My Impressions of V7....

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/11/2006, 9:59 PM

OK - I've had a chance to play a bit and still have yet to really put the new Vegas through it's rigors, and knowing how EVERYONE just waits with baited breath to hear what I have to say :P.

Let me preface this with the fact that while I was in Las Vegas at NAB, the number one complaint I heard from higher level editors than I, was the lack of FULL Keyboard editing support. I would hear about how KB editing was so much faster than mouse interface. I have to say that I'm am quite pleased to see that they have enhanced KB support in the new version, for those that edit for a living, time is money - and every time I see things that save me or others time I say, that's a VERY good enhancement.

I've been wanting a better way to *quickly* pull down a bit of audio, w/o having to click 6 times and drag the keyframe down. So now I can hold down shift and just click draw that little section down as I need - that saves me more time there too. VERY worthwhile enhancement.

I use RAM renders a lot, and I did some tests and found that my RAM renders were running at FULL CPU utilization (6 didn't make such good utilization).

I am yet to render with Vegas 7 but I figure it probably can't get too much better than 100 percent which it was at in 6. Mind you if they've enhanced some of the filters etc... to work faster then they will probably render faster too :) - I've yet to test them though so I can't say for certain.

Now let me finish by saying this. There are enhancements that should be done that take time to make happen. People used to complain about how they have to pay a yearly upgrade price with Vegas, so then they go 18months and put out PRETTY SUBSTANTIAL enhancements right when the next release would have been put out normally, and then they managed a lot of decent timesaving enhancements and release the next version. What kind of things are more important to a PROFESSIONAL app than time saving techniques??? I fully expect that version upgrades will not always have major changing tools etc... I expect to simply have upgrades coming where some you pay for, and some you don't.

Now all of these things do not even include the enhanced HDV support, and so on, Decklink Card support, etc...

Vegas is doing fine IMHO, but I know that every year - the fickle must fick, and that's how things always are. Let me say that those that are working and will use these enhancements will more than likely never say a word on these forums and will simply say, "Ahh, I've been waiting for that," and they will just keep working making dough at a faster rate.

Dave

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mark-woollard wrote on 9/12/2006, 8:37 AM

Let me admit my bias upfront. I was planning on buying the upgrade based on the advanced info. So in playing with the trial for an hour or so this morning, I was probably looking for reasons to like it.

Well, I wasn't disappointed. Three features have really grabbed my attention.

1) Creating and editing volume envelopes by drawing makes me feel like a kid again (that's a good thing for a 56 year old).

2) Resizing the preview window to any size adds real flexibility to adjusting my layout during various stages of work on a project.

3) Simultaneous preview and external monitoring is great.

Thanks Sony for taking some years off my life (if only till the novelty wears off). More importantly, thanks for the efficiency improvements that will take hours off the effort required to complete a typical project. And I haven't even touched DVD-A 4.

OK, I may be a little over the top with my exhuberance, but that's what happens to some of us old guys when we get a new toy.

RBartlett wrote on 9/12/2006, 8:42 AM

Well, you could make the assertion that V7 and/or DVD-A4 could be worth $99 to upgrade to or perhaps V8+DVD-A5 is a better bet in 18 or so more months time.

I'm of the opinion that if you are not sure, you probably don't need the features. So the purchase may be a luxury. If issues have not been fixed or there is something you really wanted (say you wanted DVD-A4 to be able to take in an unmarked AVI and create auto-chapters at scene changes with a min of 3 minutes between chapter for example) - then you are going to be more resolute with your resistance to buying V7a. Perhaps one of the interim updates will suit the prospective upgrader..... To make a rash decision to demo Edius4 (however attractive unfettered access for 30days might seem) or to wait for SpeedEDIT (also due but in the last week of September) would perhaps not be in the best interest of a mature workflow or annual budget.

I'm going to ponder. I think most enthusiasts and small businesses will ponder on both products. It is of course a no-brainer for the flourishing business, rich kid or otherwise.

It is very easy to get mixed up with the emotions of what people have been asking for compared with what they have got. The truth is that if we had our own programmer sat with us, we'd probably have a 6 figure bill and software that doesn't work. So in the Sony Mediasoftware club we have to expect some general purpose rather than all-things-to-all men realities. When it comes down to it, we have the money in our pockets and Sony need to entice it out of them and give service and support on their product if we take it.

The CineScore option is interesting. I can see that working for folks with great camera/visual-art skills but with correspondingly no ambition or time-spare to invest in music sources.

You can't please everyone. I hope Sony make their numbers and wish them well. I'll probably go for it or when 7.0b brings that bit more that is tangible for me. But I haven't decided yet. XDCAM owners should be attracted like the proverbial flies.

jwcarney wrote on 9/12/2006, 8:51 AM

>>f you think there is a large team that does nothing but any one single product? Nope...Most software companies share engineers across projects with small core teams dedicated to a specific project.
<<

I agree. Ignorant. Though this release doesn't meet my personal needs, its a great one none the less. I wish they added 10bit 4:4:4 color support without having to buy an expensive Xena card. Okay that's the end of my ranting.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/12/2006, 9:00 AM

For me, the little blue lines that snap ACROSS TRACKS on the timeline are an incredible productivity improvement. No more adding markers or moving cursors to have events snap correctly. Finally, the event snapping is sensitive to the edges of events on other tracks and you can SEE that it’s snapping. BRAVO!

Add to that the ability to set the keyframe smoothness to zero as the default, instead of hours of editing individual keyframes that you forgot to change, is another big improvement.

Finally my pet peeve about ripple edit adding transition lengths when an event in the middle gets deleted as been fixed. (Horay!) That means you can delete pictures with ripple edit in the middle of a slide show without having to go back and re-adjust the transition lengths.

All these little improvements add up to a lot of productivity gains for Vegas 7 users. Spend some time with it on a real project (not just playing around) and you’ll see what I mean.

~jr

Spot|DSE wrote on 9/12/2006, 9:20 AM

Joe, how would you get 10 bit 4:4:4 without a card? Cams are all 8 bit...Firewire only transfers 8 bit... How would you ingest otherwise?

plasmavideo wrote on 9/12/2006, 9:33 AM

I can't be sure until I put it on a machine identical to what I have V6 loaded on, but my first impression is that it renders a new track from the timeline faster. I tried a QT file with alpha over a second track with a 3D transition in the middle and it zipped through it pretty speedily.

Fingers crossed X

T

ECB wrote on 9/12/2006, 9:38 AM

"All these little improvements add up to a lot of productivity gains for Vegas 7 users". JR, I stand corrected, it will take a week to discover 'all' the productivity improvements. Using Cinescore inside Vegas and DVDA4 is a big time saver.

Ed

rmack350 wrote on 9/12/2006, 9:46 AM

One of the nits I've had was that to pull a full rez-still you had to set the preview window to "Full" and that takes up a lot of screen space. Happily, this version has a fix for that.

Set your preview to full and then rightclick in the preview picture area. Enable the "Scale video to fit" option. Next resize the preview window to the size you prefer. Now you can see the full frame but still capture full rez stills. Excellent!

My only criticism is that it's a bit roundabout, but it works fine as far as I can tell.

Now to go figure out if I can set a keyboard shortcut to capture stills to the clipboard...

Rob Mack

bStro wrote on 9/12/2006, 9:52 AM

Ken, I've had the .NET 2.0 framework installed on my system for months now. It has had absolutely no effect whatsoever on my .NET 1.1 framework or any applications that use it. When you install one, it simply lives alongside the other, and each one is used by whichever applications need it.

Rob

(Edit: Made a grammar correction.)

jwcarney wrote on 9/12/2006, 9:53 AM

Spot...OpenEXR, exporting from Blender and Hash Animation master with HDR color and exposure. Also I'm looking at purchasing the SI1920 if the price they quoted holds and that will require Cineform and unfortunately Premier if I want to work in 10bit. For some work coming up, that camera/software/workflow kit is very attractive.

I would rather stay in Vegas.

bStro wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:02 AM

Resizing the preview window to any size adds real flexibility to adjusting my layout during various stages of work on a project.

Ooh, that does sound handy. Always bugged me when my preview was too small, but having to double-up left me with too small a workspace. Anyone know how much, if any, impact using the non-standard sizes has on resource usage? (Understand, I have no computer faster than 1.8Ghz or with more than 1GB RAM.)

Overall, these workflow improvements (particularly across-track snapping and this mysterious blue line) sound great.

Rob

barleycorn wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:10 AM

> In 18 months, Sony has created...

That's surely a fatuous argument. Why should a Vegas licensee care that MMS have been working on 'Eriksson cell phone software'? If attention to ACID means neglect of Vegas, why would any Vegas licensee even be happy about a new version of ACID?

As it happens, I do use most of the MMS products but they're not sold as any kind of 'suite' and given that the cumulative upgrade costs are not insignificant, I think it's quite reasonable to expect that each product should be developed with vigour (Sound Forge has had astonishingly little attention over the last few years).

I haven't had a chance to look at Vegas 7 yet (maybe I'll be seriously impressed) but you surely can't be surprised that many people think there is almost nothing for them in this release.

DJPadre wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:16 AM

"Which other NLEs allow you to work normally with native HDV on the timeline? "
hmm.. lets see.. Premiere, Edius, Liquid...
Premiere on my laptop runs 4 native 1080i tracks without skipping a beat... Edius pushing it with 2 and Liquid on a seperate partition and boot sequence one...
Its a Toshiba Dual Core 1.73 with a nvidia 7300 go 256mb gfx card... and i can do with it in HDV as to what i can do in DV with Vegas... not to the point of "in teh timelne" ediitng to the frame, but slose enough to it.

THeyre totally different beasts though.. like comparing a ferrari to a maseratti

"Would it take 18 months to get Vegas to do this?"

No Idea, but as DSE has mentioned, there has been much activity on the upgrade front with acid and cinescore among others.... either way, irrespective of how long it took.. its u to u to decide whether or not it works for you

Wolfgang S. wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:27 AM

Edius does - right. But Canopus recommends to work within the Canopus HQ codec always - what is a brilliant codec by the way, that I like really. And Edius supports the on-the-fly conversion to the Canopus HQ codec, too.

I think that superior playback capabilities of Vegas 7 are a big benefit for all of us, who whish to edit native m2t material. And the 80-m2t-file bug is gone in Vegas, too.

Ok, Sony could have done that faster. Maybe, maybe not. I think it is fine - and more important - that we got that in the end.

DJPadre wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:39 AM

"Edius does - right. But Canopus recommends to work within the Canopus HQ codec always - what is a brilliant codec by the way, that I like really. And Edius supports the on-the-fly conversion to the Canopus HQ codec, too."

Oh i agree.. brilliant and well managed codec, however the issue with this despite its brilliance, is the fact that the codec isnt recognised through many other applications, such as After Effects and Combustion. The downside to efficiency it seems, is compatibility.... I mean look at a G5 Mac pumping 5 tracks of DVCProHD.... these are all running through QT intermediate, so the files are virtually useless anywhere else...

bummer...

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:43 AM

something else you guys gotta realize is that there are things that have probably been getting worked on and fine tuned for more than just the last year that will get implemented in the future. Programming and implementation takes MAJOR time sometimes. I grew up with a family of programmers. Things take so much longer to get working than they do to program. Takes FOREVER sometimes. so just in case you are unaware programming takes a LONG time.

Also - someone said that most of these enhancements didn't affect/appeal to him - maybe (just maybe) Sony decided to make their PRO app, geared a little more towards PRO's. Just a thought.

Dave

BrianStanding wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:55 AM

Also, please keep in mind that while the parent company, Sony America, is huge, Madison Media Software is a very small outfit. I've seen their offices, and while quite attractive (on the shores of beautiful Lake Mendota!) they are not immense.

There are only so many programmers to go around, and as Doug pointed out earlier in this thread, the demands on their time is enormous, and growing. (I'd like to see the outrage that would erupt if one of us video guys went over to the Acid forums and suggested that the users of that product forego any upgrades until we Vegas video users are completely satisfied.)

If you feel that Sony America needs to beef up their Madison Media Division by adding hundreds of staff, by all means write them directly and tell them so. (However, keep in mind, bigger is not necessarily better. How many staff did Adobe have working on Premiere 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0 and 6.5 before they finally got that dog working correctly in Pro 1 and 2?)

And, as Dave pointed out, if you want to talk about 18 months of work on Vegas, make sure you include all the fixes, features and enhancements added in 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0b, 6.0c, 6.0d AND 7.0a, not just what's new between the last two.

cliff_622 wrote on 9/12/2006, 11:25 AM

Just downloaded the new Vegas 7 trial....I love all of the brand new features.

The new gray and orange color spash screen is very pretty too.

CT

plasmavideo wrote on 9/12/2006, 11:38 AM

Just noticed that there is now a "Burn Disc at once" or "Burn Track at once" option under "Burn CD".

Also, importing video from a DVD with multiple linked VOB files works much better and faster than I was used to in V6. Again, I need to compare directly using identical computers, but so far it is running better (faster) on a computer that's slower than my normal editing computer. Scrubbing the VOB files on the timeline is smoother.

Coursedesign wrote on 9/12/2006, 12:14 PM

So Vegas has moved from being 8 versions behind on its Decklink driver support, to being only *1* version behind with V7.

Good progress, but I sure would have appreciated what's in BMD's 5.7 drivers (which require DirectShow).

Note to Madison: Yer gonna have to bite the bullet someday soon (but I'm sure you know that already)!

Still, I expect I'll fork up the $199 for an upgrade, because there are many things that are just much quicker in Vegas.

For the highest quality stuff, there's FCP Studio and Adobe Production Studio.

mark-woollard wrote on 9/12/2006, 1:39 PM

Is the $199 upgrade price posted somewhere?

jetdv wrote on 9/12/2006, 1:44 PM

Just noticed that there is now a "Burn Disc at once" or "Burn Track at once" option under "Burn CD".

That's been there for YEARS.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/12/2006, 3:09 PM

looks like there is an integrated PTT within the Vegas App. I think that's new. Have to say that I simply do love these enhancements, some of these things are so much easier than before. Sorry for being positive guys, I know some of us will not be happy until we are all not happy with the new release :).

Dave

winrockpost wrote on 9/12/2006, 3:17 PM

.........looks like there is an integrated PTT within the Vegas App.......

Huh ? what do you mean ? whats different ?