Light comparison of Vegas Pro and VS with Movie Edit Pro and VPX

john-brown wrote on 3/13/2017, 10:49 AM

Hi,

To clear up some misconceptions that I see in some posts, in particular the one about Vegas or VPX:

VPX and Movie Edit Pro (MEP) Plus/Premium have 99 tracks, MEP basic has 33. Tracks are not inserted, they are just there.

The 3 MEP products - basic, Plus and Premium - are similar to the 3 Vegas Studio (VS) products and there is a comparison sheet accessible on the web pages, here for MEP (scroll down and click on Version Comparison), here for Vegas Studio.

There are differences between the two product line, mainly in compositing modes and VS Suite comes with SmartSound Sonicfire Pro6 plugin, which would be nice to have with MEP or VPX. However, Magix has its own music generator built in. And I see that Magix has thrown in MusicMaker (probably the basic version) with all 3 VS products. The comparison sheet indicates that Multi-camera workflow is new in VS Platinum and Suite, whereas it has been in MEP Plus/Premium (4 cameras) and VPX (9 cameras) for quite a while.

MEP Plus/Premium and VPX come with Music Editor 3, which is very similar to Magix Audio Cleaning Lab, with tools for restoration, cleaning and mastering the audio from the video. MEP has some audio cleaning and effects tools built in, but Music Editor 3 goes way beyond the normal tools. Third party VST effects can be added to both MEP Plus/Premium and VPX (and Music Editor 3).

MEP Plus and Premium are identical except that Premium has some third party add-ons.

One thing that I noticed that MEP Plus/Premium and VPX have that VS and Vegas Pro do not, is audio synchronization. I see that Vegas users use Red Giant PluralEyes, whereas in MEP/VPX it is a native command.

MEP and VPX come with Mercalli V2 image stabilization built in.

MEP and VPX can access some other programs as well. The image editor that comes with the program, PhotoDesigner 7, can be changed to a different image editor, like Xara or PaintShop Pro X9 (which is what I use), and Xara Designer Pro X or Xara Photo & Graphics Designer can be accessed directly from a command to create graphical animated overlays and masks that come back onto the timeline. This is an interesting and powerful feature, but you have to have Xara installed.

As for VPX, it shares the same engine as MEP but has many more features. VS is not a competitor of VPX; Vegas Pro could be considered as a competing product to VPX, but Vegas Pro appears to have many more advanced features, such as scripting. Here is a listing of most of the features of VPX that I can think of that are over and above MEP Plus/Premium:

Two monitors - source and preview
Source monitors has other purposes - comparison images, measuring instruments
Measuring instruments: VectorScope, Waveform monitor, RGB parade, Histogram
Project folder
Additional buttons on tracks, main ones to mute video and audio separately (MEP mutes both)
Audio - moving audio object to less than a frame
Effects - under Brightness/Contrast - Colour curves - RGB for brightness/contrast and individual color curves Red, Green Blue
Same effects area - insert LUTs
Effects - under Color correction - 3 colour wheels - the "Highs", "Mids" and "Shadows" ranges can be adjusted individually
Multi-cam - 9 tracks
Multi-language capability - meaning when you burn a DVD you can select the language of the sound track if you created different language audio tracks
DVD creation - import and export PSD format giving you wide latitude for changing the screens, buttons, etc. for DVD burning
Movie objects (nested sequences) Movies can be used in other movies as individual objects. These objects keep the action close at hand and can be used as many times as needed within the project.
EDL transfer to DAWs - Audio files can be directly transferred to DAWs such as MAGIX Samplitude using EDL transfer, and you can individually bounce all audio tracks to hard disk.
Loudness normalization according to EBU R128 Complete broadcast capability: Video Pro X offers loudness normalization for professional audio products in accordance with the new international EBU R128 guidelines.
HEVC/H.265* support - Video Pro X is the world's first video editing program with Intel HEVC hardware encoding. HEVC/ H.265* is the successor format to H.264 and offers improved image quality at file sizes that are up to 43% smaller.
Native ProRes support Video Pro X now fully supports ProRes video codecs for Apple. Directly integrate ProRes files into your Windows system.
Precise color grading with 16-bit deep color
10-bit/12-bit support for professional formats
Multiple layouts of the windows accessible by using F9 (default layout), and custom layouts F10, F11, F12. I have various layouts and quickly change from one to the other this way.
Direct access to Xara 3DMaker (I was never able to get this to open in MEP, works great in VPX).

I undoubtedly missed a few features.

At the moment, there are a few features that the most recent MEP has that VPX does not, but VPX should catch up soon;

Lens flare effects
Gaussian blur and glow effects
Video stamps
Border effects

Crashes are rare.

As for the future of the products, only Magix knows. The following is all conjecture. The Vegas line appears to be very strong in markets where Magix has been weak and wanted to get into. It just may be that VS and MEP will start to look more like each other as Magix takes features from each and applies them to the other - seems like an easy way to improve each product. An example is that Magix was supposed to add Travel Route Animation to VS 14, but it doesn't look like it made it. VPX will also morph, but probably not into Vegas Pro. It will likely stay as a program for professionals who do not need the more advanced features of Vegas Pro, and for enthusiasts who want more than MEP or VS offer. Vegas Pro will likely stay the top of the line video pro product. Magix will undoubtedly create links between the old Sony products and the Magix products - think SoundForge, Samplitude, SpectraLayers, Xara. They have already mentioned this.

One can go directly from MEP to MusicMaker Premium, dub and add music (loops, my own creations, MIDI) and send the result straight back to MEP (I did a tutorial on this).

One can also link MEP/VPX and Samplitude in a master/slave relationship to edit both simultaneously; great for scoring videos.

I don't really understand why one needs scripting, but I know of more than one user of MEP who use macros a lot, so they would probably like to have a scripting feature. MEP and VPX allow one to save transitions, effects, special titles and reuse these. This is the closest that I can find to what I assume that scripting would be used for. Maybe someone can clarify this.

One main difference between MEP/VPX and other video editors is the way that tracks work. Track 1 is at the bottom, not the top. You build from the bottom up, so there is no need to insert tracks.

One last thing is jargon. Words like "Events" and "Layers" cause my eyes to glaze over. Magix equivalents, I believe, are "Objects" and "Tracks."

Hope this helps clear up some misconceptions and gives a better understanding of the various products.

John

Comments

igniz-krizalid wrote on 3/13/2017, 12:26 PM

You are very helpful thanks 👍👍

bitman wrote on 3/13/2017, 2:27 PM

(Below just a copy of my comment on another post to add to the comparison)

I have both products MEP and VPX (and Vegas pro 13 and 14) and all versions of Corel VS ultimate (and even pinnacle and cyberlink power director). I did not like pinnacle, and powerdirector crashed to much. The reason for (still) following/upgrading Corel video Studio is purely nostalgic as I started with editing with this NLE long time ago, and know it quite well. It still in my eyes the best value for money (the ultimate upgrade versions). But back to the subject, Vegas or VPX... John brown has made a good comparison. At a certain moment in time I wanted to do more with NLE and started with Vegas 13, but did not had much time to learn/use it, then I got worried that Vegas was end of life, I was surprised that magix bought it, I never tried magix NLE before, so I did a trial with MEP, bought it and even upgraded to VPX. I liked it a lot (in the beginning at least). But then came Vegas 14, at that time I had more and more issues with VPX: I submitted bug reports with the many crashes, some were solved with VPX updates, some are not yet solved, and some new ones were introduced (even with standard provided FX's). But above all what annoyed me to the max is that my extensive new blue OFX plug-in library was not supported by VPX although they claim OFX support (and have some in house provided newblue plugins that do work) I also contacted newblue and they say magix was not on their supported NLE list. Some newblue plugins did work albeit not officially supported, but could not render without the watermark (although I bought them). On top of it the key framing is sub par. Picture in picture effects has masking issues. Magix VPX crashes often on my system, Vegas pro 14 not. You cannot change the order of video effects on the fly, going back to check/change old applied effects is tedious. Also nested projects cannot handle 5.1 sound. Rendering times on VPX are horrendous slow if you disable your processor GPU in bios (as I have a very powerful gaming video card I originally disabled video GPU in my intel processor via the motherboard bios).

I suspect all my issues got worse since they upgraded/improved their internal color system to more bits. Also the fact that their response time on reporting issues is sub par. What I also do not like (and many magix users) is the fact that they seem to focus on improving and fixing the consumer level product MEP before the pro VPX. You can guess by now which NLE has my preference: Vegas pro. Especially now since I learned how to use it intensively the last few months. Here some additional pro and cons:

VPX has better templates, some cool instant effects, the UI look is more modern, you can color events on the timeline, copy selectively video effects to another event (this would be great idea for Vegas), did I mention I was impressed with it at first?

Vegas just seems more stable, has more (and stable) 3th party OFX support, better key framing system, working with effects is more user friendly and efficiant, it has a great (and bigger in numbers English) forum community, more how to video's, can run multiple copies simultaneously. You can change the order of effects. Did I mention I like Vegas better now?

john-brown wrote on 3/13/2017, 3:51 PM

@bitman

Thanks for your comments.

"you can color events on the timeline" - I learned something new from you. I had seen this in a Magix video but never bothered to pursue it; just did. Thanks.

"You cannot change the order of video effects on the fly" - Confirmed. That is rarely a problem, but when it is, just copy the effect, delete the effect, paste it. Problem is, it puts it last. Would be a nice feature to have; just drag the effect up or down in the list. I'll propose it to Magix.

"going back to check/change old applied effects is tedious." - Do you mean going back to the menu to change the effect? Double-clicking on the effect in the keyframe area opens the correct menu. Or is it something else?

"the key framing is sub par." - How so? I haven't used Vegas so I don't know how it is handled. What immediate improvements would help? Note that you can turn on the effects curve on the object (event) and modify the keyframes there as well as in the keyframe window, and use bézier handles on the curves.

"Picture in picture effects has masking issues" How so?

"what annoyed me to the max is that my extensive new blue OFX plug-in library was not supported by VPX although they claim OFX support" - I don't have any OFX plug-ins so I can't comment. OFX is relatively new to Magix, so I expect Magix will improve on it. I was tempted to try out Hitfilm Ignite. Did you try it?

There are some plugins from Boris, Red Giant, proDAD and New Blue but not many for MEP and VPX. Mercalli V4 and Neat Video plugins for Magix were triumphs, as were the Pixelan plugins, for me at least.

I forgot to mention that I received Mercalli V4 plugin with VPX7. Strangely,it was not included in my version of VPX8 (current version) but it seems that some users did receive it with VPX8. Mine from VPX7 works in VPX8.

"Rendering times on VPX are horrendous slow if you disable your processor GPU in bios" - Seems to be the same problem everywhere - other programs including Vegas, no? But yes, rendering seems slow in VPX and MEP.

"can run multiple copies simultaneously" - Would be a nice feature but there is a close work around - open a second project as a separate movie(s) in the first. Particularly useful for copying elements from the second project to the first.

"working with effects is more user friendly and efficient" - I did watch a couple of Vegas tutorials and using effects looked more difficult to me. But like I said, once you are familiar with something, it becomes easier.

"it (Vegas) has a great (and bigger in numbers English) forum community" - Definitely in English. Magix is a German company with a vibrant German language community, and even the French are far more active than the English. There is a German video users group that meets yearly with Magix.

"more how to video's" - Definitely. That's why I've been doing some. Of course there are many more tutorials in German and French than in English.

"What I also do not like (and many magix users) is the fact that they seem to focus on improving and fixing the consumer level product MEP before the pro VPX" - I think that the "many users" was just me. We used to joke on the forum when a new version came out. What did they break? What didn't make to the new version? So, maybe it's best that they try out the new stuff on MEP, debug it with the consumers, and then add it to VPX when works. Of course, that doesn't actually mean that the new features will not break something else in VPX. So, I still complain about the length of time that Magix is taking to get the new features that are in MEP into VPX. On the other hand, the new 16-bit deep color was added only to VPX recently, not to MEP.

Vegas costs more if the closest comparison is between Vegas Pro 14 (not edit) at 600$ and VPX at 400$. Of course, I didn't pay that; I got a special upgrade offer at half price. So everyone, always watch for the specials.

I'm sure that Magix would like everyone to buy the top end, most expensive products.

Marco. wrote on 3/13/2017, 4:06 PM

"Also nested projects cannot handle 5.1 sound."

Vegas Pro neither. Nested projects will always be downmixed to stereo in Vegas Pro.

"copy selectively video effects to another event (this would be great idea for Vegas)"

While this isn't available as core feature of Vegas Pro (which would always paste all of the copied Event attributes), the 3rd-party workflow tool Vegasaur allows for filtering pasted Event attributes.

While it's basically true there is no auto-synch feature in Vegas Pro in the way of tools like PluralEyes offer, actually there is an auto-synch feature in Vegas Pro especially for multicam projects which is based on timecode information (it needs timecode synched camera recordings).

Red Prince wrote on 3/13/2017, 5:07 PM

"You cannot change the order of video effects on the fly" - Confirmed.

I may be misreading this, but if you are saying you cannot change the order of video effects on the fly in Vegas Pro, I disagree:

john-brown wrote on 3/14/2017, 12:10 AM

@Red Prince,

No, it's in VPX that the order cannot be changed easily. In the image below from VPX, the red rectangle shows the effects that have been applied to an object. Unfortunately, they cannot be dragged up or down or reordered in the list, at least I can't find a simple way.

The overlay dialog box is what comes up when hitting the shortcut to copy the effects of an object. Accept all or some, ok. Then select one or more objects and hit the shortcut to paste the effects. That is a feature that Vegas does not have, I understand. As well, effects and effects curves can be saved, loaded and applied elsewhere, like on objects in another project.

Red Prince wrote on 3/14/2017, 10:21 AM

No, it's in VPX that the order cannot be changed easily.

OK, then. It was unclear to me because I actually have no idea what a VPX is.

john-brown wrote on 3/14/2017, 12:04 PM

VPX is Magix Video Pro X, the top Magix Video editor until Magix acquired Vegas Pro. See details on the Magix.com website.

Red Prince wrote on 3/14/2017, 12:54 PM

Oh, that one.

MiCas wrote on 7/17/2019, 7:05 AM

Is any difference in rendering time between Vegas Pro and Vegas Movie Studio?

Just question about value. It looks like, even Vegas Movie Studio is positioned like a not pro product, it comes with some add-ons that I haven't seen in Vegas Pro. Like: NewBlue Titler Pro Express or NewBlue Transitions Ultimate. Am I looking wrong at the products? How to get nice Titles on Vegas Pro? Do you need to buy them separatly? Thanks!

Dexcon wrote on 7/17/2019, 7:29 AM

VMS is more in the consumer market whereas Vegas Pro is aimed at the prosumer/pro market. VMS is a trimmed down version of Vegas Pro hence the similarities between the two products, but with limitations for VMS.

Many NLEs come with add-ons such NewBlueFX or others, but be a bit cautious here because very often the add-on licence is limited to the version of the NLE that you purchased. If you upgrade to the next version of that NLE (e.g. version 13 to version 14), the add-ons from the earlier version are unlikely to work in the later version. In my opinion, the add-ons are a teaser for you to buy the full version from the third party plug-in provider which, if you do buy the full plug-in, should work in all versions of that NLE.

Based on many posts on this forum over the years, many long time users of Vegas Pro are happy with the titling options in Vegas Pro. Others prefer 3rd party titling plug-ins.

Former user wrote on 7/18/2019, 11:49 PM

MAGIX has too many products. MEP/VPX only made sense in the absence of VMSP/Pro. Same with Audio Cleaning Lab vs. Sound Forge Audio Studio. I'm not sure why they didn't allow ACID Pro to die (diehards be damned), and why Samplitude Studio is even a thing...

This was as disruptive acquisition, IMO, in terms of product strategy - but they are doing everything they can to just maintain the status quo.

In the meantime, any customer that looks at their website is confused beyond believe at the number of duplicative offers; and the complete lack of information available to aid them in making a decision.

This is why Adobe is ruling over the creative market... They know how to make a nice acquisition and table a worse first-party product. Maybe it's done for economic reasons... To protect jobs in Europe? Why not just move those people to Samplitude/Sequoia and VEGAS/Sound Forge... Unless the acquisition deal made this impossible.

-----

The titling options in VEGAS Pro are awful, but there are enough third party options out there that this isn't a showstopper.

Boris Title Studio is dirt cheap, and can be gotten for 50% off at certain holidays.