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

D7K wrote on 5/31/2019, 9:10 AM

I no longer do anything that is commercial. After 50 years of doing both still and video in line with work, I am now left with one client who does not require any such work. Even thought of going with Studio. However in the long run with stick with VegasPRO. but having done every upgrade since I started a long time ago with a free version of Studio with my Canon Vixia 100 to now shooting everything up to 60 FPS 4k I've decided that PRO is worth the upgrade costs. But for me 16 is so good I think I can wait to 17 for an upgrade. If was more than just a hobbyist I'd certainly stay on the upgrade bandwagon.

So are you a hobbyist or a PRO (doesn't make if full time or part time, do you sell or work for fee)? What is your upgrade plan?

Having done this for a long time, IMHO Magix has done a spectacular job or bringing Vegas back in real competition for the best NLE for independents and small firms.

Example of what I am now going to be "working" on. A documentary about a local "pond" that is a world class birding location. I use M43 and now have all of the lenses and capabilities that I need to do a multi-year project including everything from macro to super telephoto perspective as well as 60 FPS 4k and 180 FPS 1080P. I may end up finally buying a few add ins (Vegasaur and one or 2 others, all though the stabilization in Vegas is now really good, I do have and use Mercalli PRO v4) but for my specific needs Vegas PRO 16 is actually a dream. Yep, I am a fan boy because after 50 years of using everything (including back in the day renting large production studios and using large tape studio cameras and giant control rooms) I greatly appreciate the production tool that VP 16 is.

So this is not a thread about being a VP fan boy, but tells us how you us VP and why it is your goto NLE tool of choice, being a hobbyist or PRO.

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Comments

Vincent-Mesman wrote on 8/6/2019, 2:34 AM

I don't like the idea of throwing away my GTX 690 cards in favour of something better like RTX 2080 Ti with the perspective that it needs an upgrade again in 3 years when we all "need" to start editing in 8K HDR 100fps.

So I hope the developers keep focus on proxy rendering, distributed rendering, smart rendering, smart storage, and very important: to be able to process all steps in a single application in one go.

fr0sty wrote on 8/6/2019, 3:26 AM

As old as your card is (2012!), I'd make the upgrade on the grounds that; it cannot take advantage of any of the encoding or decoding acceleration present in Vegas today, and it will be much longer than 3 years before 8k becomes widely used enough that we'll be needing to upgrade to keep up with the needs of our clients. Even once they do start asking for it, you can proxy.

Former user wrote on 8/6/2019, 2:38 PM

Resolve doesn't use hardware decoding to decode XAVC. Vegas is using the NVDec decoder chip on Nvidia GPUs to decode the video, and NVDec is only capable of AVC and HEVC.

XAVC S is H.264 Video with LPCM Audio (as opposed to AAC Audio), and should be Decode Accelerated. Typically it's in the MP4 Wrapper (but can be MXF). It's a format used by some Consumer Camcorders and Sony Cameras/DSLRs. XAVC-I (Intra) is a completely different CODEC. It's a professional digital intermediate similar to DNxHD/R or ProRes. The naming is confusing - and misleading - but the UHD XAVC S from Consumer/Prosumer Camcorders is not the same as the Pro I-Frame CODEC from more expensive cameras.

Resolve supports QSV, NVDEC, and AMD UVD Decoding, and will use the best one available in your machine, automatically. You can enable or disabled support for the various decoders in your system via the preferences.

It will decode Accelerate XAVC S, as that is just H.264 video. Any NLE worth using supports LPCM Audio Streams.

VEGAS should support both XAVC S and XAVC-I, as those were pretty integral CODECs to Sony, so I'm unaware of what that person is talking about.

fr0sty wrote on 8/6/2019, 3:22 PM

He was referring to Megabit's post, and he was indeed talking about not being able to accelerate the decoding of XAVC-I, not S, and Vegas doesn't support that at the GPU level (neither does resolve) as you point out, it's a completely different codec.

marc-s wrote on 8/6/2019, 5:06 PM

Well... I don't exactly how it works but I can reframe a 4k shot on an HD timeline, add unlimited color correction and get realtime playback because of my AMD Radeon card and how Resolve takes advantage of it. Since Vegas is not supporting AMD I guess the point is mute until I get a NVidea card.

fr0sty wrote on 8/6/2019, 9:23 PM

There are plans for Vegas to support hardware decoding on AMD cards as well, but they weren't happy with the performance and stability of it so they held off on implementing it until it is better.

D7K wrote on 8/7/2019, 10:46 AM

I said, maybe not, but certain not in the first release. Then I saw the lens correction settings and for that alone (I shot with 3 < 10mm lenses) would be worth it. Between my 3 M43 lenses and my DJI (which I will have to make a setting for), I've a spent a lot of time using other tools which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. With Vpro and Samplitude I am kind of "all in for Magix products" and so I will support them. Doing a NLE presentation for my video meetup group and think I will sound like a fan boy, but after spending a morning reviewing Resolve, I have way too much "muscle memory" to leave Vegas. Look forward to reading the adventures with 17:)

Pulled the trigger minutes ago.