The answer is here:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=922735

@wwjd, they seem like excellent on set tools for quick decision making, especially if you are using Sony production cameras.

is catalyst written by the same people who write vegas?

if so, that doesn't bode well for neither vegas or catalyst. you can spread your talent / staff only so thinly before the results start showing up in your product.

i shall go back to my original plea of many months (years?) ago - GET GPU SORTED OUT before anything else otherwise, like many others i think, people will start perceiving vegas as a dead end and move elsewhere, and in my case it would be to another nle entirely.

Software code is written by contract with contractors. Generally a team is put together by employing skill sets from different individuals to make an ultimate combination.

VegasPro code has nothing to do with Catalyst code, nor does the mission of these two entities even overlap. So the dollar goes on the probability that if a code writer is working on both projects, it is because that person has the desirable skill set for each case.

By the way GPU deployment like in BMD Resolve is very specific to Catalyst - nothing similar to Vegas.

Regardless of who is developing the code, writing a new application for a known target environment is much cleaner than evolving and modifying existing code over the years from say 32 to 64 bits and/or from cpu to gpu, etc..

Peter

Regardless of who is developing the code, writing a new application for a known target environment is much cleaner than evolving and modifying existing code over the years from say 32 to 64 bits and/or from cpu to gpu, etc..

Which is why Apple went to FCPX rather than updating their existing FCP product.

In another later thread Cliff says that a knowledgeable contact of his tells him that Edit would come into the workflow before Vegas, which implies that Edit might be a simple cuts-only editor. Something like that could more easily generate a plain EDL or AAF file than Vegas. Do they mention anything about output formats? Can Edit output a rendered file?

Also, I noticed in one of the graphics on Edit's intro page that it's one of three filled cells in a largely empty honeycomb. Maybe they've got a handful of modular products planned that are discrete enough to make their maintenance a little less tangled with the other modules.

It's easy to overestimate what SCS will do, as I'm sure we can come up with ideas about 10,000x faster than they can write code, but I'm imagining that there will be some changes to Vegas in the pipeline if all the other parts use new engines and are cross platform. However, if all the current crop of products can feed media up the ladder to Vegas this doesn't preclude just starting with Vegas and skipping all the pre-edit tools.

See all those empty bubbles in the integrated workflow? Those are going to be Catalyst Color Grade, Catslyst FX, Catalyst Render, Catalyst Delivery, and so on. You buy only the pieces you need.



Regards,

Kimberly

When asked the question by someone: "It's the end of sony vegas?"

SCS replied on their Facebook: "No it's not! The Catalyst products work with Vegas Pro, speeding up your production cycle."

Source:
https://www.facebook.com/SonySoftware/photos/a.10151480161100118.836533.228318725117/10155488386020118/

Well, that was hardly the right question, was it?
Of course, they did give you the correct context answer, if you choose Sony Catalyst - you can continue to work in FCPX on a Mac, or Adobe Premiere on Win < OR even on second thought you can play with Vegas if that is where your heart is.

Silly question - now hear is the real pointed questions-- Since DVDAPro development was stopped nearly two years ago, how much longer will new development or even bug fix be worked up for VegasPro? Ask that question - and watch the hedge!

> "In another later thread Cliff says that a knowledgeable contact of his tells him that Edit would come into the workflow before Vegas, which implies that Edit might be a simple cuts-only editor."

I read the Catalyst Edit page several times:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/catalystedit

It says that "Catalyst Edit focuses on 4K and Sony RAW video editing so you can focus on your creativity". They are clearly going after a very specific market that is probably not Vegas Pro users. I think Sony Broadcast and Sony Creative Software are finally aligning themselves. This is goodness for the long term.

> "Something like that could more easily generate a plain EDL or AAF file than Vegas. Do they mention anything about output formats? Can Edit output a rendered file?"

I don't have answers for you but you need to look no further than Catalyst Prepare. It supports all the major NLE exports (FCP X, Vegas Pro, Premiere, Avid) and renders to a variety of modern formats (AVC, XAVC, XDCAM, ProRes, DPX, DNxHD, etc.). I'm guessing that the Catalyst Edit team is using the same code base and will leverage this existing capability. How could an NLE not have render capability? I can't imagine it when Catalyst Prepare already does.

> "Also, I noticed in one of the graphics on Edit's intro page that it's one of three filled cells in a largely empty honeycomb. Maybe they've got a handful of modular products planned that are discrete enough to make their maintenance a little less tangled with the other modules."

Did you read the captions on the Catalyst Edit web page?

Production Suite unveils the secret destination: a media prep and editing system that grows with you and for you in exactly the direction you need it to grow. Catalyst Prepare and Catalyst Edit

I would say that's an emphatic YES. There is more to come!

This sounds like it's just the beginning of a new chapter for Sony. They seem to be changing the game with a modular system that grows as you grow. The is what we did at VASST with the FastApps allowing you to purchase as little or as much functionality as you need instead of one big plug-in. The Catalyst Production Suite seems to be poised to allow you to build a custom editing pipeline with just the features you need and none of the bloat. That sounds exciting to me!

The fact that Sony is now developing software for the Mac is also an exciting turn of events. This gives them a whole new market to sell to. I personally think they are on the right path.

~jr

videoITguy, I did not ask that question, it was someone else.
I just posted the conversation here as reference.

VMP

Here's my two cents worth of advice for Sony when it comes to Vegas Pro.

Forget about GPU assist when it comes to accelerating the transcode. As we all know compression is not something that is easily done in parallelized in the GPU. Also with the constantly changing GPU standards the transcode codec built into Vegas would have to be constantly updated. Again we know this doesn't happen and I'm sure it's just not cost effective.

The part of the GPU assist that does lend itself to Vegas is the rendering of the timeline. This is of course useful for preview and also for the "assembling" of the timeline to be sent to the rendering engine. Sony should offload all of this timeline assembly to the GPU and leave the CPU free for the render to the final destination format.

Finally, Sony should include frameserving in Vegas so that we can easily frameserve to whatever compression application we choose.

wonder what the subscription price will be......each little nugget gets filled ...another dollar....lol...my guess where its headed.... hope it works out but looks like a adobe model to me....but who knows,thats not all bad in my opinion

Forget about GPU assist when it comes to accelerating the transcode. As we all know compression is not something that is easily done in parallelized in the GPU.

Well, I would disagree and Catalyst Browse would too. I use Catalyst Browse to transcode my AX100 4K files to XAVC Intra 1080 422 and my R9 290 is running almost 100% load more the 75% of the time. With OpenCL there is a cross platform language as long as the GPU vendors are willing to support it.

GPU acceleration will only get better but will not disappear, IMHO.

The difference between Adobe's sub system and a potential Sony one is that Adobe offer a range of complex products that cover many areas of content creation. If Sony's model is just a modular video editing system then it seriously lacks diversity compared to what Adobe has to offer or even Autodesk for that matter. Apparently Resolve is now a full blown NLE and this tendency to integrate more features is now very strong across the software industry.

If Sony is indeed thinking of a modular system then it reminds me of those modular DAWS that never really caught on because they were so fiddly to work with and the different parts didn't always work well together. Supposedly, the modular advantage is that resources can, in theory, be conserved by only using certain features at any one time but invariably all the modules needed to be opened in order to create anything otherwise everything took longer to get done (Possible modular scenario - I want to add FX, let me wait 5 mins for the FX module to open, oh no it's crashed! I know, I'll just use VP instead!)

If a modular system is released, knowing Sony, it won't be long before it's bundle at a discount and all those who initially bought into the modular hype will be kicking themselves.

How is GPU assist video encode in Vegas working for you? Because that is what I was specifically referring to. It's been broken for AMD cards since the 6xxx series cards.

On top of that the quality of mp4 encoding in Vegas is terrible.

GPU encoding in Vegas "went away" quite a few years ago if you have an AMD video card. And really the quality is so poor it's not a big deal.

"GPU acceleration will only get better but will not disappear, IMHO."

This is definitely being borne out across the content creation industry. GPU renders are coming for both AE and Photoshop for example. NVidia is aggressively promoting it's rendering software which can achieve almost life-like quality with the new Titan X. I'm sure AMD will also be promoting GPU rendering a lot more in future. It's a substantial market for them that goes beyond the gaming market.

"How is GPU assist video encode in Vegas working for you? Because that is what I was specifically referring to."

I see what you mean. In that case GPU rendering in VP is dreadful unless you stick with old cards and sacrifice the speed and RAM of newer cards in all the other software that uses GPU rendering. I create a lot of animation and 3D so I need the latest cards that work with all my software - which they do apart from poor old VP.

Perhaps there is a completely different scenario.

Sony brings out Vegas and Movie Studio 14 to recoup some of their costs. A few thousand copies are sold to Sony die-hards.

A few months later they pay Corel or someone else to take the whole bundle, but lets say it is Corel since they love legacy software.

Corel re-works everything to change Sony to Corel, brings out Corel MS/Vegas 15 and sells a couple hundred thousand copies.

After sending development to Elbonia, Corel fixes GPU, adds a thousand extra transitions, titles, and Disc menus, incorporates DVDA into the product and brings out MS/Vegas 16... and sell several hundred thousand copies worldwide.

Then, they look at their entire line of video/audio products and decide what to let live, and what will die, based upon sales.

Meanwhile, Sony develops Catalyst and sells a few copies of each, and still can't understand why they are losing money.

Just a thought.

@Hulk

How is GPU assist video encode in Vegas working for you?

It's fantastic! I don't use it for MP4 like MC AVC or Sony AVC but all MPEG-2 encodes for DVD and BluRay are blistering fast and quality is great too.
I render the SCS Benchmark project in 18sec to XDCAM 1080 30p.
I use Vegas2Handbrake for Internet delivery and since that involves timelline performance the R9 290 is again utilized.

"Perhaps there is a completely different scenario."

If that scenario pans out and we get all those lovely fixes then long live Corel! Even if it doesn't happen Sony will find a way to stuff it up and only sell a couple of thousand Catalyst modules. Sad to say they are to software marketing what the Titanic was to ships and the Hindenburg was to hot air balloons.

I mean, most other software companies who are developing a new product go straight to their forums and release teasers and promote the hell out of it to their customer base but the tumble weed is noisier than Sony is here. You'd think that a company releasing a new suite of video editing products which already has a video editing user base would bring this user base into the loop early on but we get the news second hand from NAB. It's almost as if they're ignoring us in favour of this mythical pro modular market they're betting all the money on. Especially as this new line of products seems to take priority over fixing the long term problems with VP.

Interesting, the **** word was 'h-e-l-l'. That isn't rude. The stars make it look like another (very naughty) word which actually makes things worse!

OldSmoke,

I didn't know MPEG-2 was GPU accelerated in Vegas? I can't find it in the rendering dialog in VP12. Is this a new feature in VP13?

XDCAM is not GPU accelerated and is every easy on the CPU to encode. The reason your SCS Benchmark encode to this format speaks exactly as to why Sony should drop the broken/low quality mp4 encode GPU assist and just focus on timeline render GPU assist. The timeline GPU assist with your R9 290 is working brilliantly, it quickly assembles your timeline and sends the stream to the CPU for transcode, which your CPU takes care of as fast as your R9 can deliver frames.

I've read that fixed function GPU's aren't well suited for high quality video transcoding. I can't find the link right now but I first learned about it from a thread in this forum. I was arguing for GPU transcode when someone directed me to the link I can find.

Also I'm curious why would you encode a BD to MPEG-2 when for the same bitrate you can most likely achieve superior quality with AVCHD?