I know that Vegas has a wealth of small, but valuable features and it is almost certain that Resolve will not have a lot of them now, but if it continues to develop at the rate it has so far, it won't be long before those features are in place.

Remember, it is at the start of it's development life, and change will come, don't underestimate Blackmagic in that respect. They are throwing a lot of resources at it.

I asked New Blue some time ago if they had been asked to produce plug-ins for Resolve and they had not, yet I notice now its is listed on their site as a host.

Geoff I was referring to Catalyst Edit. Resolve is very much on my radar now as a potential Vegas alternative.

Re New Blue, aren't their plug-ins OpenFX? i.e. Not written specifically for hosts by definition.

well i started having another play with resolve 11 and funnily enough my nb ofx are showing up in it. whether they work remains to be seen.

where's the 12 dl? ah 11.3, 12 in july...

still find it rather clunky compared to vegas ;-( but boy does it have potential...

Looks like 'toy-ware' in comparison to V. But if parts work better, maybe they could migrate that technology to Vegas modules.

geoff

What does Resolve cost?
JJK

> "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. "

You can't compare a Broadcast Video workflow to an audio workflow. In a recording studio, a single engineer does it all. In the broadcast industry, there is a pipeline of people. Your assistant editor uses Catalyst Prepare to ingest and log footage. An editor uses Catalyst Edit to assemble the rough timeline. Meanwhile the motion graphics department is using the "yet to be announced" Catalyst Effects to do some compositing. Then the colorist gets involved and perhaps uses a "yet to be announced" Catalyst Color to grade the footage. Then an audio engineer uses a "yet to be announced" Catalyst Sound to do the 5.1 audio mix. Finally someone uses a "yet to be announced" Catalyst Render to farm the job out to a multi-node render farm (perhaps in the cloud) to assemble the final video. Who knows where it's going but it sounds like it's targeting a very specific workflow.

That's why I believe that the Catalyst Suite is not targeting the Vegas Pro user who is mostly a single person that does it all like in audio. Like I said, Broadcast and Movies have multiple people working in a pipeline. No one person is going to open all of the Catalyst products. They will each use the tool targeted for their job. It's a different way of working, and Sony is trying to capitalize on the fact that the assistant who logs footage only needs a really efficient logger, and the editor who assembles the rough cut only needs a really efficient cutter (which is what Catalyst Edit is being marketed as), a colorist only needs a really efficient grader. etc.

We will have to wait and see how much resource Vegas Pro gets from the SCS team in the future. Right now it doesn't sound like Catalyst Edit is a replacement for Vegas Pro from what I'm reading. Vegas Pro is still the most capable NLE on the market today. No other NLE can touch it's audio capabilities and compositing capabilities. They all need other programs to help them in these area. Vegas Pro is deep, and Sony is not going to duplicate it's capabilities easily, maybe not even with a single program.

~jr

> "What does Resolve cost?"

DaVinci Resolve Lite: FREE
DaVinci Resolve Software: $995
DaVinci Resolve: $29,995

I believe most people are discussing the free version.

~jr

+1 JohnnyRoy - that was my feeling from when the topic cropped up around a week ago. Catalyst Edit is a new product line (or rather a development/progression on Catalyst Prepare), not a replacement for Vegas Pro. I hope that's the case anyway.

"+1 JohnnyRoy - that was my feeling from when the topic cropped up around a week ago. Catalyst Edit is a new product line (or rather a development/progression on Catalyst Prepare), not a replacement for Vegas Pro. I hope that's the case anyway."

I really hope you're both right about this but after how they dropped ACID Pro, which I enjoyed using, I'm not confident that VP will live long and prosper.

Concerning the Catalyst module system and the pro market - based on the price of Prepare it doesn't have a "pro" price tag (which is good for most of us) so if each module is in this price range and is Win/Mac compatible this seems more like its aimed at the consumer/semi-pro market like VP. If this is true then I still don't think it will take off with that group of customers while pro customers will probably keep on using the expensive tools they're used to rather than invest in a low-end modular system from Sony. Catalyst would have to be pretty good to encourage pro studios to drop what they know for a completely new system.

So many good points being raised in this thread. Good to have an all around discussion of this type. product will have "to be pretty good to encourage change in professional workflows" . well yes, except keep the following in mind.

1) This is a two-pronged effort to keep Sony Camera, Codec, 4k, and software manipulation in the Sony revenues. Given the competition with JVC and Panasonic, and even Canon - this is a more united effort than they as competing companies individually have to stay in front.
2) So far the Sony Camera and Codec are leading the competition.. Remains to be seen whether this support leg will hold up.

the sad thing is that this thread is a totally predictable response to Sony launching Catalyst edit and they could have easily stepped up and lead the discussion, shared the expected road map instead of leaving everyone dangling and guessing. Even if the road map was were moving away from Vegas but there will be an upgrade path to come would have been a start.

Not how I would approach the situation with any of my customers, will see what comes up but I've been following the forum on and off for a few years now and rarely see any proper sustained engagement from Sony just the odd comment here and there and nothing for months so not holding my breath.

to Mark-e , indeed you are sadly reminiscing of times past. Yes, I agree with you Sony should be leading this discussion along with marketing hype. But so far its mostly a Facebook type event. This represents the reality of now, very scarce resources, a large unwieldly corporate body, and a very competitive environment.

Note if you will, the official Catalyst intro thread has been on the SCS site for a very long time, but has gotten little hits at all. In fact the buzz about Catalyst since its initial intro has been very low key. Couple that with the anger from pros over the Sony camera- busted codec intro that was bungled with the X70 equipment and firmware and you now have a "who cares" attitude in the professional circle.

I would be sad to see VP go. Like many here I've been using it a long time. I started with Vegas Audio 2, then moved to Vegas Video 3. I know it well enough and it's comfortable like an old shoe. I have a wife, a 6 year old daughter, and a 2 year old daughter... my time is precious. I don't enjoy learning new software like I did when I actually had time;)

On the other hand I know that a "clean slate" approach can lead to a very, very stable application if done correctly.

About 5 years ago or so I started using Presonus Studio One for multitrack audio work. It was a ground up project and one of their selling points was the inherent stability that comes from starting fresh. And I have to say Presonus Stuidio One NEVER crashes or hangs. Honestly I mean never like I can't remember it ever happening. And that software controls my Presonus Firestudio Tube audio interface. I can reroute external outputs and do other things that will 1 out of 10 times bring down other apps when controlling hardware.

So I guess the upside is we *could* end up with a super stable app.

Finally, Vegas Pro is so full featured now that I would have to see some serious stability gains for Sony to pry my hands from Vegas Pro. Sony can sell it, kill it, stop supporting it, ... as long as I can activate it I'll be using it for a long, long, time to come.

Responding to JR's responses to me here...

Trying to predict what Edit actually does from the web page is a bit like poking at entrails to tell a fortune. I sometimes write this sort of material and I know there's a big gap between the person who assembles the page and the design team.

Yes, the page says Edit focuses on 4K and Sony Raw. At the bottom of the page it lists the formats it accepts and it runs all the way down to DV. So 4K may be the focus but it's not the whole story.

They make no mention of output formats, but if prepare offers rendering then I'm sure Edit does too. I can't actually install any of these products because I've very studiously avoided having a computer that would support Vegas's GPU acceleration until it was totally clear they didn't mean "deceleration".

The idea of Edit not offering a render feature was just fanciful on my part. It's certainly possible to have a separate renderer waiting for jobs from an edit application. AEFX does something a little like that. But if Prepare can render then certainly Edit can too.

This modular idea is something I've certainly thought about over the years and probably suggested once or twice here or on the suggestion page. As far as Edit goes, I've been kind of picturing a scenario of a person in a news truck cutting his/her piece together and sending it back to a station to finish up. There are certainly other ways to use it, of course. Quick edits on-set when you're doing composites and model work comes to mind, although I've rarely been on a set where people were mucking around with edits.

As for Vegas, none of this precludes using Vegas as you can still go straight from camera or card to Vegas. It does kind of suggest though that Vegas could be rebranded, modularized, get new graphics engine, or even ported to the Mac. Given past performance I don't expect a lot of change out of SCS, but maybe these new products are the reason why Vegas development has been so incremental.

Hypothetically, breaking Vegas up into modules could mean that a change to one module would be easier without breaking the others. A good goal for a suite would be to have things in modules without it seeming discontinuous.

@rmack350,

Yea it's all just speculation but I was poking around at the "intent". While marketing and development may be worlds apart, you have to ask yourself... "Why would SCS create an NLE when they already have an NLE?" So I was interested more in who they think they are targeting with this new software and I think you may have hit the nail on the head about "a scenario of a person in a news truck cutting his/her piece together and sending it back to a station to finish up".

They mention "quick editing" several times so I'm assuming a minimalist tool for a minimalist task. We'll all know once we can download it and see.

~jr

Wow. Just watched the Edit and Color videos for Resolve 12. They don't seem to be leaving anything out. Impressed.

I had an opportunity to visit with a couple Sony people at NAB and my distinct impression was Catalyst is the future. Vegas will be supported but the architecture has reached its limits and it only makes sense to build from the ground up to tap future potential.

-tom

I had an opportunity to visit with a couple Sony people at NAB and my distinct impression was Catalyst is the future. Vegas will be supported but the architecture has reached its limits and it only makes sense to build from the ground up to tap future potential.

A lot of that make sense to me given what I have read.

The Catalyst stuff is built on a cross platform GUI API. Vegas could be ported to that GUI but that would be a lot of tedious work.

I have read that the Catalyst guts were designed on a ground up new architecture utilizing GPU compute concepts. 3D GPU rendering is old hat, but GPU compute is pretty new. Lessons are being learned by all. From hardware to software.

Vegas is very mature and has its internal data flow architecture which was not designed around GPU massively parallel compute. With enough force one can fit a square peg into a round hole but that likely has consequences. Bugs(boundary conditions) breed in those places.

Not that edit/cuts have much to do with parallel compute, but designing a platform data flow architecture to build on is key to grow on for a more full Vegas like NLE capability. Vegas could be internally restructured but that would/could be a lot of work.

So do you spend developer hours re-doing Vegas internals, and cross platform GUI, or do you build on something new. This assumes one does not like the current app internal structure. The problem with the build on new thing is the time to delivery, but maybe one can stage the delivery over time to a certain extent.

Disregarding the GUI stuff, the code that actually does the imaging computation work does get a ton of reuse in a "rewrite" to a different internal dataflow paradigm.

@NormanPCN

Essentially what you describe is what we have done. Catalyst Browse, Prepare, and Edit all use a common back end. They are simply different ways to work with the back end, providing different workflow targets. The back end is cross platform, and the UX manipulates it.

@Edit and Rendering:

Yes, it renders and exports, just like Prepare does.

Peter

[url=

Thanks Peter,

For someone contemplating buying a 4k capable camera, possibly an X70, would you say that Catalyst as first processor is the way to go, to export for Vegas, or would it be better to wait till Vegas can handle these files?

Another tidbit. When asked about OFX support I am lead to believe it is coming on Catalyst with announcements coming down the road. in particular was interested in Boris support and was told announcements will be coming. I'd guess the goal is to move the whole Catalyst project forward as quickly as possible.

--tom