New to Vegas again… after being away for 21 years!

Joe-Shapiro wrote on 5/31/2025, 1:35 AM

Hi folks!
Last time I edited with Vegas was back in 2004 doing this short:

Well now I may be back. Evaluating Vegas as an alternative to Resolve which has been my go to for the last eight years. FCP7 is/was my favorite and still what’s in my hands so I configure the keyboard to match it.

Any suggestions for helping me get up to speed with this? Been consulting with ChatGPT which has led me down the path of AHK and Karabiner under Parallels as I’m a Mac user. If it all works out but performance is an issue I’m willing to get a PC - though laptops are my thing and my maxed out M-series MacBook Pro is pretty strong.

Cheers!

Joe - IMDb.me/joeshapiro

Comments

RogerS wrote on 5/31/2025, 1:56 AM

With the switch of Mac to ARM architectures I think you'd be better off with a PC to run VEGAS on as I haven't heard of anyone doing it successfully in recent years.

I run VEGAS on a Zenbook Pro laptop which works great.

Joe-Shapiro wrote on 5/31/2025, 2:13 AM

Thanks Roger

Right now I’m just evaluating so I’m trying to do so on the hardware I have. So far Vegas seems to be running fine inside Parallels. Setting it up so it matches my finger muscle memory is another matter altogether!

3POINT wrote on 5/31/2025, 2:29 AM

I doubt that the performance of Davinci Resolve on a Mac ever will be beaten by Vegas on a PC, even DR on a PC beats the performance of Vegas easily, unfortunately.

RogerS wrote on 5/31/2025, 5:57 AM

@Joe-Shapiro Just for my understanding, are you using VP 22 under Parallels? This is on a MacBook Pro?

Joe-Shapiro wrote on 5/31/2025, 10:53 AM

That’s correct!

Joe-Shapiro wrote on 5/31/2025, 11:00 AM

I doubt that the performance of Davinci Resolve on a Mac ever will be beaten by Vegas on a PC, even DR on a PC beats the performance of Vegas easily, unfortunately.

That’s ok for me as long as Vegas has a smoother workflow for editing. I edit features and for long form the speed of making edits - including complex ones like split edits with several audio tracks - is more important to me than the rendering speed. I’m principally a keyboard not mouse user and can fly with the FCP7 shortcuts.

3POINT wrote on 5/31/2025, 12:04 PM

By performance, I didn't meant only rendering speed but also the smoother editing and preview performance on the timeline of attached fx, like stabilization, color corrections or optical flow (for slomos or framerate conversions). Smoother performance of Vegas has become better but IMO isn't still optimal compared to DR.

I cannot compare with FCP, I never used FCP, but Vegas and DR shortcuts are easily changed to personal preferences. When you have 8 years experience with DR and experience with Vegas from 20 years ago, I can imagine that this switch will not be easy.

But nevertheless, welcome back to Vegas.

BruceUSA wrote on 5/31/2025, 3:02 PM

If you are using 1080P or 4K footages, Vegas will be fine. If any higher resolution and .h265 10 bit 4.2.2 Vegas will be struggle to play back the TL. I still use Vegas from time to time, depends on the footages. For example, if I am working with any 4K 60P or higher and is a hevc 10 bit 4.2.2 I always use Davinci Resolve. Vegas Is good but no comparison between the two, specifically in playback performance. If I place my EOS R5C 8K 30P 10 bit 4.2.2 hevc on the Vegas TL. I'll be pulling my hair and screaming come on.... I am not telling you what NLE you should use. I am just sharing my personal experience with my own footage.

https://vimeo.com/1089376391?share=copy

Vdanny wrote on 5/31/2025, 3:46 PM

Hi @Joe-Shapiro ,

For editing my HLG footage from the Panasonic G9 I always use Davinci Resolve which has a great colour grading workflow for that kind of video. For everything else I use Vegas Pro. I edit thousands of hours of educational and student footage at a university and I find it the best tool to get larger projects polished and in the can fastest. These videos are typically shot in 4K 8bit 4:2:0. This is just my personal experience in finding that Vegas works best for how I think and like to manipulate my clips.