???

I, too, think their price list about all this stuff is very confusing... I've been trying to figure out the exact same things you did and I have the exact same remarks to make and... of course, the exact same question to ask...

And I hear the exact same crickets...

For my two cents, I'm not sure exactly how SF 6 would directly benefit VV3. I will say this, though, SF6 absolutely nails sound editing. I never upgraded to SF5 because it was too slow, but SF6 is worth the $200 if you do any reasonable amount of sound editing. And now that the plugins in SF6 are set up similar to the structure in VV3, the learning curve is reduced.

My recommendation is this: If your primary focus is video and you just want to "sweeten" the audio tracks, stick with VV3 and the plugins it came with. If your focus leans at all toward audio, get SF6 -- but remember that it is something to use in conjunction with VV3, so don't think of it as a "plugin."

I remember being excited when I heard about SF5 and very disappointed once I played with the Beta. SF6 was just the opposite. I was thinking, "Yeah, right..." Downloaded the Beta and knew in 30 minutes that I was gonna have to cough up the bucks for this upgrade. Considering the discounted price runs about as much as a single pro-level plugin, it is well worth the money.

Another thing to consider is that it comes with Batch Converter 5 and the 1,001 sound effects library. Right there, you're over $100 in "freebies."

Kevin,

Thanks for your knowledgeable response. Many of my video sound tracks need lots more than just sweetening. The Noise Reduction 2 DirectX plug-in set would be useful to me. But of course, there are several downloadable noise reduction Audio DirectX plugins out in cyberspace that cost less, so NR2 is not the only game in town.

Since my original post, I have done some research on Sound Forge 6, downloaded its PDF manual, and read through several forums. I do want more sound editing than is built into VV3, but unfortunately SF6 doesn't seem to have the all the functionality I need/want either.

I am interested in putting surround sound movies and home music videos on VHS tape, VCDs, and SVCDs and, somewhat later, on miniDVDs and, later still, on DVDs. First, I would like to take four sound tracks (or four "stems", each of which could be made from one or more tracks) and combine them into Dolby Pro Logic stereo for analog VHS tape videos, and also take six sound tracks/stems and encode them into Dolby Digital/AC3 for inclusion in miniDVDs and DVDs. Apparently Sound Forge 6 has no support for surround sound of any kind, and that is a major disappointment and a surprise for me. Many users were disappointed when Sonic Foundry abandoned their SoftEncode product (although it was priced too high to attract a critical mass of users), and with the demise of SoftEncode there went Sonic Foundry's involvement in surround sound.

The current email deal is tempting -- who wouldn't want to save $650? But $250 seems kind of expensive for some noise reduction. I do indeed want good noise reduction, but I also want to make surround sound. So apparently the package deal doesn't fill the bill for me.

Hopefully Sound Forge 7 or a new sister product will fully support surround sound. But that may be a bit belated, particularly if some other vendor like Ulead, Creative Labs, Pinnacle, MGI, Canopus, Dazzle, or whoever jumps in to fill the vacuum and scoop the PC surround market first, and set a low price point. This is a "you snooze, you lose" situation. Our Mac-centric friends already enjoy support for surround sound, and they can author it onto their DVDs. Perhaps they feel a little bit sorry for us. Perhaps not.

-- Burton --

Softencode and surround would be the ticket for Vegas!!!
This is what I would expect next for Vegas Video!
Only can get better eh?
DR

I thought it was worth it just for the noise reduction module which works fine in Vegas. Now I wish I could do audio filters on single clips rather than just on entire tracks (we can do video filters on individual clips). Right now I have to put each clip on a separate track (the audio part). Still, it's nice to be able to filter out wind noise, tape motor hum, etc.

SoundForge also has some nice features like Acoustic Mirror which can enhance the sound on videos. It seems to maintain the video/audio sync as well.

Tom

Tom,

> Now I wish I could do audio filters on single clips rather than just on entire tracks (we can do video filters on individual clips). <

I am new at this and I didn't realize that was a current restriction. If it is, we should suggest changing that as a product improvement for the next version of Vegas Video. But I had sort of assumed that editing worked the same on Events in audio tracks and video tracks. In other words, you should be able to select a portion of an audio track and apply an Audio DirectX effect, or a chain of them, to it. Perhaps you would need to make a Time Selection and Split that part of the audio track into a separate Event, and then apply the filter of your choice to that Event. Is that what you are talking about? My impression is that VV3's current editing interface for both audio and video is pretty good and versatile. But I guess there is always room for improvement, and we should help with that if we can by making product improvement suggestions.

-- Burton --

Yep... If there is a way to apply audio filters on different events in the same track I can't figure it out. So... I just put each clip on it's own track (video/audio) and then apply the audio filter at the track level. I don't always want the same noise filter settings for every clip since some come out windy, others are OK, and some have other kinds of noise. It works OK though and the noise filter is good stuff.

Tom

Tom,

> If there is a way to apply audio filters on different events in the same track I can't figure it out. <

I guess Sonic Foundry could call this a feature rather than a bug, but it is not a good feature and it needs to be fixed. In my opinion.

What you are doing sounds very much like a "workaround" to me. You are right that you don't always want the same noise filter settings for every clip. My camcorder sound tracks have a lot of changing characteristics. Sometimes I move from indoors to outdoors while the camcorder is runing. Or an external noise starts or stops.

It doesn't make sense to treat a whole track as a unit. You could wind up using an awful lot of audio tracks by applying your workaround in a large project and, although the number of audio tracks, like the number of video tracks, is nominally "unlimited", we all know there is some kind of limit. Something will break before you get "googol" tracks. The number of tracks is not really unlimited, and SoFo should qualify that claim in their advertising, to something like "limited only by your computer's resouces" or some such phraseology. Maybe they could just say unlimited* and in a footnote put the computer resources thing.

Not too long ago on a trip we came to a town with a sign that advertised themselves as "a city with no limits." That sounded kind of nice from a Chamber-of-Commerce sort of viewpoint, but I am betting that they did have city limits. Otherwise, I am still there. (Actually, I think they do sometimes use other terms, like "boundaries" or "borders" so the sign could have been technically correct.) But I digress.

-- Burton --

Problem with individual event filters is that it really has to be destructive. Sonar allows you to apply audio effects and plugins on individual events (clips), but it processes right, and there is no adjusting it in the future (of course, you can always "undo" it.)

What would be interesting is if VV had a feature where you could assign individual events to different busses. Then, in theory, you could set up two or three NR settings and send the event to whichever one was best suited. Of course, since there are unlimited tracks in VV, you could always split your clips into different tracks and do it that way.

I've actually had mixed feelings on NR. I have an earlier version, and it sometimes takes "too much" out and eats into the audio you want to keep. Also, I never figured out how to get a sample from the middle of a file and take it out all the way across. I've only been able to use it with the "capture soundprint" feature if the noise was at the beginning of the file. I haven't spent a lot of time with it, either, so I may just be missing something that's in the help or manual.

hmmm $199 or $149, seems they've change the original Email I got. I upgraded from XP for $129. Thats if your offers were for upgrade or full purchace.

Right click event, apply non realtime event fx.

Or, right click event>open copy in Forge, apply fx the file will be saved in Vegas as a new take within the event. "T" cycles through takes.