HANDCUFFS: If I start using the Cloud and decide at some point I want to stop subscribing I will no longer be able to open my projects the day after my subscription ends. This is unacceptable to me. I need to be able to open legacy projects and refuse to be locked into an endless monthly bill (that Adobe can change the terms of) for a specific editing program. In the case of CS6 and Vegas I can always open my past projects as long as I have a computer that will run the programs.

All Adobe needs to do is allow subscribers to have access to technology up until the point of a specific subscription term ending if they decide to stop subscribing. Other companies offer that type of subscription service and Adobe could if they wanted to. But their true agenda is to lock you into their software for the rest of your editing life. Good luck with that... I will not be getting on that train. Premiere is just not that good.

By the way PP is 19.99 a month on it's own for now. If you want other programs be prepared to pay $50.00 per month (prices subject to change by Adobe) for as long as you want to access and work on projects past or present.

I really do not understand the antagonism towards the subscription model that Adobe is going for. It is quite reasonable, Adobe has shown for now that they continuously update (bug fixes etc) the software in the subscription, and it is very, very reasonably priced. Did I say that twice?

I spend more at Starbucks each month than I do at Adobe. Quite a bit more. Is coffee more worth than the tools I get from an Adobe subscription? I use Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere and AE. That package alone, for features, blows anything else out of the water. SCS isn't in the same league, not even in the same sports. Sure, Vegas is a *much* better NLE to work in, but SCS has had problems that seem troubling to me, and it doesn't look like 13 is a significant step away from the SCS of 11 and 12. I am an old ULead customer, and I am very weary of what appears to be trouble keeping boats afloat.

Yes, it is a little troubling that if I want to stop using Adobe software, I will have to plan it a bit better than if I could access the suite forever, but if I plan "weaning off" Adobe carefully it should be fine (converting the projects that I need should be doable). I also know that if I forget to convert a project to whatever new format I need, I can always re-enable my Adobe subscription for that project alone at a monthly cost that is still less than my hourly rate.

The main reason I am OK with the subscription model though is quite different. I know why Adobe has to do this, and I know that if they do not, I will be in trouble. The subscription model is a huge benefit to me, outside of what I think is a low cost for access to a lot of very good software.

Face it, not only for Adobe, but for more and more software, they are basically "feature complete". Why is it that we do not upgrade each version any more? Because there is no need to. For the majority of what some people Vegas 9 is fine. No need for 10, 11, 12 or 13. So, why upgrade? No need to.

The problem with that is that SCS does not have a cost base that is tied to the number of licenses they sell. Software development, particularly with the newer delivery methods is basically fixed cost, variable revenue. That is a fantastic combination when sales are growing, it is a bullet to the forehead when they are flat or going down. The reality for companies like Adobe and SCS is that you either start getting paid regularly by your customer for licensing your software or you die. Up until recently they could do that by adding features. Most of the existing customer base would upgrade. Not so any more.

So, the Adobe model is good for you. It keeps the vendor alive and fixing bugs. The older model spells death for the ones who can not make their existing (and most important) customer base upgrade to each new version.

Expect to see the Adobe model becoming the norm, I would expect also for SCS at some point in the future, unless they are dead before that.

What does point upgrade mean? How is it different from a plain upgrade?

A point upgrade would be, for example from Vegas Pro 10d to 10e or Notepad++ 6.4 to 6.5.

A whole upgrade would be from Vegas Pro 10 to 11.

Oh, right (of course). So what's the point? So many people have been begging for an upgrade that would concentrate just on bug fixes and this may be it.

In my hay days an upgrade from a four plate editing machine to a 6 plate or even 8 plate meant buying an entirely new machine -- a difference of maybe $20,000 or more. A fix for a faulty part not in warranty meant buying a replacement part plus the mechanics fee including his overhead costs. $150 for several crucial repairs plus a few minor new parts is generous and meaningless for discussion.

BTW, the cost of operating a camera and editing service used to be so prohibitive that the profession of wedding filmmaker didn't even exist, and this wasn't a hundred years ago; we're talking more like 15 years ago (so OK, 20?)

Terje: Expect to see the Adobe model becoming the norm, I would expect also for SCS at some point in the future, unless they are dead before that.

Well, not really comfortable having these discussion, but anyway, if this is the way, I may recommend a Lightworks' way on giving option whether having subscription model, but still can purchase with one time payment.

Go to www.lwks.com and click Buy now. You will see what I mean.

@paul - i appreciate your comment and analogy, but to carry it forward, if you bought your steinbeck and found that the sprockets didn't quite line up with the film as advertised i think you'd be first in line asking for your money back....

software is an imperfect science, there are so many variables that catching all bugs in any given release is probably impossible (more so as new codecs are being incorporated all the time, etc.,), but what many are complaining about, i among them, is that many of the bugs have been around and noted for YEARS and nothings been done to rectify them.

not only that, new versions appear to break things that worked previously.

and yes, progress has made what was prohibitively expensive 20 years ago a common consumer item today - but does that mean it's also acceptable for such things to be sold as 'disposable', ie, might work for some but not others, might work as advertised, or not?

my $250k post production facility of 20 years ago couldn't do a fraction of what i can do today with a $6k camera and $3k pc running maybe $2k of software, but it was extremely reliable, hard working, easily repaired by a good tech, and most items had a working life that more than covered replacement costs.

i am now confronted with yearly upgrades on software, new cameras, pcs and peripherals every few months and none of this has any resale value worth mentioning.

i make a living with my wetware, but i expect my software and hardware to at least perform reliably and as advertised....

I agree that the comparisons aren't a perfect fit -- the sprocket teeth making a good point, but I disagree with the reliability of those machines. Between the myriad of small things that could go wrong inside my Oxberry camera from a tiny spec of dust in the aperture to a heavy film scratch likely caused and denied by the lab, the high prices of messenger services to expedite the race for deadlines, and considering there are most of the time pretty workable workarounds available when software isn't delivered for everyone as advertised the first or even fifth time, we live in filmmaker's paradise. Isn't it true that none of us have ever failed to deliver on time due to a pending bug fix? These are nuisance episodes but never business killing disasters.

>>>Adobe has shown for now that they continuously update (bug fixes etc) the software in the subscription, and it is very, very reasonably priced. Did I say that twice?<<

Reasonably priced today. It may be 10 x more in a couple of years. The problem is they can now charge you whatever they want because you do not even own your own files any more. Let's cut the crap about how you can do this or that. The truth is that once you stop paying you do not own the software nor do you own your own files because they can only be opened with this same software.

>The reality for companies like Adobe and SCS is that you either start getting paid regularly by your customer for licensing your software or you die.<<<

Then just die. I am fine with that. None of us really need any of the new features. I can do anything I need to do with Adobe's CS5 ( really with CS3 ).

Eventually a point is reached when there is nothing more to add. When something does comes up, somebody will have software to do it with.

I have never used illegal software. I keep paying Autodesk almost $1000 every year so I'm not averse to supporting software companies in this way even though they have barely added anything new to Softimage in the last 5 years. They actually killed it last month. They have released the final version and will continue support for another 2 years; I can keep using Softimage, choose between Maya or Max as my new software and continue paying maintenance. But even if I stop paying yearly maintenance I can keep using the latest version of Softimage forever. With Adobe you can't. and that is just ridiculous.

I don't care how much Adobe software costs I'm not buying untill they change their terms. All I need is to be able to use the last version I pay for. Charge me a reasonable penalty even, if I quit subscribing, but the ability to keep using the final version I paid for must be there.

"I don't care how much Adobe software costs I'm not buying untill they change their terms. All I need is to be able to use the last version I pay for. Charge me a reasonable penalty even, if I quit subscribing, but the ability to keep using the final version I paid for must be there."

Exactly. That is the crux of the problem. I could live with the subscription model if they were reasonable in how they implemented it.

Yes you are correct about added features, which you can do in older versions of software, it just takes longer. I think Adobe have reached a point where all they can do is take functions from one application and put it in another. Illustrator to Photoshop and InDesign; Photoshop to In design. I think this was a consideration of Adobe going for subscription model. The biggest feature with a lot of software is GPU use. Plus Adobe saw the massive price fall of other software in the last couple of years, so rather compete in the discount market have avoided the problem of charging high buy alone prices if and when they go back to out right purchase.. If they put their price up they will simply drive a sizable amount of people to reversed versions.

An interesting note on this discussion is the user comments on the Adobe Creative Cloud facebook page. It's not all peaches and cream. Comments range from ongoing billing and sign-in issues, to tech support only from India that does not have a clue, to people feeling like they are paying beta testers for continually updating software. There is something to say for number releases that usually start out buggy and then become mature and stable. CS6 for example had lots of bugs in the beginning. Now it is a stable suite of products.

@deusx >> The truth is that once you stop paying you do not own the software

You never did. You lease software according to a contract, and most of these already had revoke clauses in them already. The idea that you own software when you purchase it is a huge misunderstanding.

>> nor do you own your own files because they can only be opened with
>> this same software

You do own the original files and you do own the end product, both, but you do not have a perpetual right to go from one to the other using someones software. This is correct.

>> Then just die. I am fine with that. None of us really need any of the
>> new features

That might have been some of th dumbest thing I've read today. So you are OK that the vendor supplying critical software for your business goes under? Really? Honestly, that's just not smart.

>> All I need is to be able to use the last version I pay for

That request seems quite reasonable, but it would be problematic for Adobe. I could imagine a situation where you, for some fee, get to use the latest and not get updates. In the end though, it would mean the death of Adobe.

Sorry for replying to my own post, but the topic is somewhat interesting...

Assume a software company has reached a point where the vast majority of users are not going to upgrade to later versions (who needs Word post 97?). This means that the latest version is, at some point, have a revenue stream very close to zero, meaning the development of said software is going to have to stop and the developers laid off, eventually, the company shut down.

Would it even be *legal* for the vendor to sell said version for a one-time software fee? If it is a publicly traded company, probably not. If it is clear that a one-time software fee will sink the company, which is getting more and more likely for more and more companies, it would be against the law for them to sell said software for a one-time fee unless they can also argue that they are pursuing alternate revenues streams. A publicly traded company is actually *required* to attempt to make money for their share holders. If it is obvious they can not with their revenue model, they have to change it. By law.

We are leasing software, we do not own it when we purchase a license. We have no rights to that software other than the usage as described in the end-user license agreement. Many of those have revoke clauses that, even though we do not read them, we have agreed to.

I prefer the vendors of product I require to make a living stay alive. For many, many vendors these days, that means a subscription model. As I said, I'd be surprised if we do not see one from SCS, perhaps as soon as the next release.

Also, and quite seriously, if $50 a month is a significant portion of your business expenses, you're doing it wrong.

What is to become of the casual user? Paying a monthly subscription for occasional use, is not realistic.

I have been thinking quite a bit about all of this. Last night I knocked-off two projects. I have become quite proficient in using Vegas as per what my needs are. I could eventually learn another NLE such as Premiere but it would be impossible for me to knock off two projects in one night with it. And I am not making any assumptions either.

The audio work I did cannot be done directly in Premiere. Too many other things I did in one step takes multiple steps in Premiere.

As for Vegas 13, one can say that it is an upgrade if the new features are beneficial for ones workflow. For others like me, the new features for the most part are not beneficial. The loudness meter is nice and all but I do not create commercials that need to be the same loudness as other videos. I do not understand the new editing tools well enough yet to decide if they are beneficial or not. The discounted third party software may or may not meet my particular needs.

So I am between a rock and a hard place with Vegas 13. On one hand I want to support SCS so there will continue to be a future for the NLE I love. On the other hand, using good stewardship and considering my limited budget, how much will I benefit from Vegas 13? What upgrade path will I take, if any?

I am left with way too many questions and not enough answers.

I wish there were choices in what other software's one can pick with Vegas 13 instead of a fixed list. I know that would be difficult for SCS to do but it would be most helpful in meeting the various needs of the Vegas users.

I have until may 31st to decide so there is no great big hurry. Still, I wish I could make a rock solid decision instead of trying to deal with these difficult questions.

>> Paying a monthly subscription for occasional use, is not realistic

Yes it is. You can pay month by month, so if you only use it two months out of the year, you pay for the two months you use. Easy.

@deusx >> The truth is that once you stop paying you do not own the software

You never did. You lease software according to a contract, and most of these already had revoke clauses in them already. The idea that you own software when you purchase it is a huge misunderstanding.

***Regardless of the legal definition of the contract the reality is that with the Sony model you can use your purchased software as long as you have a computer to run it. There are many people still using Vegas 9 productively. That's a five year old product.

With the Adobe model you lose access to the software the minute you stop paying the monthly ransom. This could be five years down the road of being a loyal subscriber. Stop paying... sorry no access.

>> Paying a monthly subscription for occasional use, is not realistic

Yes it is. You can pay month by month, so if you only use it two months out of the year, you pay for the two months you use. Easy.

***Any idea what the month to month cost is? I could not find any info on it but I'm pretty sure it's more expensive than the contract.

Maybe the smart way is to have both? I subscription based model for the occasional user as well as a purchased based one for the more professional user. This way you can get the hobbyist that makes all his home videos up to the professional using it on a daily basis.

I'm still using V10, though I paid for 11 and 12, didn't particularly like them, didn't import my custom render settings so not usable w/o manually resetting them.

Anyone do a render test on typical 1920x1080 29.97 1px square footage to see if 11/12/13 are much faster than V10? if it's within 10-20% of same speed I'll stick with v10.

thx,

ken

+1 Oldsmoke

That's what I have been saying too in one of my post above.
Editshare Lightworks (www.lwks.com) use this model too. Just go there and click 'Buy Now'. Let user decide what he wants to do.