I'm a hobbyist, but I take it seriously from a personal and intellectual point of view. I was recently pressed into shooting, editing and delivering Blu-ray, DVD and media on USB flash discs for two stage plays. I had the buyers make the checks out to Habitat for Humanity to protect my amateur status. It's all a big time and money waster to me.

I currently start all of my projects in Vegas Pro 13-453. Since I also have 14 and 15, I cherry-pick any unique options found in the newer versions like AMD VCE hardware rendering in 15. Once I bought new releases as they came out and worked on early-life bugs, but I've grown weary of that effort after retiring from 39 years in the computer industry.

I intend to buy every Vegas Pro version on the trailing edge.

I am both a hobbyist and a PRO. I started using Vegas with its first version when it was only a DAW and upgraded to every new version, except version 14 which I skipped mainly because of the stupid and ugly looking B&W icons.

So is Vegas Pro 16 is perfect? Definitely not, and the room for improvements and introducing new features is huge, that is why I will always keep upgrading.

It's always nice to have the latest and greatest but it's definitely not necessary even if you are a pro. I'm trying to get to the point that I can live off doing this stuff but it's a slog to be sure. Even so I used Pro 12 up to Pro 16. In regards to going with platinum. Honestly platinum is ridiculously good for the price, I'm really kind of shocked of how much it can do. It went from only allowing 4 tracks, to 10, to 20(i think) and now I think it's 200 a strange number to even have. I have never used that many tracks, I haven't even used 50, the only reason they don't just make it unlimited I imagine is so they can still write unlimited tracks under the pro column as if there is any real difference at this point. It wen't from having no masking and having to make do with the cookie cutter to having bezier masking which granted isn't quite the same thing as what pro can do but now you can mask out any shape you want on platinum. For me I need the compositing modes, if you produce anything for broadcast you need the scopes, but really if you don't need the scopes platinum is almost as good as pro, I think it's maybe even too close.

the only reason they don't just make it [MS Platinum] unlimited I imagine is so they can still write unlimited tracks under the pro column as if there is any real difference at this point

From the patch notes for Vegas Movie Studio 15 Platinum Update 2 (build 146): "The user can now add an unlimited number of video and audio tracks." I haven't tested that though.

the only reason they don't just make it [MS Platinum] unlimited I imagine is so they can still write unlimited tracks under the pro column as if there is any real difference at this point

From the patch notes for Vegas Movie Studio 15 Platinum Update 2 (build 146): "The user can now add an unlimited number of video and audio tracks." I haven't tested that though.

The product comparison had movie studio at 10 and platinum at 200, so who knows.

At least skipping versions is something you can do if the NLE is not subscription based !

That said new versions do come with improvements and new features. The new feature list may not always be what you want as you may already have invested in a similar alternatives or plugins before (e.g. Mercalli pro V4), but that is not uncommon. To take the analogy for a car purchase, some car brands allow for detailed customization, other car brands only offer categories or packs which do contain stuff you want, but also contains stuff you could not care less for (or do not like to pay for).

In the ideal world if you could cherry-pick the features with Vegas (and pay accordingly), then I am sure you will end up paying less. I have a lot of functionality overlap in plugins and scripts.

I remember I was thrilled to have nvenc finally supported (was it in V15?), and the more modern UI color scheme, and for V16 the storyboard (was disappointed at first as it was very buggy before they fixed it) and I also liked the better high DPI support for monitors (albeit it is still indicated as experimental, come on guys, finish the experiment!) …

What I do not like on V16 is that it renders significantly slower than V15 on the same project and source on the my PC ("red car" project render using nvenc, V16: 26s, V15: 20s). Not sure if I need to submit a bug request for that, given the fact V16 has more features that may slow it down...

No. I have had lots of problems with the Magix releases---14 through 16---so Sony V13 is where I do most of my editing.

I'm on 14 still, largley because I felt my computer couldn't handle the new features. Now I've just purchased a new computer. I've been on the fence with 16, but likely will hold out to see what 17 brings.

I was on 12 for years but will be going from 16 to 17 as Vegas is finally stable and caught up in terms of features, and I feel making strides towards becoming more efficient and easy to use with each version. I'm hoping for a GPU performance boost too.

> Is Vegas getting so good that you might skip the next version?

That question sounds very strange for me.

I'm skipping some versions not because the version I use is "so good", but because there is nothing in the new version that is really important for me.

I skipped VP14 and VP16 for the reason. Upgraded to VP15 mostly because of Color Match plugin.

As I do not know what would be new in VP17 I do not know if I skip it or not. I'll definitely buy it if they allow me to use x264 as encoder (in mp4 container) or mkv as source for example.

In any case, I will not buy the new version straight away as from my previous experience a few patches needed till most critical bugs will be fixed. My upgrade from VP13 to VP15 was painful as I could not use VP15 for 6 month because of some issues.

Even if the new features does not interest me, I still like to upgrade just to support the development of Vegas Pro, considering nothing bother me in the new version like what happened in version 14.

Another just-hobbyist here.

I have purchased each and every version since 3.0 too - and also in order to support Vegas Pro.

I should have said I used Movie Studio for a long time, but I couldn't resist when 14 came out and went for it. I'll probably upgrade to 17 also, but I know it is not a rational move except to support the software for me where as I could use a fee of the plugins . I don't think I will go beyond 4K for quite a while (just bought a new camera that can do limited 6K and don't expect to buy another camera for 3 or 4 years.

I was on 12 for years but will be going from 16 to 17 as Vegas is finally stable and caught up in terms of features, and I feel making strides towards becoming more efficient and easy to use with each version. I'm hoping for a GPU performance boost too.

Roger: Which build of VP 16 do you find the most stable?

Strictly Pro here... and I've been editing on Vegas since 2004. I use Vegas to edit productions for many of the world's biggest concerts and music festivals, and because they always want the bleeding edge (4K, HDR, etc), I'm always ready to upgrade to the new features when they drop. I only upgrade if there's something that the new features can do for me, though. Thankfully, Vegas 17's features help everyone, even the hobbyists. The color grading is a game changer, especially with the LUT export. I can now ask my project lead to send me a 5 second snippet of each scene in the highlight video he is editing for an event as an ungraded ProRes file, I will then color grade it and send him back a series of LUTs for each scene that is only a few kb in size. even though he is on final cut pro, the luts work flawlessly, and the "round trip" only involves uploading a GB or two at the most of video to color the full production. The new tools are also far more accurate, the color wheels are bigger and do more, can be fine tuned more, and the exposure slider also drastically helps, the color curves have been overhauled and now properly work with HDR... I could fill a page with reasons why 17 is a game changer for me as a pro, and I think that even you hobbyists will enjoy what it brings to the table as far as ease of use and pro features goes, again, especially for coloring.

Definitely not... Vegas used to be ahead in many ways but it has fallen way behind in recent years. The new features are a very nice step but I suspect the GPU acceleration is still lacking. If I were on the team I would concentrate on getting everything bug free and all of the features refined to top functionality. Then I would tackle the pathetic title features once and for all and improve the media management dramatically. Then make everything fast... really fast (playback, rendering etc.)

+1 (to frosty's post) This a big version, with big features. Not a matter of if, but when, I will upgrade - too many features that will really speed things up for me.

I have only done preliminary testing, but so far no crashes and no obvious glitches. Great job team Vegas!

" I suspect the GPU acceleration is still lacking"

Rather than suspect it, why not try it and find out? Vegas is ahead of other NLEs as far as GPU support goes, as many NLEs do not support AMD cards at all for many tasks. Adobe, for instance, wants to force everyone onto Nvidia hardware. I don't think Resolve supports AMD for everything either.

Resolve is very GPU centric, but that isn't the real reason it appears faster. CACHING is.

With the list changes I'm definitely going to upgrade from VP15 to VP17. For me the main question is WHEN, not IF.

I've successfully edited a full 5 camera 4k multicam 2.5 hour long concert project using Vegas 17. It crashed WAY less often than 16 would have for the duration of the project, and when it did crash it was a third party app to blame.

I believe it's been made clear in other posts that the acceleration in Vegas does not support XAVC. That is what I film to and Resolve supports it well. Still seems to be a half done job in Vegas.