short while back. Had a community not unlike this one here, but instead of selling off their graphics & graphics/video line, they simply dumped support to concentrate on higher end products. IMO, that segment of their market never has recovered, so they lost along with their previously loyal customers.

Or, dating myself here, there was Aldus. A strong competitor/alternative to Adobe, Adobe gobbled them up. Users of their Photostyler app (comparable to P/shop then) were abandoned, and it took a while before Freehand re-appeared. Corel sold quite a few apps over the years, some were pretty nice too, that were later just abandoned.

As was pointed out, code is not necessarily perishable. I still use a lot of OLD prog. as there is no alternative currently available - one reason I run a dual boot machine with win98 still on here. Happens.

FYIW, when I checked SoFo's stock price on friday, it was at $0.46/share, and not too many months ago it was at $0.10/sh. Maybe we should all just buy the stock and vote NO on the sale. I dont think this whole deal bodes well for things as they are. I dont see Sony's offer as an infusion of cash into SoFo, (and a pathetic infusion at that, 18 million for the package is joke, compared to what it would cost them to develop it), as a loss of SoFo's core product line. I wish SoFo well, but fear the worst..

Like everyone I'm more than happy with what I've bought and even if Sony screw it up will continue to use VV4 for as long as possible.
Maybe I've missed the bleeding obvious here but as I understand the VV4 licencing system I need a key from SoFo everytime I install it. What happens when I want to migrate VV4 to a new MoBo or HDD? Hasn't SoFo got us locked in like uStuff has with XP?
If thats the case what happens when Sony have the helm?

I don`t want to be pesimistic, but... speaking of Sony...
My deepest sympathy goes to SOFO staff; they really made a difference (my first SOFO product was Sound Forge 4). I only hope they stay in bussiness and keep their jobs.
But I honestly think that for the customers this will be a disgrace in the long run.

I don't know what will happen to Vegas under sony, but the possibility of the picture that farss paints doesn't thrill me, as sony will probably consider our few thousand Vegas users a nuisance and will drop the SOFO hardware equipment update procedure. Then we are stuck.
jboy has a good point. Let's all buy a handfull of shares and vote NO on the sale to sony.

If BillyBoy is right, and it is completely logical to assume that SoFo is indeed a closely held company, then the sale of all desktop assets to, at least, a financially solid company is probably (1) evidence of a personality quirk in top management, and (2) good for SoFo customers in the short run. Notable that this sale is not a hostile takeover type thing by a competitor who wants to monopolize a market. However, it should also be noted that, taking a look at the other end of SoFo's web site, it appears that SoFo is not only dabbling in "rich media solutions" but is increasingly working its way into a role of solid supplier of services to the titantic film and broadcast industry. Who can resist such temptation as a survivor of the dot com implosion?

There is a time window here in which the right junior exec at Sony has a chance to realize what a rocket ship the company has just purchased. We will see if Sony by now has become, well, too big to make both fast and smart moves.

In the end all you can really do is look at the short run. Look at the quantum leaps in the film-video interface in only two or three years. The long run is something not even Sony can fully anticipate.

It would be nice if all of us Sonic Foundry users to e-mail SONY and let them know how we feel and that is they F up this great program, and have bad customer support, we will make an effort to have every videographer here to boycott them. Know I am a big fan of SONY products, but their support sucks and their attitude sucks.

I don't think the world's second largest electronics company is going to feel threatened by a few thousand Vegas users. Face it, you can buy about 200 full price VV4/DVD-A licenses for the cost of one single BetaSX WS camcorder or an HDCAM unit. One BetaSX DNV A75 costs as much as 100 licenses... Sure, I hope the Vegas line hangs around but even if it doesn't, I have a Computer Scientist (Phd) friend if I ever had to resort to a crack version of my own software.

Peter

BillRavens said:

A very large part of the Vegas 3/4 advantage was the added value of a great SoFo support team in the persona of Dr. Dropout, Dithermaster, SonicDennis, etc, not to mention the plethora of freebies SoFo offered in veg files, scripts and tips. I seriously doubt, given their history to date, that Sony will continue this tradition.

I like to help out. I'll still be posting here and other places unless I'm told to stop, and that would be a sad day indeed. I might have to change my handle, though <g>.

///d@

I wish you and your peers all the best. You folks do a great job, and have developed a wonderful product.

Think high not low. Sony has watched an army of reporters march into the field armed with a Sony DVCAM camera and Avid Xpress DV on their laptop. They have spent a lot of effort and money pushing their DVCAM to the front of the line in news gathering world wide. Now they have the ideal companion product, and the ability to bring Vegas to a lot of people who would buy Avid without comparing it to anything else.

Anyone remember Fox Pro Database software and what happened to it after Microsoft purchased the Company???

Anyone remember what happened to WordPerfect? A standalone company, it was bought out by Novell, who never knew what to do with it, then finally landed in Corel, where it appears to have a decent home.

I wonder if Sony is the SoFo desktop division's final home, or if it might yet land somewhere else. Sony picked up Vegas, Acid, Sound Forge, et al for a song, and can certainly afford to hold onto it until it can turn a quick profit by selling it at a higher price to someone else. Aside from PlayStation and driver support for its own equipment, does Sony even have a significant software presence?

Hey Sony -- it ain't broke, don't fix it. Grob

FoxPro was an interesting case. Microsoft was having trouble working out the bugs in their Jet Database engine which is the core of Access. They bought out Fox Software supposedly to help keep them afloat. Within a year Fox had disappeared and suddenly the Jet database engine didn't have problems anymore. Hmmmmmm.

On a more positive note though, a decade later we're still using FoxBase+ and FoxPro for several of our critical business applications. It's remained a viable solution even though it was discontinued ages ago.