Re- the video....they all wear black shirts like the apartments.com guy <grin!>... OK OK Steve Jobs had the black shirt first....

Well 13 and the free platinum studio 13 I got with 4k Sony camera seem to edit 4k ok
But.... canon just popped an 8K camera ( I think 4 k will do me fine for a while <grin!>
Ed#

Ok I downloaded the trial. yes you can edit... kind of like with movie maker but more tracks but without all the fancy stuff. the titler is really simple... but too simple...
I am really confused.... the Sony movie studio kicks this thing over in features,., why would someone opt for this except it is good for just splicing shots together with a simple fade.
Can some one explain please? WHAT AM I MISSING HERE? ED# WWW.SMECC.ORG

May sound like a bit of a random comment, but I think it's a shame the SCS Hitfilm relationship didn't go further. I remember feeling quite excited about the possible road map that I guess was never to be.

> "I am really confused.... the Sony movie studio kicks this thing over in features,., why would someone opt for this except it is good for just splicing shots together with a simple fade. Can some one explain please? WHAT AM I MISSING HERE? ED# WWW.SMECC.ORG"

What you are missing is that (1) this is a first release and not the end game, (2) Catalyst Edit ingests all of the latest 4K Sony camera formats that other NLE's might not support yet and (3) the Broadcast and Movie industry use a production pipeline where Assistant Editors are hired to ingest and log footage (Catalyst Prepare) and create an initial rough cut (Catalyst Edit) that the Editors then take and finish.

As Sony said, Catalyst Edit was not intended for Vegas Pro editors (i.e., one-man armies). It's designed to fit into a professional video production pipeline.

BUT, when Sony announced the Catalyst Suite, they showed the honey-comb logo with some of the hexagons empty and stated that there would be more modules to come. This is what I'm wondering about. What are Sony's plans to add to the suite and will we see "Catalyst Composite" and "Catalyst Render" and "Catalyst Motion (Graphics)", etc. These are exciting times for Sony and I was commenting that eventually it may be something Vegas Pro editors would move to as it matures.

I'm guessing that a large majority of Vegas Pro editors only use 10% of the power of Vegas Pro which means Catalyst Edit doesn't have far to go before it can be used by a large population of Vegas Pro editors. Once they add OFX FX, and a nice Titler, what more do you need? Other than composition, most people only need tracks, fx, and titles to make an edit work.

BTW, I'm surprised that I'm seeing questions on the Final Cut Pro forums on the Creative COW about Catalyst Prepare. Camera operators are using it to log footage and export XML shot lists to Final Cut Pro. So Sony's Catalyst tools are being used in broadcast circles where Vegas Pro never played before. I think this was a good move on Sony's part.

While Catalyst Edit is not interesting to Vegas Pro editors right now, I would keep my eye on it as it matures. Remember, the days of keeping software a secret until it is feature complete are over. Companies are shipping minimal viable products and enhancing them in the field. Apple did it with Final Cut Pro X. Sony is doing it with Catalyst Edit. Watch this space! ;-)

~jr

"[I]I'm guessing that a large majority of Vegas Pro editors only use 10% of the power of Vegas Pro...[/I]"

In my typical scientific, overly-analytical fashion, I recently determined that I'm using 7.3850296% of the capability of Vegas Pro 13 and I'm looking for new things to do every day.

Re Nick Hope, here's a link to the archived seminar:
https://event.webcasts.com/viewer/event.jsp?ei=1078903
Around 49:50 Michael Bryant discusses Catalyst vs Vegas, and upcoming Vegas update.

Had to twice read JohnnyRoy's above post: "These are exiting times for Sony"... Hopefully he meant "exciting"?

exciting for cams maybe, editing side is in no where land... Vegas had the whole shoot , send proxies via web to the finish editor ,, like in 2004 or 5 .. worked with a company that lost there A## and bought into it... disaster....just sayin. Love vegas, even though that did not work....cat is in diapers and not even ready for beta let alone any sort of production work whatsoever
Just my opinion...could be wrong but who in the hell is going to wait around for it....those who put jobs off till its ready?
sorry pissed they got behind tech with vegas.

@cold_ones:

If there is going to be no VP 14, these indeed are exiting times. ;)

Thank you cold ones. Yes, he's very clear that we will see an update to Vegas Pro.

This reminds me of the days when AVID Liquid 7.2 went end-of-life. Avid let this kind of rambling speculation go on for weeks, until we all got "A Message from Kurt", their VP of Development. They finally got the gumption to tell us the bad news. The reward, a $499.00 upgrade to AVID Media Composer. It was sooo cumbersome to use, I looked at Adobe 5.5 and a few others, finally settling on Vegas Pro. This sucks and now its time to look again.

> "... Hopefully he meant "exciting"?"

Oops! Yes I did mean "exciting"... (darn spell checker)

I've fixed it. Thanks!

~jr

> "but who in the **** is going to wait around for it....those who put jobs off till its ready?"

Why do you think the wait will be long? What would be the minimal set of features that you would need to use Catalyst Edit?

For me it would be OFX Effects and Transitions, & Audio FX. What more do you need? It can't take Sony that long to add those two features.

Catalyst Edit already has capabilities that Vegas Pro does not (and will not) have!

Catalyst Edit can create Nested Timelines. Having used them all the time in Final Cut Pro X, nested timelines, IMHO, are far better than nested Projects in Vegas Pro because you don't have to open up another instance to edit them. You just switch to the nested timeline, make your edits, and go back to the primary timeline. Vegas Pro can't do this... Catalyst Edit can. Also nested timelines share the same project media. Nested projects do not which is a big drawback for Vegas Pro. Once you start using nested timelines you'll wonder how you worked without them.

Catalyst Edit also has the ability to skim clips in the browser and mark the in and out points before dropping them onto a track. I find this easier and faster than using the trimmer window in Vegas Pro. So Sony has already made workflow improvements with Catalyst Edit that are not in Vegas Pro and I don't think it will be long before it becomes a fairly capable NLE.

Best of all, Catalyst Edit runs great on my Mac. ;-)

~jr

What would be the minimal set of features that you would need to use Catalyst Edit?

Aside from OFX I need multiple display support, a major drawback on the current version.

Catalyst Edit also has the ability to skim clips in the browser and mark the in and out points before dropping them onto a track.

That may work for short simple clips but if you have a continuous 1hour shot and need to cut several clips out of it that feature doesn't do it. As for short clips, I prefer to cut them on the time line.

Other major features for me are multicam and a proper titler including credit roll titler.

Also GPU support isn't any better then in Vegas Pro which is very disappointing. This is new technology and it still can't make use of more then one GPU or support CrossFire or SLI.
Catalyst Edit would have to make several 360 turns or a new Catalyst Module would have to be released before it can replace even 50% of what vegas Pro can do. I also feel that the new GIU isn't as good as the old one, you can't rearrange the various windows to make your own layout.

It only makes sense that Catalyst will meet all of these things. That said, it will never be Vegas Pro. The question becomes how WE adjust to whatever Catalyst becomes. The ability to affordably adapt Catalyst and leverage my prior investments in plugins will be a major factor to whether I even want to walk down that road.

--tom

how WE adjust to whatever Catalyst becomes

Who says we have to go with Catalyst? Changing from Vegas Pro to Catalyst in no different than going with a totally different product from a different vendor, so why restrict yourself to just Sony? Customer loyalty? Well, I see loyalty as a two-way street and so far I see nothing that compels me to go the Sony route. I will choose my next NLE based on the features it has to offer, workflow, and the viability of the product as a long-term investment. Fortunately, there are several candidates out there for which my plugin investment can be leveraged. Right now, Catalyst is not one of them.

Peter

@deusx

>> Useless updates

Seriously? Vegas is still, for my needs, basically broken. It's been getting better, but there are still serious problems. Updates to those problems would not be useless, now they are going to be non-existing.

As for Adobe, are you seriously claiming that the updates they have brought out in the past couple of years are useless? If so, you have never worked with any of the newer versions. Premiere has had a VERY significant update this year for example and it is anything but useless.

>> Adobe has done almost nothing with 1/2 of their programs for years

There are a number of tools in the CC portfolio that do not receive frequent updates. For the past few years Premiere and Photoshop are DEFINITELY not among those.

>> At their speed Premiere pro will catch up to Vegas 11 by 2017.

Seriously? Vegas has one thing going for it, that is work flow, in just about any other way Vegas is miles and miles behind Premiere. Color correction. Stability. Performance. Sorry, but you seem to be living in another decade.

Please note, this is not to bash Vegas, as I have said many times, it is a very likable product, and the work flow is fantastic. I am only responding to the balderdash that deusx spewed.

>> Did we immediately sell ours and buy something else?

There is a difference though. To continue the car analogy, tomorrow the gas manufacturers might agree on a new standard for gasoline that is incompatible with your Saturn. Now, other manufacturers will, for a fee, upgrade their cars to be able to use the new fuel, but not for Saturn.

Then, a few months from now, the roads are upgraded to a new version. Your Saturn can no longer drive on those roads. Ford, Mercedes and others provide a free upgrade to their cars so that they maintain road-compatibility, but your car stays locked in the garage.

>> or to emulate AVID

To say that the Catalyst products are emulating AVID is like saying my little girls tricycle is emulating an F1 car.

@Tech Diver

I hear ya. It would be better stated as "if one chooses". If Sony wants to keep folks in the fold, it'll be a combination of factors. They better figure out what their strategy is and start articulating it if they want consideration from many Vegas users.

Of course, they may have already looked at the Vegas user base and decided THEY need to move in another direction.

--tom

> "To say that the Catalyst products are emulating AVID is like saying my little girls tricycle is emulating an F1 car."

Unless, of course, you bought her one of these:



In which case... it would be! ;-) (sorry I couldn't resist)

~jr

"For me it would be OFX Effects and Transitions, & Audio FX. What more do you need? It can't take Sony that long to add those two features."
I agree JR..but man I can cut quick in Vegas...wish they would have modeled some of cat after it...but been using it for 15 years or so, know it cant be fixed...do stumble around with other edit systems...and can do the job...be using what vegas I have till I cant,, things move on and progress but sometimes you need to look at what works in the old well and incorporate that in the new...

Learning Media Composer is like learning Chinese, and the editing conventions are weird, designed for film. The newer versions like 6.5 and later are supposed to be friendlier, to compete with the surge of FCP.