"I don't think I should mention what springs into my mind when I hear "Vegas Pro" :)" or like "Vegas Pro Training" ;-) or ........

Reply by: farss
Date: 8/9/2008 7:28:46 PM
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Now what's the first thing that springs to mind when you hear "Vegas", Gambling. I don't think I should mention what springs into my mind when I hear "Vegas Pro" :)
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LOLl. Too funny.

If I have to go to another windows based NLE it would probably be adobe because of the integration with AE. Hopefully there will be a good open source solution before then.

"Choosing (or not choosing) an NLE based on its name is ridiculous."

A name makes a HUGE difference. Change the name "Speed Edit" to "Bob", then stand back and watch how many over look it.

Maybe an extreme example but I'm making a point. We have a family friend who gets payed incredible sums of money to come up with the right name for products. A product name is representative of the product in much the same way as a Job Resume represents you in applying for a job. Jot down a couple of 1/2 sentences in pencil on a dirty bar napkin and see how many job interviews you will get.

"Now what's the first thing that springs to mind when you hear "Vegas""

Lights with no aim.
Tinsel with a fake sparkle.
Has-been performers that can't make it anywhere else other than a Vegas stage.

Need I go on?

It's interesting to see people attack something that is a fact. As many of the more astute observers here have noted -- the NAME really matters. Why do you think companies spend millions, yes millions, of dollars to name, package and market their products. Why? Because perception is everything. While it's possible to sell an NLE named "Mud" it certainly wouldn't be my first choice. How about an NLE named "Dirty Stinky Socks?"

As to a person's name/moniker/username/or any other label I do not judge them based on that. However, it's hard to imagine someone named Scar as being an 8 year old Cub Scout? I have learned to accept people for who they are and judge them based on their actions not on their name or any other attribute. Purchasing a product is an entirely different thing. So if we're going to use analogies here let's please make sure they are realistic. Thanks.

I diidn't say the name made no difference at all, but I choose software and hardware based on capability, not the name. Perhaps it's from my decades in the music business, I learned not to judge the quality of the music based on whatever ridiculous band name they had.

Who has a better tasting product than Coke? Glennn, do you remember the days of New Coke? I know you're on the young side, but it was among the biggest product/brand fiascoes ever. Coke was worried about Pepsi which had the Pepsi challenge and in blind taste tests Pepsi would be beat coke. So Coke made New Coke which was sweeter like Pepsi was and people had a conniption. Madcolm Gladwell in his book "Blink," claims the error that Coke made was Pepsi was winning blind taste tests was that it was sweeter which had more impact on the first sip, but if you were drinking a whole bottle, folks preferred the less sweet drink which was Old Coke.

Who has a better tasting product than Coke?
Jones. (Though it costs more than Coke.) Though then again, I've never compared these drinks in a blind test.

On the cheap side, there are some brands that taste pretty similar to Coke at a much lower price. (I can't remember if president's choice or Coke tastes better.) But people still buy Coke.

And then you have some "OEM" foods, which is the EXACT SAME food except under different brands and packaging. And people will buy the more expensive brand. Crazy.

I've not tried any blind test myself so I can't speak from my own experience. But there are some scientists who study food and they find that many non-taste factors affect your perception of how good something tastes, how much food you eat, etc.

2- So according to this story, Coke actually changed its formula to use corn syrup instead of cane sugar in the 1980s.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041109/news_1b9mexcoke.html

So if they taste the same, then why are people buying Mexican coke (made with cane sugar) over American Coke?
And if they don't taste the same, why didn't people notice?
I suspect that the difference is noticeable but not noticed. Now if you point out the difference (e.g. say that Mexican coke is made with cane sugar) then people would notice the difference and prefer to buy the coke with cane sugar. And if you don't point it out, then people will continue to buy coke even though the formula changed.
To me, cane sugar definitely tastes different. (Where I live) you can buy packets of cane sugar and Chinese people drink that mixed with water. It definitely tastes different than putting a packet of normal sugar into water. You can also get Jones (cane sugar) and compare that with Coke, though their formulas are otherwise different so it's not a fair comparison.

3- New Coke:
I'm too young for that, but I hear that New Coke tasted better in Coke's blind testing. I doubt that Coke made a mistake that people judge things based on drinking a whole bottle.

It's not like when you buy a soft drink your thought process goes... Pepsi (or New Coke) tastes better on the first sip, but Coke is better when I have the old bottle. Now I could be wrong here, but this is something that could easily be tested. I doubt that Malcolm Gladwell did that test... I've skimmed through his book and I don't think he tested any of his ideas.

4- Weird:
Coke sales came back stronger than ever after the New Coke fiasco (which, accidentally, turned out to be a good thing). That's what I've heard anyways.

I diidn't say the name made no difference at all, but I choose software and hardware based on capability, not the name.

In theory, that's what people should do. But I've seen instances of companies buying six-figure systems which turned out to be lemons for them.
http://tele.com/pipermail/tig/2007-October/012117.html (the original poster had a Lustre which never really got used; not appropriate for their workflow)

There are also companies which bought equipment from Edifis... lemons. You would think that people buying really expensive gear would do their homework and not make such gross errors (e.g. get demo units in for a good period of time). But it happens, even when it comes to really big purchases.

There are other examples of people making mistakes when it comes to large amounts of money. e.g. Avid... they've managed to lose money even when they're sitting on a product with dominant marketshare (whereas I suspect that Sony Creative Software is profitable, despite its small market share).
Or if you look at stock prices... they fluctuate way too much compared to the value of the underlying companies. Look at the 52wk high and low for any S&P 500 company... there is usually a huge difference. The same applies even to the entire group... there can be a 25% difference for the 52wk high and low (it's Benjamin Graham's Mr. Market).

Cane sugar soda tastes way better than High Fructose Corn Syrup soda. Also you can get in glass bottles. Given the choice, I always buy the Mexican Coke and I generally don't drink the non-diet version anyway, but Mexican coke tempts me to go for the sugar.

So why switch to corn syrup? $$$$. It's much cheaper to get something sweet with high fructose corn syrup.

Believe me Coke, made a giant mistake, even if it worked to their advantage ultimately. The point was a taste test ended up being a false comparison to the actual experience of drinking soda every day.

Yeah, Jones and other premium sodas taste better but as you point out more expensive. If you ever get a chance to Try Virgil's Root Beer or Cream Soda, they are quite good.

No Gladwell doesn't too testing. He's a popularizer and synthesizer of other people's work. He's a writer not a scientist.


People are beginning to realize that the switch to corn syrup that has undergone an industrial process to make it sweeter has probably had drastic negative effects on North American Health. It apparently matters to your body if your sugar is sucrose or fructose. Also HFCS the sugar molecule is different than regular fructose.

Why North American? From Wikipedia
Because of a system of price supports and sugar quotas imposed since May 1982, importing sugar into the United States and Canada is prohibitively expensive. High-fructose corn syrup, derived from corn, is more economical since the American and Canadian prices of sugar are artificially far higher than the global price of sugar[9] and the price of #2 corn is artificially low due to both government subsidies and dumping on the market as farmers produce more corn annually.[10][11] The food industry turned to HFCS as a substitute, with both Coca-Cola and Pepsi switching to HFCS in 1984.[12]

Other countries, including Mexico typically use sugar in soft drinks. Some Americans seek out Mexican Coke in ethnic groceries, because they feel it tastes better or is healthier than Coke made with HFCS. [3]

John Meyer said "My guess is that the 64-bit implementation ended up being a complete re-write..."

That's been my guess as well, partly because Vegas has been based on video for windows for quite a long time and it needs to move forward. Microsoft itself has been inching forward in Vista with its Media Foundation (I think that's what it's called...). Whether this is good or bad, it's something that SCS needs to start addressing in its applications.

The 64-bit Vegas seems to me to have paralleled the halting and stumbling release of Vista and I think that Vista may have been the factor that finally allowed the programming team to make the case for major rewrites. Whether useful rewrites actually happen and whether they're even noticeable is anyone's guess but I think it's been needed for a while now for Vegas to have a future.

As far as some Sony person at NAB predicting that Vegas would be sold...what's not said is whether that Sony rep had any actual connection to SCS. I can easily imagine someone from Sony who is totally unconnected to SCS saying such a thing, right after having a customer explain to them that Vegas is a Sony product.

Rob Mack

Adobe will probably get a 64-bit version of PPro out *real soon* and could certainly beat SCS out of the gate. I don't think that would even remotely spell the end of Vegas, though. PPro really NEEDS more memory in many situations. Vegas would certainly benefit from the additional memory a 64-bit version would allow, but the need is not nearly as dire.

We're using PPro with Axio at work and often have memory issues with short pieces of about 10 minutes or less. We won't even try any sort of long form project.

Rob Mack

it seems to me that AVID is facing some troubles (see http://www.avid.com/email/2008_07_28_letter_from_CEO/index.html ), I have received this email on Friday. Who would restructure company if everything is fine?

"Now what's the first thing that springs to mind when you hear "Vegas""

To be fair, also - some of the best restaurants in the world (and some of the worst)
The best stage shows in the world (and some of the worst)
Some of the best hotels in the world (and some of the worst)

Variety isn't bad, is it?

So if they taste the same, then why are people buying Mexican coke (made with cane sugar) over American Coke?

Colleague of mine is a huge Coke consumer and we travel a lot together. Can't remember where it was, but the conversation went like this:
Him: Do you think this Coke tastes weird?
Me: Nope, I like it, but you may not be used to it, it has sugar in it
Him: Huh? So does Coke at home.
Me: Nope

And then we had a long discussion about sugar vs corn syrup. The taste difference is noticeable and it clearly, once a Coke addict gets used to it, is far more pleasant than corn syrup.

Honestly, instead of poring all of that money into the center of this country, into welfare states like Ohio and others, we should just use them for nuclear target practice. My hard-earned tax money is going to subsidies that kill more Americans than smoking ever did.

So why switch to corn syrup? $$$$. It's much cheaper to get something sweet with high fructose corn syrup.

Depends on how you define "cheaper". We pay for this through our collective noses in farm subsidies. Subsidies that never went to small farms but all to huge industrial complex farms throughout the country. It's insane, and the fact that we can't stop it just shows how badly we are off in this country.

The two coasts plus a handful of other states are poring billions into the middle in welfare. All the "red states" are on social welfare but are still staunchly Republican (nothing wrong with being Republican if you earn money, but these people are on collective welfare).

"Variety isn't bad, is it?"

Well it depends on who you are I guess. I personally associate Vegas (Los Vegas) with greasy hair, fake smiles, slick sales people, money-grubbing hands, thievery, petty people.... etc, etc.

Been there once and will NEVER go back!

A good Holiday to me is something a little more honest.... Alaska, New Zealand, The outbacks of Australia, The Yukon......

Import duties were placed on cane sugar to help make corn syrup cheaper. Using the government to do what you cannot do otherwise is typical anymore.

Blink your description of Las Vegas is so over the top. Having been on 3 safaris in Africa and visited Vegas, New York, London and Paris and tons of other natural and man made places I can say that I enjoyed all of them for what they had to offer. Greasy hair is not an anomaly that occurs only in big cities and slick sales people will sell you a trip to Australia.

Are all of the Vegas Users at NAB greasy slick sales people trying to sell you a video you don't want or need?

It would seem that dropping vegas might be a bit akward since Acid and Sound Forge are also on the same lineup.

These programs could continue to be devoloped but why would you drop one of the 3 applications that uses almost identical interfaces?

Seems if your gonna drop one, you drop em all. If Sony dropped Vegas would they retain Acid? SF?

Also,
Isn't adding pro titler a bit more than "a few minor upgrades"?
Seems like adding this was a major upgrade to Vegas.

Aug

LOL! Vegas and gambling!!!

It's true, who came up with the crappy "vegas" name anyways. I'll take 30 seconds to come up with a better NLE name.
ok here we go...
Filmpro
Directors cut
Cinema express
Viagra
Vegas

ok which ones don't belong?

LOL

As to Coke, to me the pure sugar ones have a much better cinnamon like burn than Coke made with corn syrup. I still prefer real sugar Cokes. I have a theory that the new Coke was used to flush the supply chain before they started using corn syrup.

About the Vegas name, in all seriousness, I'm glad they added the Pro moniker. I do remember being a bit confused when I first saw Vegas Studio on the shelf at BestBuy.

Coke made with real sugar is available in L.A., and several other Southern border states

It comes from Mexico, where they don't have the sugar market distortions we have here.

It does taste significantly better. High class...