Is Sony going to kill discreet?

bakerbud9 wrote on 4/21/2004, 9:44 PM
There were some very remarkable similarities between Vegas 5 and the lates offerings by discreet at NAB this year.

Most notably, Vegas 5 has taken on a host of powerful new compositing features. This is notable because discreet has discontinued thier NLE software, edit*, and integrated NLE capabilities into thier compositing software fire* and smoke*. By doing this they have shattered the traditional boundary between editing and compositing by creating integrated software environments for post production and finishing.

Additionally, I saw some really impressive demonstrations of muscle power by Vegas 5. This included simultaneous playback of 3 tracks of 1080p HD footage (page curl transitions included). At the Sony booth, Duncan was running Vegas 5 on a Cerpico SAN and was able to play 25 simultaneous tracks of DV footage at 30fps.

These demonstrations show how the software-only architecture of Vegas scales well with the horsepower of the hardware it runs on.

In that sense, it seems Sony may be in a position to give discreet a run for thier money in the high-end post and finishing market. I guess time will tell, but in that sense it certainly was a strinking trip to NAB this year.

-nate

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/22/2004, 5:53 AM
The only reason I'd say that Vegas won't kill discreet right now is because of price. Discreet costs more so seems more impressive to clients when you tell them how much your studio costs. Kinda like if you own a porche. Cost crapload of money but you won't use it as much as your stationw wagon. :)


First we should knock out premiere. Sony has enough money. Show those smartypants people what a REAL nle is. :)
JonnyMac wrote on 4/22/2004, 7:16 AM
First we should knock out premiere. Sony has enough money.

I, for one, hope that Sony focuses on its customers' desires, and not what any competitor is or isn't doing.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/22/2004, 9:14 AM
Sony has enough money to advertise ten times what Adobe does, but i've never seen a sony sponcered add in DV magazine while I got it (up to end of january). Adobe has adds all over. Sony should do that.
bakerbud9 wrote on 4/22/2004, 12:21 PM
Jonny,

I feel the same way. From past experience with the Madison team, I'd suggest we don't have to worry about that. The Madison team are perfectionists, and they have proven that they do listen and care about customer feedback.

With that said, I saw Vegas perform some tasks that completely blew my socks off at NAB this year. The 25 tracks of DV and 1080p HD demos are good case in point. I always knew Vegas was powerful, but I had no idea it was THAT good.

It seems that customers who throw the kind of hardware resources at a discreet system could be well served by doing the same thing to a Vegas system. With the right hardware supporting it, it seems Vegas would certainly be capable of doing realtime editing and compositing of 2K film resolution footage.

-nate
johnnycamcorder wrote on 4/22/2004, 12:51 PM
Sony killing Discreet with Vegas? You're kidding, right? Have you actually sat down in front of Smoke workstation? Have you ever used Combustion?

bakerbud9 wrote on 4/22/2004, 10:25 PM
yes, i have.
have you ever seen vegas do 25 tracks of DV in realtime or 3 tracks of 1080p HD in realtime?
-nate