I'm not a frequent poster, but I am a frequent reader of the forum. It seems obvious that regardless of Sony's prior claims of Vegas being an "open hardware" editing solution, there are some configurations it loves and some it hates. I think with Sony's move to GPU acceleration, we'll find a bit more standardization in future hardware requirements - and that's a good thing.
I'd like to propose a thread propagated by those of us who are having the LEAST problems with Vegas, and listing the few we may experience. At this moment it may not be as helpful as it eventually can be - because of the release of a new version that obviously will go through a good portion of the alphabet in updates - but if we keep the thread current, new users and new system builders can find various hardware configurations that are working well. And since this thread will hopefully be users with few problems, perhaps we can see some trends that might help identify where our few problems are arising if they're hardware related.
I haven't installed V11 yet, but have had 10 running nicely in all versions since 10.a with my system. SDI i/o through the AJA Kona card as well as preview monitoring to both a Sony PVM 20M2U and a Toshiba 40" via HDMI has been of quality I've been proud to show clients. My last 3 builds (as was this system) were "stolen" from Videoguys DIY builds and all have been quite satisfying as systems for running Vegas. Going this route has always kept me a few steps removed from the cutting/bleeding edge in speed and innovations, but the configurations have worked.
I edit 30 sec TV spots, industrial films, and documentaries up to 90 min in length. Working with 30% SD footage from Digibeta, 20% JVC ProHD 720p, and 50% 1080/24p AVCHD from the Pana AF100. I've never had to use any DSLR footage. Rarely, sone straight MPEG2 as source. I began version 10 with a workflow of using ProxyStream to convert AVCHD to mxf, but these days I seldom do. Editing with native files, even with effects, rarely degrades playback quality lower than "good" at full 23.976 fps and the time spent creating proxies wasn't worth it. Vegas is being used an average of 5 hours a day at my office.
Other software on my workstation: Photoshop, AE CS4, Dreamweaver, StarBurn, No MS office stuff, no codecs of the divx or x264 varieties and absolutely no "codec packs" from sketchy websites. Only "non-standard" codecs are DNXHD, Matrox MPEG2 i-frame and the AJA codecs supplied with Kona. I do use the Pro version of Quicktime.
Problems I've experienced with V 10 -
Frequent audio errors in WMV rendering - perhaps 40% fails. (64 bit only, 32 bit consistently fine).
Capturing footage from JVC ProHD via on-motherboard Firewire consistently crashes Vegas 10 both 32 and 64 bit. Workaround has been to use Vegas 9 for capture. When I temporarily put in a 1394 card from another system, capture was fine, so I'm blaming this on my on-board Firewire.
Editing with standard MPEG-2 footage on the timeline (SD or HD) and scrubbing can occasionally crash Vegas (32 bit frequently, 64 bit rarely), as can rapidly moving the cursor to several different positions within the clip. AVCHD or other sources never crash the program while doing this - not even the Matrox i-frame MPEG2.
And seriously, that's it. Any other problems I've had have been solved by changing preference settings to those recommended by forum users.
So that's my suggestion - only post here if you feel you can say "Vegas plus my hardware is a professional editing system." Good preview performance, no crashing, no sloppy workarounds. (Let's go easy on V11 until it has a letter behind it) That's what it's supposed to be, and I feel it is for me. A user having issues will be able to view this thread for hardware solutions, but should post their problems elsewhere to keep the thread clean. I'd like to see us get to the point where users can easily see hardware configurations in various price ranges that will give them the least problems and the best experience.
I won't be upgrading to V11 until deciding on a new graphics card and waiting for the "a" but will post again when I do upgrade and everything is working well.
Larry
I'd like to propose a thread propagated by those of us who are having the LEAST problems with Vegas, and listing the few we may experience. At this moment it may not be as helpful as it eventually can be - because of the release of a new version that obviously will go through a good portion of the alphabet in updates - but if we keep the thread current, new users and new system builders can find various hardware configurations that are working well. And since this thread will hopefully be users with few problems, perhaps we can see some trends that might help identify where our few problems are arising if they're hardware related.
I haven't installed V11 yet, but have had 10 running nicely in all versions since 10.a with my system. SDI i/o through the AJA Kona card as well as preview monitoring to both a Sony PVM 20M2U and a Toshiba 40" via HDMI has been of quality I've been proud to show clients. My last 3 builds (as was this system) were "stolen" from Videoguys DIY builds and all have been quite satisfying as systems for running Vegas. Going this route has always kept me a few steps removed from the cutting/bleeding edge in speed and innovations, but the configurations have worked.
I edit 30 sec TV spots, industrial films, and documentaries up to 90 min in length. Working with 30% SD footage from Digibeta, 20% JVC ProHD 720p, and 50% 1080/24p AVCHD from the Pana AF100. I've never had to use any DSLR footage. Rarely, sone straight MPEG2 as source. I began version 10 with a workflow of using ProxyStream to convert AVCHD to mxf, but these days I seldom do. Editing with native files, even with effects, rarely degrades playback quality lower than "good" at full 23.976 fps and the time spent creating proxies wasn't worth it. Vegas is being used an average of 5 hours a day at my office.
Other software on my workstation: Photoshop, AE CS4, Dreamweaver, StarBurn, No MS office stuff, no codecs of the divx or x264 varieties and absolutely no "codec packs" from sketchy websites. Only "non-standard" codecs are DNXHD, Matrox MPEG2 i-frame and the AJA codecs supplied with Kona. I do use the Pro version of Quicktime.
Problems I've experienced with V 10 -
Frequent audio errors in WMV rendering - perhaps 40% fails. (64 bit only, 32 bit consistently fine).
Capturing footage from JVC ProHD via on-motherboard Firewire consistently crashes Vegas 10 both 32 and 64 bit. Workaround has been to use Vegas 9 for capture. When I temporarily put in a 1394 card from another system, capture was fine, so I'm blaming this on my on-board Firewire.
Editing with standard MPEG-2 footage on the timeline (SD or HD) and scrubbing can occasionally crash Vegas (32 bit frequently, 64 bit rarely), as can rapidly moving the cursor to several different positions within the clip. AVCHD or other sources never crash the program while doing this - not even the Matrox i-frame MPEG2.
And seriously, that's it. Any other problems I've had have been solved by changing preference settings to those recommended by forum users.
So that's my suggestion - only post here if you feel you can say "Vegas plus my hardware is a professional editing system." Good preview performance, no crashing, no sloppy workarounds. (Let's go easy on V11 until it has a letter behind it) That's what it's supposed to be, and I feel it is for me. A user having issues will be able to view this thread for hardware solutions, but should post their problems elsewhere to keep the thread clean. I'd like to see us get to the point where users can easily see hardware configurations in various price ranges that will give them the least problems and the best experience.
I won't be upgrading to V11 until deciding on a new graphics card and waiting for the "a" but will post again when I do upgrade and everything is working well.
Larry