"Seems proDad has come out with a stabilizer plug in . looks like no go for Vegas.."

Yes, I noticed this too... a bit irritating to say the least. Vegas NEEDS a really good stabilizer system. Ive seen Mercalli in action with Liquid... and it's a pretty bloody good deshaker as far as they go. I hope we get this straightened out soon!?

"Although a stabilizer system would be nice...IMO, a deshaker is just a cover-up for poor camera operation...."

Mmmm... I'm not sure how to take that. I even wonder if it was a comment worth making in the first place.

But regardless to how you may feel towards us amateur operators... FCP has a deshaker, and Vegas would benefit from one too. That way we would not have to rely on 3rd party plugins.

I don't think I rate as a rank amateur, I sure now about how vital good sticks and dollies are, I think. However they're of little use when the ground moves under you and even I can't afford gyro mounts when in boats, planes and trains. Even Fusion comes with an excellent stabiliser and I doubt those using that $5K package get footage from too many rank amateurs.

Still I really gotta ask, why does every dang thing have to be built into our NLE. Thanks to VDub and John Meyer I've been able to get excellent results for free. Given the nature of the task I'd never run that inside my main editing project even if it was inbuilt. I'd use a separate project to do the stabilization and render that to a new file, it's a process that takes a lot of calculations so best to get it out of the way once and be done with it.

And what is wrong with using 3rd party plugins?
I think one of the things that makes apps such as AE so popular is the breadth of 3rd party plugins written for it.

Not that I begrudge anyone anything but surely the first task is for Vegas to be the best editor there is and there's still some work to be done in that area. I don't think people buy an editing application because of its stabiliser or color corrector or text generator. Editors buy editing tools to edit, everything else is almost a distraction from that task.

Bob.

"And what is wrong with using 3rd party plugins?
I think one of the things that makes apps such as AE so popular is the breadth of 3rd party plugins written for it."

Yes Bob, this is true... and there is NOTHING wrong with 3rd party plugins. I use a lot of them and am always looking for more. But Vegas has never been very accepting of 3rd party plugins, which does at times tend to be a little frustrating. So vegas either needs to build them in...or... try to make things a little easier for software developers to fit these extras in on the side.

And I have absolutely NOTHING but respect for John and his vdub deshaker plugin! I have used it in the past and will continue in the future I thank John and others like him for the personal time they spend in trying to make life better for the rest of us. But that doesn't mean that I want to restrict myself to one deshaker, I have many different NLE's, burner programs... etc, and i have them merely because it gives me more choices, which in turn gives me flexibility.

And Bob.... as far as I am concerned... Vegas already IS about the best NLE around. I've even been suspended a few times on the Avid board for saying just that! :)

I have made some pretty good dollars fixing home video of weddings. A deshaker would be nice. A little shake added to a still picture is cool too. It is all about creating the editors reality. That's the fun part to all of this.