Unless you just want to simply get a gimps of the new features offered in SVP 11, I'd wait awhile. There are just too many people who are experiencing sever problems with version 11 to expect that you may be one of the lucky few who will not see any issues. There's no telling how badly this may effect your workflow if you're planning to use it for a project on a schedule.

Version 11 encompassed a major design change of the Vegas internal architecture. And this has resulted in all sorts of bugs being introduced, like dominoes falling. Since It's release in October my guess is that I'm seeing more than 20 people posting reports of problems, for every one person who says they haven't found any yet.

And what appears to be a problem cure for one person, has no effect for another. I can't count all the suggestions I've seen that said upgrading video drivers will fix all the crashes. I've upgraded my nVidia drivers twice since October with absolutely no effect in reducing my version 11 crashes. I can make Vegas crash almost every 10 minutes when I'm editing my projects.

So it's up to you to decide what you expect to get from a v11 upgrade.

>>>I'm seeing more than 20 people posting reports of problems, for every one person who says they haven't found any yet.<<<

People who aren't having problems usually don't post anything, so for every one of those 20 posting problems there are probably 100 who have no problems, no reason to post or visit, or most likely have no clue that this forum even exists.

I admit that these days I use Vegas mostly as a Daw and just short video editing, but I haven't had a single crash. Did get one BSD after I mismatched my RME's sampling rate with Vegas, but that doesn't count as Vegas' fault.

Answer to the original post: Just install the trial and see for yourself how it is on your system.

"People who aren't having problems usually don't post anything, so for every one of those 20 posting problems there are probably 100 who have no problems, no reason to post or visit, or most likely have no clue that this forum even exists".

That statement can go both ways. If people don't know this forum exists, they also aren't posting their problems here! Also, not everyone who is experiencing problems takes the time to write about them.

I'm basing my 20:1 guess on what I've seen posted here, and in other Sony Vegas user groups. I agree with your conclusion that people don't seek out a forum for no other reason than to say "Nothing bad happened to me today". But in this forum I've seen many SVP 11 users who haven't had any problems speak out in a way that borders on challenging anyone who claims to have experienced problems. So I stick by my 20:1 ratio guesstimate.

"I see a lot of negative comments on VP11 still and cant afford to have much if any downtime."

Every new release of all software products bring out a few users who experience new problems. Vegas 11 Pro is seeing a few more than usual because of the massive rewrite of the code to accommodate GPU support.

Just install the demo and see if your computer is up to the task.

>>>>That statement can go both ways. If people don't know this forum exists, they also aren't posting their problems here!<<<

Not quite. The reason they don't know about it is because they haven't had a reason to look it up. People with problems will google things and find this forum.

VP11 is not ready for full production. I'm one of the silent few that usually don't post...but do a lot of looking. Been with Vegas since 4 and this is the only release that I've so much trouble with that I've started keeping all my critical projects in rel 10. I've tried all the builds since 11 was released and each one has different problems. But when it comes to very simple clips not being able to render without crashing Vegas every time....and Vegas 10 has no trouble....this is really troubling. I really hope that Sony gets it's act together real soon.

I think there are a lot of people like me that are having problems but do not post....it's much easier in today's busy world not to post...or to say...I have that problem that someone is complaining about so why repost the problem....especially when I see the great detailed posts of the problems. I would not be surprised if for every problem posted here, there are 20 or 40 more that do not post. I'm sure Sony knows from their problem reports that get sent every time the program crashes.

Waiting patiently.

>>But when it comes to very simple clips not being able to render without crashing Vegas every time....

John .. any chance I can get some of those simple clips that crash Vegas 11 on render every time? .. Seriously ...

Paul

I don't know whether my clips are simple or complicated but I haven't managed to crash Vegas with any of my own clips or any of the clips provided by clients.

So, I d have to say Vegas 11 is just as ready for production as any other version.

deusx, you are very fortunate that you have never paid hundreds of dollars for a piece of software that ends up being buggy and crash prone. But just because you have been lucky, doesn't make the problems that many others are seeing less real.

I'm a Sr. Software Engineer. I design software for a living. I've been doing it since 1986. In those past many years I've seen my share of hard to reproduce problems that some customers experience on a regular basis, and others never experience. That doesn't make the problem any less real for those that have it.

In fixing these types of problems, I usually find that the software bugs are caused by some environmental issue that is exposed to all programs running on that PC. If a program isn't using any of the thousands of pieces of information the operating system provides to the program, then it will probably not display a bug. Likewise if a program does use some of this information, and it makes assumptions about what it will see, it could produce a bug if that assumption is incorrect. That is why some users see problems and others don't. On one PC the assumption about the information was correct. But on the other PC the information is different because of some local hardware/software configuration differences. So that PC experiences the problem.

I would also be a little less enthusiastic about recommending that others should spend hundreds of dollars on a software purchase or upgrade, when you have no idea if they will be as lucky as you are.

If someone takes your advice, and finds them-self among those of us who've found the program too unreliable for use on a critical project, are you willing to take responsibility for your recommendation and pay them back for the costs they incurred based on what YOU told them to do?

Am I to understand that those users, who do not have problems with the software, should keep their success stories to themselves and not encourage people to use it?

"Am I to understand that those users, who do not have problems with the software, should keep their success stories to themselves and not encourage people to use it?"

Actually, yes I am saying that! Unless of course you are willing to accept the consequences of your recommendation, and are ready to reimburse someone who purchased the software based on your recommendation and found it unusable. If that's the case, by all means, go ahead and tell everyone to buy it.

Seriously, I'm not saying that you can't tell others that you've personally had no problems. I'm just saying that your personal experience running SVP v11.0 has absolutely no bearing on the experience someone else may have on their computer. And that recommending the program to others in the face of the huge number of complaints people have filed, is really going out on a limb with other peoples money!

Thanks for all the answers guys. Im going to wait it out awhile. VP8 is currently totally stable.

Yes, Vegas 11 is ready.

@VidMus,

I'm thrilled to hear an affirmative response from you, because your system is almost identical to mine and, for me, Vegas 11 is very close to "ready". I suspect my remaining issues may be from having prior versions still on my system. If you don't mind, do you have other versions installed? 32 and 64 both? Are you using a separate administrator account for V11? My GPU is not up to yours (a QuadroFX1800 with 285.62 driver) but is giving me decent acceleration in both preview and rendering. I'd love to reproduce the install config that you have and see if I can claim "ready" also.

Thanks,
Larry

Gary James,

Based on your comments, I could never recommend Windows XP, Windows 7, Sony Vegas (any version) or pretty much 100% of any software I use. Everyone has had complaints or problems about all versions of Vegas and Windows and most other programs. To the point of uninstalling OSs, going to older versions and not using the software at all.

My experience with V11, other than a few acknowledged bugs, has been positive and I would recommend it to others. But I would not expect someone to compensate me for software that isn't running well on their system anymore than I would expect someone to reimburse me for a restaurant recommendation in which I had a bad experience.

Dave T2

I'm running VP11 Build 521 alongside V8, V9 and V10 on Win7 64bit.. I have no problems having other versions installed.and, right now, I have no problems with V11. However, I'm not running GPU acceleration ..

It's difficult to sort out the 'bugs" and "crashes" relating to V11 as described on the forum. No doubt, many are genuine problems. But it's still cheaper for me to buy the upgrade and see for myself then spend the amount of time it would take to sort out how solid the new version is by listening to others .. .. There was an update to V10 that had me reverting backward to a previous version .. I forget the details .. but it was easy to go backward with Vegas.

I like to keep up with the latest versions and usually am an early adopter. You certainly get more out of this forum if you keep up. I see no downside to this besides the expense. I think I compute this at something less than $15 a month to keep current in Vegas.

Switching to some other NLE would be more time and money than I'm willing to spend. I've never come close to that point with any version of Vegas. As a practical matter, I'm committed. I'll deal with the devil I know and pay the freight.

From atom12, “If you don't mind, do you have other versions installed? 32 and 64 both? Are you using a separate administrator account for V11? My GPU is not up to yours (a QuadroFX1800 with 285.62 driver) but is giving me decent acceleration in both preview and rendering. I'd love to reproduce the install config that you have and see if I can claim "ready" also.

Thanks,
Larry”

My old computer system has versions 6 through 7. My current system has version 8 through 11. I have both 32 and 64 bit for versions 9 and 10. Version 8 is 32 bit only. Version 11 is 64 bit only.

I always installed on top of earlier versions. I never uninstalled earlier versions.

Because Vegas has been redesigned for GPU acceleration it is now in a sense hardware specific instead of only being software specific as in the past. Version 10 sort of started this process and that is probably the reason for SOME of its problems. Even though SCS probably would like to consider Vegas as just being software specific as in the past they are being unexpectedly bit by the fact that it is not.

In now being hardware specific there are huge differences as to what systems users have. As already pointed out, there are those with multiple systems where some systems work and others do not. Case in point, I have a different video card than what you have. Combination of drivers and cards can make or break Vegas. Either totally break Vegas or to whatever degree, partially break Vegas.

My system has three hard drives on it. The boot drive is 500 gigs to allow increased speed by keeping the data on the outer parts of the platters where the speed is fastest, also, the extra space to allow as much breathing room possible for the paged and other temporary data areas. I noticed that one person who is having problems keeps his boot drive extremely small. That limits speed and does not allow the needed breathing room! Even with paging and temporary data on other drives the boot drive is still being used to a certain extent and the needed space is expected to be there. If not, then crashes are likely! Vegas will use the boot drive for some temporary files no matter what one sets things to.

My other two drives are the video drives. There is drive ‘T’ and drive ‘V’. The TV drives, LOL! The ‘T’ drive is 298 gigs which are plenty for what it needs and the ‘V’ drive is 931 gigs. The ‘T’ drive has the general video data files on it and the ‘V’ drive is a project ONLY drive. Once a project is done it is either deleted or moved to the backup storage drives. It is not kept on the project drive. This makes the project drive lean and fast. I now have both the ‘T’ and ‘V’ drives in external USB3 enclosures. I did this so I can use my computer for general uses between projects without having those drives in operation all of the time.

Render from Vegas goes from the ‘V’ to ‘T’ drive except when doing an intermediate render for ‘Handbrake’ which will then go from the ‘V’ drive to the ‘T’ drive and then rendered to the *.mp4 from drive ‘T’ to drive ‘V’ and then moved to be put online. Note: I gave up on WMV because the procedure became so incredibly flakey and unreliable with Vegas.

One thing I learned to do with Vegas that I also learned with the previous NLE I was using is in how I have the thumbnails displayed on the time line. If I were to have all of them displayed I would be guaranteed an eventual crash! If I use head, center and tail I will get occasional crashes if I work too fast for Vegas to keep up.
Because I have my video drives in external USB3 enclosures I have blinking lights that let me see which drives are being accessed and when. I just did a two plus hour project with some fancy editing and masking and had zero crashes!

Why no crashes? When one makes an edit and/or changes the zoom on the time line Vegas will redo the thumbnails and that causes a lot of drive access. Do an ‘undo’ and there will be drive access to update the thumbnails. Do too many undos, edits and redo’s Vegas cannot keep up with the needed updates of the thumbnails and will crash with a Vegas is not responding message! I would do certain undos and redo’s and then wait for the ‘V’ drive’s light to stop flashing and THEN continue on allowing Vegas to catch up. There have been many times when I did not do this and Vegas would surely crash! I did not previously have the ability to see the LED flash so I would know when Vegas got caught up. The amount of time for Vegas to catch up varies from a few seconds to several minutes. It depends on the situation. So allowing Vegas to catch up can make a big difference as to crashing or not.

There are far too many reasons why Vegas can crash for SCS to come out with a ‘magic’ one size fix all release. From now on users are going to have to realize that Vegas IS a lot more hardware/hardware driver specific than it used to be. No doubt a lot more than SCS anticipated. Even very similar but not quite the same system configurations can make or break Vegas. All of this is assuming the system is REALLY up to par! No weak power supplies, no partially defective memories, no bad system files, no users who push Vegas beyond its ability to catch up and so on. Too many variables for that ‘magic’ one size fix all release! Even on Vegas 10!

When people get on this or any forum and says, ‘it crashes, fix it already’, they are going nowhere! It will take a case by case basis to determine what their needs are. And in spite of what some say, it is absolutely impossible to determine what one’s needs are without complete and accurate system specifications as well as software and driver versions. Even SCS cannot help without that information! And then one has to determine if their system is REALLY 100% up to par instead of SEEMINGLY up to par when it is not!

Considering the fact that many are using Vegas 11 without crashes then the question should be:

Is your system ready for Vegas 11?

I sincerely hope the above helps you and others here.

Danny Lee Fye
www.dannyfye.com/lhrb
www.dannyfye.com

>>>>If someone takes your advice, and finds them-self among those of us who've found the program too unreliable for use on a critical project, are you willing to take responsibility for your recommendation and pay them back for the costs they incurred based on what YOU told them to do?<<<<<

What responsibility? I advised the original poster to do what I advise everybody else to do. Install a TRIAL and see for yourself whether it works or not.

For me it works and I'd say it's more than just luck. I haven't had any problems with any version of Vegas and in the past 10 years or so I must have used at least a dozen different machines. I currently have it installed on two laptops, both i7-2760QM and nVidia GTX 560m. For what I do with it works without problems.

yes