Its a yes from me too. Although the lack of external monitoring issue has been logged with Red Giant. They are very aware of the fact you cannot monitor externally (like on a second or third PC screen) without dedicated hardware to do so. The response i got back was a rather lame and generic 'the issue has already been logged'.. etc.
We can only hope RG actually listen to customers and DO something about it and get it working. I happen to know quite a few people have complained about it. That really is its only downfall. Everything else imho is very good.
If you use MB Looks in its own preview screen as i do, then its fine. But all pro graders know you need a calibrated external monitor for serious grading. It fails to hit the mark in that respect as previously stated. And they know it.
However, all in all, its a fantastic plugin in terms of what it 'can' do, so i do recommend it. But how much better would it be on an external monitor.

Paul.

So I downloaded the trial, and - while some of the looks are well... interesting - the usability inside VP 11 is very poor.

Firstly, due to what all of you are finding as a major short-coming: no secondary display support. What were RG thinking?!!!

Secondly, with a "strong" look applied (like the "Blockbuster" look), the preview speed drops to a crawl... The CPU is laboring at 100%, while my GPU (usually pretty efficient) is only used at some 5-7%.... The RG's claim that the plug-in supports GPU acceleration is simply false, at least in Vegas!

All in all, thumbs down and un-installing.

Piotr

Piotr,
Regarding GPU: I don't know if the trial version has this or not, but within MB Looks, did you go to Preferences->General->Rendering Method and make sure that GPU (rather than CPU) is selected? Using MB Looks for more than 6 months now, I can definitely say that RG's claims are not simply false. In fact, one nice thing is that Looks will even use GPU acceleration even if it is off in Vegas (which, given how picky Vegas is about using the GPU, this is sometimes convenient).

Yes, as in the thread posted by Jason above. For me MBL is all hype. You can honestly produce anything that MBL can do easily yourself. NBFX is cheaper, but more importantly is a true plug-in that doesn't lock down the host, and let's you preview to a TV.
If you want this type of programme, investigate the new Vegasuar Film Looks. There are some freebies to get you going.

Before dropping USD $250 on Looks 2.0, use Magic Bullet Movie Looks HD -- it's free.

IF one has a 32-bit version of Vegas also installed (at least this works with v.10), one can get the earlier free version of Looks (Magic Bullet Movie Looks or Movie Looks HD) at the Vegas Pro download page here at Sony. Look under Vegas 6 - at least that was where it was when I downloaded it last year. It may be legacy and not as slick looking as Looks 2.0 -- but it's stock full of effects. Once installed, it may seem that there is only a dozen or so in the drop-down, but hit down-arrow and the list will expand to many more.

From what I've seen, Looks 2.0 is not that much of an upgrade from the original (Movie Looks HD is technically v.1.0.)
I certainly wouldn't fork out that kind of cash for something I can work around with my 32-bit Vegas... for free.

It may sound counter-intuitive to use a 32-bit version of Vegas just to use that plugin, but one can simply have a "Movie Looks HD" .veg where one imports whatever one wishes to use it on and then export it as a render back into one's main 64-bit .veg.

Piotr, do you mean 2nd Monitor Support while within MBL? I don't get that with GenArts Sapphire Edge either. As to frame rates I'm getting 10fps @ Preview Half with MBLs and 21fps with Sapphire Edge Film Style. Yes, I realise it ain't a fair comparison, but that's what I am getting.

So, no ExtMon from within MBLs and GenArts Sapphire Edge. About 50% of fps when incorrectly comparing MBLs and SE FS.

Personally? I've very happy with both. They've made me money and keep my creative juices bubbling up!

Grazie

Jason,

It must be a trial limitation, but I can't even find the option setting you mention...

Grazie,

I'm really glad you're happy, but - as someone already said - there is not much in MB Looks that I couldn't do in Vegas itself, and with its own OFX'es Vegas preview vegas is much faster.

Which rises my gripe (the first one for a long time of happy Vegassing): why the heck can Edius (whose trial I also am playing with now) can be so fast in previewing with its (much more flexible) CC filters?!! It doesn't even use CUDA, and it's a "modest" 32-bit application.

Oh, well :(

Piotr

Soniclight,

Do Movie Looks HD work with your VP11 (32bit, of course)?

I've had them always installed (since version 7), and they currently work fine - but only with VP 10 (32bit) which I have still installed on my laptop (but NOT on my main editing PC). When I try to launch them in VP11, Vegas just crashes...

Piotr

Piotr,

"Do Movie Looks HD work with your VP11 (32bit, of course)?"

I do not know and that's why I specified I use v.10 for that's as high as I've gone in the Vegas food chain. My guess is that perhaps there is some code incompatibility by design or otherwise so that one can't use it since RG dropped development for the freebie version.

I discovered that free MB Looks and used it quite a bit in v.6 and v.8, and if needed, I use it in v.10 32-bit. I was teed off when v.10 didn't have it, contacted RG but they said is was a no-go -- unless I wanted to pay, of course. Then someone here told be about what I shared above. That solved it for me for my situation (I don't use it much these days so not an issue, but nice to have available if/when).

If one uses an earlier version of Vegas installed on one's system, one can't open a later version .veg in an earlier one, so importing footage, etc. and rendering out as an intermediate work file is the only way to work around that.

Just trying to understand how Looks works. I understand it is too give a consistent look of a particular to the rendered output. So my question is if I feed it video from 3 different cameras that have different looking video (white balance, brightness, etc), the resulting output will have all 3 looking the same (or is that just wishful thinking)?

Bigrock - no, not the way you've implied it to work. But, I find the user interface in Looks to be far easier to use to get said cameras to look the same. This is what I call (or understand to be) "color correction". At that point, you can then apply another instance of a Looks FX, apply a same new "look" to all and the look should have a similar effect on all. This is what I understand to be "color grading". Just to summarize: it is two steps. 1) color correct clips to match; 2) apply a stylized "look" to alll. Note that #1 is not automatic. You must manually do it (I'm not aware of any that do it automatically, but Boris Continuum Complete does have a tool that makes the process semi-automatic, I think).

I agree with others that most things in Looks can be done with combinations of Vegas built-in Sony plugins. And, Boris Continuum Complete has many similar tools. And, to those who have complained that a "look" slows Vegas down, I suggest that a similar slow-down would occur when using various Sony FX's to get to the same (or similar) look. My preference for looks is that it is intuitive (yes, there's is some learning curve). There are some helpful tools (my favorite is the scope that highlights skin tones and lets you know when they are "right"). I find it so pleasant to use that I often jump the gun and apply looks before "editing" (not a great idea, I realize).

MB Looks does have some downsides. Besides those offered here already, one that doesn't really cause me pain is that you can't "animate" it. There are some ways around this (such as splitting an event and doing a cross-fade) and this hasn't really bitten me hard, but I would like to have it.

For the hand-full of us here who have Boris Red, every one of the MB Looks effects can be faithfully duplicated with just two filters: BCC 3 Way Color grade and BCC Film Process. A particularlly nice feature of the 3 Way Color Grade filter is that it has a gradient option built into it, which is used in many of the MB Looks effects. Bottom line is that by building up a series of Boris Red filter presets that match all the MB Looks effects that I like, I was able to elimiate the need for the RG product.

Peter

I have the magic bullet looks that came with Avid Studio and I like it. Also for $129 New blue has a new colorfast program that does preset looks as well.
I just don't know if it is a crasher, or as flexible as looks 2 or even the same thing.

Paul B

One huge thing that I can say about MB Looks is that I don't recall it ever crashing Vegas or being associated with a Vegas crash, no matter how many Looks effects I threw at it. Unfortunately, I can't even say the same about Vegas' own color fx's.

I disdain "me, too" posts, but as a long time user of MB Looks, I'd have to agree with Jason. MBL is slick to use and, well, bullet-proof. I've never had a crash from it from Vegas 6 and up. (In After Effects, it is even snappier, but that's beside the point here.)