Question - how do Mac users find location sensitive menus without right click?

Not really, let me offer an alternate view, assuming of course this is SCS's intent.

SCS's financial fortunes are not good and the dev team and their management is looking down the barrel of not having a job. Clearly corporate will not pour more money into funding development when they're loosing market share and money. The question then is "what can we do to keep the money flowing and hence our jobs?"

Someone says "hey there's another market we can go after, very lucrative but it'll take a lot of work and we'll need lots of funding". So corporate buy the idea and open the coffers for a few more years.

I've been on the edge of exactly this at least once in my career. Very similar situation to what has happened to what was Sonic Foundry. A company that were the trailblazers, world leaders in their field that assumed they were unassailable. They ignored the warnings, fired the hard core dissenters and innovators, even threatened one young engineer with legal action.
Finally no one could deny the extent of the losses but instead of admitting to the obvious that would have cost a few jobs and the dispatching of the old guard they emarked on an absurd hardware development program that was a spectacular failure in the marketplace. 6,000 jobs were lost in the end.

Bob.

Question - how do Mac users find location sensitive menus without right click?

It takes two hands. Simultaneously press the Command key and click. This probably explains why the context menu idea has not been exploited very far. Doubly annoying.

Based upon my personal difficulties with V11, I say if SCS can get VP11 to run on some platform, more power to them.

as for mac - i've had a few, all beautifully designed and vastly overpriced.

That.

Certainly, Macs use high-quality components. And yeah, the fact that hardware is so tightly controlled might allow somewhat more stability in certain applications, but on the whole I've never seen them as being worth the price. Windows has come a long way in its time, but it's always been subject to the crummy systems OEM builders often install it on. This all but killed Vista, when the vast majority of first-generation Vista desktops didn't have the specs necessary to actually run it properly.

On a high-quality build, Windows runs pretty darn reliably. In the several years I used Vista, even, I never once had a major system glitch.

Anyway, all that said, I'm not opposed to SCS releasing their software for OSX, provided they can do so without impacting development of the Windows versions. The Windows version of Vegas, in particular, still needs a lot of work. But the revenue from OSX versions could even help the further development of PC versions, and if they do a re-write from scratch of that software the process of doing so could give them insights into new ways to solve the problems in the Windows software.

If an OSX version of Sound Forge is announced in a couple months, I do hope Sound Forge 11 for Windows shows up alongside it.

Macs were always the defacto in the graphics and video world for years.. My theory is this, graphic people like to look at nice things and surround themselves with shiny and beautiful objects, its a lifestyle thing.. The Mac fits in nicely with the furniture in their office. It impresses people (like clients) who come to visit them.. etc.
Kids go through university learning video and graphics on Macs, the whole culture of learning has always been geared to Macs in the graphic world. Been like that since the 80's. Its just the way its always been.
One the hardware side, Macs have always been more stable than PCs. Mainly as already mentioned by a few above, because of strict hardware limits, that coupled with PCs legacy crappy OS's namely the worst: Windows ME followed by Vista.
You can't just plop a new GPU card in and out of a Mac without proper research into whether it will work - most users will not even consider this as an option.
Pcs on the other hand - or should i say PC users, oh well we love messing with stuff and squeezing every last drop of speed out of the machine. There a thousand GPU card CPU combos available to us.
This is in my opinion the root problem of the Macs vs PC choice and reliability question - a deep rooted culture of graphics designers and video guys locked into a mind set of 'its just always been this way'.
Shock:
PCs ARE as reliable, stable and as fast as any Mac. The key is to select only the best components and stick with it. No tweeking, no OC'ing and tested thoroughly before use. Namely the process of burn-in.
Shock 2:
PCs are dramatically cheaper than the equivalent Mac. Need more space?, go plop a new 2T HD in there, easy.
Shock 3:
I personally know some Mac users who have changed over to PCs! Yup, take a pill, relax, press reset... PCs are now starting to take over the Mac's legacy in the graphics world. THEY ARE EQUALS! - as long as the components you buy are of the highest spec. Windows 7 64 bit is an absolute must. Sorry Vista.

Its also a problem that SCS does not provide a detailed spec for a PC build. That should be addressed. Again, it leads to too many variants in hardware. (read bugs)

I would be very glad to see a Mac version of Vegas. Don't think its gonna happen but most welcome if it ever does. Trouble is, is it all a bit too late?

Paul.

I have never seen any difference between Vista and Win 7.
JJK

I have never seen any difference between Vista and Win 7.

Since Vista SP1, assuming it's run on a good-quality build, the average user won't notice much of one on the surface, aside from the obvious GUI changes in 7. Windows 7 is reported as running faster on the same or similar hardware as Vista, so one could probably assume Vista isn't as efficient as it should've been. But with above-average specs, it certainly ran without major trouble.

It was compared to Windows Me above, and in terms of customer perception perhaps that's accurate; Vista was certainly oft maligned. But Vista never ran as poorly as Me; not even pre-SP1. My grandfather bought a Windows Me desktop years ago, and there was never any end to the phone calls I got about problems with it. Not long after Vista SP1 came out, I built him a desktop myself and he's still using that today with no issues.

Vista's main problem, as I mentioned before, was that when it first released OEM manufacturers sold systems with it installed that weren't capable of running it properly. That's one of the risks Windows runs when companies like Dell and HP release insanely cheap desktops, which are the models the majority of people buy. The power supply in my current build cost more than certain desktops (sans monitor) sold by those companies, lol.

"Question - how do Mac users find location sensitive menus without right click?"

You can right-click on a Mac - even with the "no button" mouse. However, you have to "turn on" right-clicking. You have to go to "System Preferences" and then "Mouse" and then turn on the option to allow right-clicking. Better yet, I just plugged in a standard mouse that has a right-click button and it works as expected.

Now the odd thing to me - press the "Delete" key and it's the same as "BackSpace" on a PC. In order to get it to actually delete (i.e. remove the character AFTER the cursor) you have to do a "Fn+Delete" which, of course, are on opposite corners of the keyboard.

And then there's the keyboard on the iPad - why are there no arrows!?!?!? It's so irritating to have to move your finger to the top of the screen, press until the magnifying glass opens up, slowly move the finger until the cursor is in the correct position and hope it doesn't move when you left your finger taking 10 seconds of time when all I really needed was to press the left arrow once! I did a google search on the topic where people asked where the arrow keys were and everyone was asking - why do you need the arrow keys? Just position with your finger! Well that's fine, it's just a pain and takes a significantly longer amount of time.

> "Question - how do Mac users find location sensitive menus without right click?"

They right-click like everyone else does. Or they click their track-pad with two fingers instead of one!

> "It takes two hands. Simultaneously press the Command key and click. This probably explains why the context menu idea has not been exploited very far. Doubly annoying."

No, it doesn't take two hands. Mac mice have had right-click for years. In fact, the old wired mouse not only has right-click but it has a tiny fingertip track ball built into the top so that you can not only scroll up and down, but left and right without ever touching a scroll bar. The new Magic Mouse blows away everything on a PC with a touch sensitive top so you have a touch pad and mouse built into one (you can actually use swipe gestures on the top of the mouse!).

The question is how do PC users survive with a mouse that only has two buttons and an up-down scroll wheel and still requires the use of scroll bars to navigate left and right? I could never go back to using a PC mouse or track-pad. If you haven't experienced the track-pad on a Mac then you have no idea how different it is from the track-pad on your PC. It's night and day. Shouldn't even be called the same device because it's not the same experience... not by a long shot.

~jr

The question is how do PC users survive with a mouse that only has two buttons and an up-down scroll wheel and still requires the use of scroll bars to navigate left and right?

No clue. My mouse has 9 buttons, and I can scroll left and right merely by nudging the scroll wheel to the left or right with my finger. Am I breaking some rule by doing this in Windows, lol?

As for me, I've often wondered how anyone, OSX, Windows, or Linux alike, can possibly survive without Back & Forward buttons on their mouse. I have both within easy reach of my thumb, and constantly use them. Not only in my Internet browser, but in regular folder explorer windows, as well. I have no clue what I'd ever do if I had to go back to using the buttons for these things, but I'd probably feel incredibly sluggish.

After installing Vista, albeit not SP1, i lost count how many people went back to Xp.
Why? Slow boots, weird GUI - how do i sort columns into file dates etc..., processes that ran slower in Vista than Xp. Biggest issue was lack of driver support. A lot of companies were slow to develop Vista drivers, much to the annoyance of clients. No - i do not want to throw my excellent printer in the bin because the driver either doesn't exist or was badly supported. Just in time for Window 7 - then it all got fixed. Vista was a disaster for MS, and they know it.
Don't take my word for it, read any professional IT / PC forum.
I do however feel there is truth in the SP1 release for Vista, but i cannot comment on that because I personally gave up with it day one. Seeing that Vegas 11 is Vista OS supported and that the compatibility mode fix includes reverting to Vista or Windows 7 (no SP), this indicates Vegas was probably developed on Vista. No wonder all hell broke loose.

Paul.

"WHY, in the first place?"

That's a very good question.

Why dive into a new marketplace already well served with a product line that enjoys only a small market share in its current market?
Is there people in this new marketplace salivating over what us SCS product users have in our marketplace? Darned if I've noitced any lack of applications in either the video or audio sphere in Macland.

Bob.

"WHY, in the first place?"

Well said, Bob, and I concur.

Protools started on a Mac and it's still on a Mac
Avid Started on a Mac- still on a Mac
Photoshop started on a Mac- still on a Mac
Premiere started on a Mac - still on a Mac
FCP always was, and will ALWAYS STAY on a Mac

Macs started out as Graphics/Audio/Video/Media Workstations. The quintessential multimedia workstation. Now, maybe SCS is hoping that the current rejection of FCPX by some in the FCP7 crowd is enough to warrant a Vegas entry into the Mac marketplace. Good luck guys.

Adobe is going to rule the roost on both sides of the barnyard- Mac AND PC. "Photoshop for Video" - they say that themselves. Just a matter of time. And I acknowledge this with sadness, after forging a relationship with every version of Vegas that's ever been made.

The video NLE market is very mature now, and let's face it, there's only so many "pro" editors out there. How many copies of a pro NLE do you need to sell to make it worth the development effort and at what price? Most people are happy with I-movie, or whatever comes bundled with their PC or Mac. Eventually the software ships for free, and then it's just burned as an instruction set right onto the chip.

darby

Avid and PT have both, of course, been on PC for a very long time, as have ALL Adobe products for an even longer time, so I am not sure what the point of this list was, except to show how important the PC market was for all of these software developers.

The main thing going down here is that we really don't have control of the process with SCS if they do attempt to rewrite for Mac.....so we will see. We should just be happy that Vegas is controlled by a very large company now with deep pockets, unlike the company that first wrote the program.

Steinberg (Cubase, Nuendo, Wavelab, etc.), which was happily bought up by Yamaha, has always written its audio programs for both platforms, except for Wavelab, which was developed in an extremely intuitive and efficient way by a single programmer. Wavelab was rewritten from the ground up a year or so ago (Wavelab 7)in binary to run on Macs as well. The program includes many new features, but also lost some very efficient and sensible features in the process, which seem to be tied to the different way GUIs can work for PCs as compared to Macs, and the losses are a result of this single programmer not having the history of writing for dual programs that the other Steinberg programmers have, I guess.

The customer support has been excellent, however, with the primary programmer appearing on the forum almost every day to talk about bugs, fixes and upgrades. I can't help but think that the market share for the program can't really support this kind of expenditure, except as part of the whole package of programs and as part of Yamaha's overall dominance strategy. Their free support and training for all of the other programs are equally extensive, so.......

We can only hope that SCS would do the same thing if they embarked on a rewrite, but I somehow don't think Sony feels that support for Apple users is all that important, and I don't think their support would ever be as constant as Steinberg's is now.

As far as Apple/Mac's actual higher usability for graphics or audio, the differences have always been more a matter of marketing and hype than actual programming power or hardware. And on the pro level, that hype has had little sway for a very long time now.

While I do respect many of Apple's products, I don't respect the blatant falsehoods they have spread in their ads, and I have seen enough Apple crashes to know that "it just works" is nothing more than a very clever slogan........Beyond the fact that Macs still seem to be not vulnerable to viruses, there is little else except cost and the need to make fewer decisions when buying that separates the two in any functional way.

I may even buy a Mac product or two myself in the next year or so if I think it makes functional and/or economic sense, though, so, like I say, I don't have any bad feelings necessarily about the computers themselves.......

All that being said, however, I really hope SCS just stays on the PC platform......and my own experience is that I jumped with both feet into Vegas 11 running on an HP computer I bought at Geeks.com for a little over $600. that seems to run extremely well once I got Win7 on it and I updated drivers for everything. Maybe the fact that my whole install was so clean helped, or maybe I just got lucky.....but I know I sure prefer the way Vegas works to anything else I have seen so far, and I don't expect it to be bug free, because nothing else is these days. (Pre-Mac Wavelab was close to bug free, and my earlier MicroTechnologiesUnlimited DAW was largely bug free, but those days are gone forever)

Beyond that, I frankly don't understand any of the economics for software now for most of the audio and video products: All of the flagship programs exist in very inexpensive or "light" (yet highly functional) versions, often available completely for free, and the pro market cannot be that large.......The pro market, in turn, has been fully infected by the concept that software should be very cheap or "almost free"......So, where is the profit? How can Steinberg afford to have a guy travelling the country continuously giving serious demos and workshops? How can SCS afford to keep many programmers working on bugs and updates?

I am happy everything is so inexpensive, but I am unhappy with all the other implications and the constant obsolescence, along with the degradation of customer support that is going on for most of the products.

I am just keeping my fingers crossed that Sony will keep supporting the product. I hate learning new software.

"Are we seeing the first one-way flight of Vegas from PC to an iMac?"

i'm biased, but no.

1) Apple has been moving away from the Pro market for years. they make (much) more money selling mobile devices... why cater to a few who need expensive gear? they don't need the cache of FCP anymore; people think iPads are the greatest thing since iPhones.

2) Apple isn't a supporter of the post-production community anymore:
FCP, Shake, Color (Final Touch), DVD Studio Pro, Cinema Tools... all bought from OTHER companies (not Apple), and then killed by Apple to make way for.... what? FCP-X? how is this good for us?

imo, if Vegas goes Apple, a majority of Vegas users will exit and move on... there's already been motion in this direction; moving to Apple isn't gonna slow it.

~~~

that said, in my opinion, what Vegas users want is STABILITY:
if the version on Apple was TRULY stable, i'd buy an Apple computer to run it.

if the version on Apple was TRULY stable, i'd buy an Apple computer to run it.

Is it possible that that's what's been being trailed in front of our eyes?

G

"Is it possible that that's what's been being trailed in front of our eyes?"

if it's truly stable i'll be there for it

(edit - Vegas i mean... Soundforge/Acid aren't critical for me)

If the OSX version of Vegas were stable while the Windows version floundered, I think that would be the final push a lot of current users would need to abandon it completely. I doubt that it would be the majority of those people who would choose to buy new, $2000+ machines just for 1 or 2 pieces of software.

I just built a new desktop a few weeks ago, and on top of that I have no desire to become a Mac user. Vegas and Sound Forge also aren't the only applications I use. I recently upgraded my Adobe Master Collection CS3 to CS6, choosing (of course) the Windows version, as I had before. Since I can't go back now and change my mind, and wouldn't want to if I could, I can't switch those applications over to the OSX versions. I also use Cakewalk Sonar X1, which doesn't have an OSX version at all; and since it works well for me, I have no reason to want to switch to Logic or Pro Tools.

So if the Windows versions of SCS products lagged behind, even though I haven't had as many problems with Vegas 11 as some others have reported, Vegas 11 would be the last upgrade I'd purchase from them. I'd just continue using it alongside Adobe's CS6 applications. I'd probably also invest in Wavelab from Steinberg to replace Sound Forge.

But I don't expect that to happen. SCS wouldn't want to lose the loyal user base they already have established. Their goal with OSX versions is going to be to add to that user base, not sacrifice one for the other. They know they'd lose more than they'd keep if they focused only on OSX.

Since I can't go back now and change my mind, and wouldn't want to if I could, I can't switch those applications over to the OSX versions.

I think we've migrated suites from Windows to Mac. You have to call Adobe about that but I think it's a matter of deactivating the Windows installations, getting a new serial number, and then installing the suite on a Mac.

Not that I'm suggesting you should buy a Mac, but I don't think your Adobe Suite presents an obstacle.

I don't really think that SCS apps would flounder or founder on Windows, but then again if VP11 had been available on both the MAC and PC many people here would have assumed it was foundering on the PC. There'll start to be a bit of conspiratorial thinking that Vegas *must* be getting more attention on that other OS.

I suspect that if SCS applications appear on both OSes it'll be because much of the programming work involved can be used in both environments.

Rob