Need Help: Is Vegas or MS+DVD for Me ?

elvindeath wrote on 7/7/2006, 7:30 PM

Hi all. I've been reading for about 2 hours now, and still am not sure if Vegas is what I need. I'm sure all the answers are here in the forum, but I'm hoping someone will be kind enough to save me hours of searching .... so here's my story.

I've been editing video for home projects for about 4 years. I've got 10 years of home movies on everything from 8mm, Digi-8, and Mini-DVD. I'm currently using a Sony DCR-DVD403, while I await a real good "home" HD camcorder. In the 5 or 6 years I've actually been editing video, I've been almost exclusively a Pinnacle Studio user (v6 onward), but the latest release is so ridiculously unstable, that after taking 10 attempts to successfully render a recent 2.5 hour project, I'm officially done with them. Now I'm looking for an alternative. I'm somewhat skeptical of Sony, given the included software with my DVD403 is less than freeware quality, but I love Acid Music Studio so I'm giving the well reviewed Vegas system a try.

I've got a trial version running, and an unopened copy of Vegas Movie Studio+DVD Platinum on my desk, which I am trying to decide whether to So far, the interface takes some getting used to, but it seems fast, stable, and flexible. Here's what I can't figure out yet, however:

1. Assuming I have lengthy, pre-imported AVI or MPG media on my machine, Is there any way to segment video in the Project Media window by automatic scene detection, so I don't have to manually trim each and every segment of video I want from one single file ?

2. Is there any way to import video from my DVD403 and maintain the Dolby 5.1 surround ?

3. Has anyone used both Vegas and Studio 10 who has an opinion as to which is superior and why ? Frankly at this point, anything that runs for 15 or more minutes in a row without crashing beats Studio 10, but I really do like the interface and the tons of special effects.

4. Finally, should I keep the 6.0, or wait a few months for a version 7.0 which seems to be lurking ? Is there a discount upgrade program for Sony ? Does Sony, like Pinnacle, take a few "patches" to get a stable product to market ?

Thanks a lot for any info you care to share.

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 7/7/2006, 8:13 PM

Vegas (all versions) is stable out of the box. They have some patches that offer small improvements on certain areas, but overall, nothing like the Studio experience.
You can import the media from the DVD103.
If you have a copy of Vegas Movie Studio on your desk, why not dive in and work with it.
Vegas offers automatic scene detection during capture, but not post-capture. There are tools that can detect changes in luminance for reasonably accurate scene detection, but they're not native to Vegas.
As far as users of Studio 10 vs Vegas, just search for Pinnacle here, or more appropriately, in the Vegas Movie Studio forum

RalphM wrote on 7/7/2006, 8:15 PM

I can't tell whether you are talking about Vegas or Vegas Movie Studio, but I will offer an observation.

I used Pinnacle Studio products through several iterations and finally gave up because of stability issues. I switched to the full version of Vegas and found the move to be relatively pain free. Stability is not an issue with Vegas, and I suspect it is not an issue with Vegas Movie Studio either.

Sorry I can't comment on your camcorder questions.

mr.beebo wrote on 7/7/2006, 8:57 PM

If you stuck with Pinnacle for 4 years you have no idea what awaits inside that unopened copy of Vegas. I used Pinnacle 7-9 and I can't count how many nights I sat in front of a rebooting machine because I clicked on a transition or deleted an audio effect and "Poof". If you knew the backgrounds of some of the posters here you would realize there are some highly skilled professionals that make a good living using Vegas. That being said, there is no better NLE for a newbie either IMO. VMS matches everything and then some that Pinnacle has. There is quite a bit of anticipation for V7, but for the market I tap, with it HD capabilities, I could stay with V6 indefinitely and do just fine.

jrazz wrote on 7/7/2006, 11:23 PM

Started with Pinnacle- like you, it was unstable and a time and money waster. I still want to get my money back for the product. If a company made a car like Pinnacle's maker makes their Studio software- They would have so many lawsuits against them right now! I better stop before I get upset....
Anyways, I am unfamiliar with movie studio, but Vegas 4, 5, or 6 have been great. Personally, I would never cross back over to Pinnacle or give it a second thought. Vegas was very intuitive for me- user friendly and it comes with a great user forum full of people willing to help.
You will notice a difference between this forum and that of Pinnacles. Pinnacles is cluttered with work arounds and frustrated people who can't seem to get the sotware to work right and Pinnacle is telling them it is their hardware. You will not find very many of those types of posts here as it just isn't that common.
Good luck in your crossover :)

j razz

elvindeath wrote on 7/8/2006, 6:39 AM

Thanks all for your input. At this point, the only thing that is truly worrying me is the lack of post-capture scene detection. I have a large library of "pre-captured" media, as well as the DVD camcorder discs, and the one thing I really like about Studio is it's relatively accurate and thorough scene detection when you import video.

Besides that, though, I really like what I've seen from this trial version of Vegas MS+DVD. It's just refreshing to have spent a couple hours trying different stuff out and not have had a single crash. I had no idea this was even possible.

mel58i wrote on 7/8/2006, 7:19 AM

There is a scene detection utility that I use (does optical and dv if input from a cam).
Find it at www.avcutty.de
It's a donation -ware prog. Fully working, but you get annoying ramdom interuptions if you don't send the man a few Euros.
Mel

JohnnyRoy wrote on 7/8/2006, 9:09 AM

> I've been almost exclusively a Pinnacle Studio user (v6 onward)

Actually, there was no Pinnacle Studio 6! It went from version 1.06 to version 7. (no 2,3,4,5,6) What was that all about? I guess since they couldn’t get their software to work worth a darn, they figured if they increased the version number people would think it must be more stable. NOT!

I think Vegas Movie Studio+DVD will be fine for you. I bailed out on Pinnacle when Studio 8 failed to fix any of the problems with Studio 7 (and actually introduced more of its own!). I went from that to Video Factory 2.0 (the predecessor to Movie Studio) and then to the full Vegas 3.0. I still use Vegas Movie Studio when I teach my video workshop to middle school students and I’m always amazed at how much of the functionality of the full version of Vegas it has.

Get a copy of the free Scenalyzer (not the Live version but the older free version) and it will scene detect your already captured AVI files and split it up into smaller files for you. This should have you making movies in no time at all.

~jr

Grazie wrote on 7/8/2006, 9:16 AM

My progression thru to V6, only regarding video work, almost parallels Johnny's. In fact Studio 6>7 was my "vowed" sworn last attempt at this activity, having just come screaming away from a Dell version of MGI's VideoWave - yuck! - and then I discovered . .. VideoFactory! - Oh? Is THAT how NLE work is supposed to be?

DavidMcKnight wrote on 7/8/2006, 9:40 AM

My path is also the same as JR's. I stuck through Studio v8 until they announced 9, by which time it was obvious that they weren't going to fix 8.

I looked at Liquid, tried Premiere (it also crashed a lot for me) then went to VideoFactory (which is now Vegas Movie Studio), then the full version of Vegas 4, then 5 & 6. Never looked back.

elvindeath wrote on 7/8/2006, 11:43 AM

It seems like all of you use the full version of Vegas, which is understandable (this being the Vegas board) .... any advantages for a total amateur with going with the full version ? I think MovieStudio will be fine for me (Studio 10 theoretically "does" everything I need) ... but I'm not adverse to going with a full product if there's a good reason (such as superior DVD Menu creation, thousands of effects, or something like that).

Thanks again for all your opinions - I appreciate it.

DrLumen wrote on 7/8/2006, 3:17 PM

I guess all us pinnacle refugee stories are about the same. I fled them after going from 7 to 9 and realized 9 wouldn't be fixed as they were trying to sell us on 10.

I'm not a pro and use it pretty much as a hobby with the hopes that will someday change. With that in mind, I got the full version instead of VMS as the full version would do surround, ability to use a second monitor (via windows) and the network rendering. I also liked that DVDA 3 had a bit more bells and whistles than the one in VMS. Those things may not be important to you.

Coming from pinnacle, there was a bit of a learning curve but Vegas is so much more powerful and stable. I deeply regret having given any money and wasting som much time on pinnacle and wish I had known about Vegas sooner. I think pinnacle regrets it also as they have banned me over on their forums. <evil grin>

Tattoo wrote on 7/9/2006, 7:30 AM

Many, many Pinanncle refugees here. I used PS 7/8 before moving to Sony Movie Studio v3. No comparison. Used that for six months before I had some spare cash to upgrade to Vegas 5 (and discovered academic pricing (exact same product, but much cheaper if you qualify)).

If you have the cash to spare, I can't see any disadvantage to getting Vegas vs. Vegas MS. The interface is essentially the same, just a lot more options. I don't use the vast majority of the options/power of Vegas, but it's nice to have when I need it.

Vegas MS is a great product and would probably meet your needs (it would mine). Nice to have the relatively open-ended options of the full Vegas, though. And if you upgrade later, the MS project files can't be opened with Vegas, so you couldn't open an old project and change it with Vegas. If you find yourself tweaking old projects or reusing "templates" for projects, then it's probably best to jump to the full Vegas now. Otherwise it's purely a cash vs. features choice.

Rock steady stabilty is a given in either program, though, so either one will make you so much happier than Pinnacle! Oh, and these forums are awesome places to learn new tricks, get questions answered, and see great examples. This Forum is what decided it for me between Vegas & Adobe.

Brian

elvindeath wrote on 7/9/2006, 12:53 PM

Thanks for everyone's input. As stated above, knowing that these forums exist and have an active group of helpful users is a great "plus". I'm constantly amazed at how willing to help people are out here on the internet.

Anyway, I'm getting fairly well sold on full version of Vegas, given it's only $20 more at this point. My remaining questions are this :

Will buying Vegas 6 at $150 and then upgrading when 7 released be "cheaper" than just waiting for a full version of 7 ?

And

I know Vegas 6 supports surround sound. Any idea if it will extract surround sound from a DVD camcorder disc ? If I knew the editor would let me maintain my surround sound, I'd be ordering it today !

birdcat wrote on 7/9/2006, 1:02 PM

It just strikes me as funny that so many folks came to Vegas through Pinnacle! I went from Studo to Screenblast Movie Studio (precursor to Vegas Movie Studio) and then to full blown Vegas+DVDA. Maybe if the folks at Pinnacle could have gotten their act together in the first place, possibly Vegas wouldn't have so many followers!

Back on topic though, I found the transition from Studio to Movie Studio to Vegas very easy (I actually proclaimed an audible "Thank You God" on more than one occasion).

Steve Mann wrote on 7/11/2006, 12:42 AM

"I know Vegas 6 supports surround sound. Any idea if it will extract surround sound from a DVD camcorder disc ? If I knew the editor would let me maintain my surround sound, I'd be ordering it today !"

"Surround Sound" requires five-channels of sound. No camcorder records five-channels of sound. To make a true surround sound (5.1 mix) you need to record your audio separately and sync it on the timeline later.

elvindeath wrote on 7/11/2006, 3:14 AM

n19093 - When I say the camcorder records in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, I am only repeating what every single review and or brochure about it says (eg, http://www.videomaker.com/scripts/article.cfm?id=11236) , and what my own experiences are. Maybe there's some hyper-technical explanation for why the alleged 5.1 on the DCR403 is not "true" 5.1 surround, but at least to my untrained ears, it is totally indistinguishable when I put a DVD i recorded into my drive. Whatver format it recorded sound in, I'd like to maintain that as opposed to having it downmixed to play in only 2 channels.

Grazie wrote on 7/11/2006, 4:09 AM

Have a look at this this over on the DVInfo site.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=69756

Spot|DSE wrote on 7/11/2006, 7:12 AM

Actually, there are many cameras and camcorders that record 5.1 and even up to 8 channels. On the consumer level, they all sound terrible, but they do record 32k 6 channel sound.
supposedly Vegas does support this, but it's one feature of Vegas I've never tried. I've worked with the surround from these cams in the past and can't imagine using it for more than soccer games or something. But what I'd use it for and someone else would use it for differs.
Elvin, if you wanna send me a disc, I'm happy to test this out for you.

elvindeath wrote on 7/11/2006, 7:12 AM

Thanks Grazie - that explains it. For my home videos, though (which is what I obviously use the Camcorder for) whatever that little camcorder is doing is pretty miraculous. It certainly creates "directional" audio (ie, if someone is standing behind you on the right while filming talking, that's where they appear to be when you playback) very, very well. The sound on that DVD403 is as good as I've heard on a consumer level product.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 7/11/2006, 7:59 AM

> It just strikes me as funny that so many folks came to Vegas through Pinnacle!

Well, I know that I was one of the people on the Pinnacle Forums that was pushing people to jump ship and buy VideoFactory and later Screenblast Movie Studio. I was damn mad at Pinnacle for their tactics of issuing a new release that supposedly fixed the bugs in the last release. So you had to pay for bug fixes, and the new release introduced its own set of problems. I mean, stuff flat out didn’t work right out of the box and they admitted it! I am shocked they are still in business.

> Anyway, I'm getting fairly well sold on full version of Vegas, given it's only $20 more at this point.

No it’s not. You are forgetting about making DVD’s. VMS+DVD includes DVD Architect Studio for authoring your DVD’s. Vegas alone is not going to do this so you now have to buy another program that is not integrated with Vegas to make DVD’s. You have to add that to the price tag comparison. For a fair price comparison you have to compare VMS+DVD to Vegas+DVD and it’s no where near $20 difference.

The reason I upgraded to Vegas from VideoFactory was because I wanted to do chromakey and VideoFactory didn’t have that, I wanted more controls over keyframes than just Begin and End, and I needed more than 2 video and audio tracks. Today, VMS+DVD has chromakey, infinite keyframes, and 4 video and audio tracks. I’m not sure I could make the same case to upgrade. VMS is extremely powerful and the Platinum Edition even supports HDV, Color Correction, and ships with SpiceMASTER lite (just like Pinnacle Spice/Alpha Magic, in fact, you can copy your Pinnacle Alpha Magic transitions over and they will work in VMS Platinum!).

I’m not trying to steer you away from the full version of Vegas as much as trying to find the right fit at the right price.

~jr

elvindeath wrote on 7/11/2006, 8:51 AM

Thanks for the warning, JohnnyRoy. I already figured out that I'd need to get DVD creation. My understanding is that I can get a copy of VMS+DVD (as well as Vegas) and use the DVD Authoring from that. I'll probably search on ebay for a used copy. Once Vegas 7 is released, I'll probably upgrade to Vegas 7 + DVD.

I totally agree that the lesser product is probably overkill for my screwing around at home, but I've learned time and time again that I personally always regret it if I don't get the top tier product, since I invariably really want a feature (such as 5.1 mixing) that isn't available on the consumer grade product ... so I'd rather spend an extra hundred or two up front and make sure I'm totally satisfied.