OT: Apple delivers...how about Sony?

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Cliff Etzel wrote on 4/19/2007, 12:28 PM
With regards to the titler - If you've used the one in Premiere Pro - you'll understand what I'm talking about - give me that kind of user friendly interface and 10bit color space and I would say Vegas is 95% there. The 64bit is, IMO, something that needs to be done - 32bit can't be pushed any further from what I have seen.

With those three requests/changes, Vegas makes a serious jump ahead of the competition.
rmack350 wrote on 4/19/2007, 1:43 PM
Had V8 been about to release "right now" then suggestions wouldn't make a difference. An end of year release is another matter. And I think this is different from other releases in that there may be more opportunities for change. Yes, the titler is anemic, the capture tools are anemic, etc.

Squeek away.
CClub wrote on 4/19/2007, 2:40 PM
Can we find a way -- other than the weak, repetitive ways we've all asked for things on this forum that NO ONE at Sony listens to -- to get the message across of some basics that everyone pretty much agrees are needed in Version 8? I'd be up to being a part of that. I agree, given that the release likely won't be until the end of the year, maybe we can make a difference here. Look at what a bunch of people just did to Imus.

WHO HAS A GOOD WAY TO COLLECTIVELY GET THIS INFORMATION TO SONY THAT THEY WILL LISTEN TO?

Maybe there's a way to designate several leading advocates on this forum as people who coordinate this with us all and a significant number of other Vegas users, getting the message out, and maybe we all agree we will not support/upgrade to V8 without these features?
Cliff Etzel wrote on 4/19/2007, 2:54 PM
Yes, the titler is anemic, the capture tools are anemic, etc.
That is a good way of putting it - PPro's capture tool is one of the most user friendly I have used. For those who use a third party capture tool - why go outside of the app to capture? None of the other apps require that - their capture tools work very well.

The titler - It doesn't need to do cheesy titles - I want a clean user interfaced title generator that is more intuitive than the current iteration in V7. V7's in ok - but just barely.

As a test - I took some footage I shot last fall and just cut it together with dissolves only - Now Vegas really shined at that point - it was quick. But now trying to use the color correction tool - that was different - not nearly as intuitive as PPro's color correction tool. Basic cutting though was a snap and I can see why p@ said he would still use Vegas in that capacity.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/19/2007, 3:13 PM
Maybe there's a way to designate several leading advocates on this forum as people who coordinate this with us all and a significant number of other Vegas users, getting the message out, and maybe we all agree we will not support/upgrade to V8 without these features?

A forum ombudsman, eh? Interesting idea. Don't know how to designate the lucky person. Straws?
Coursedesign wrote on 4/19/2007, 3:45 PM
If you think those awards have any meaning at all, you should check out grammy winners.

Grammy awards = consumer pop culture

C.A.S. = hardworking feature film audio professionals at the "Hollywood" level
CClub wrote on 4/19/2007, 3:57 PM
How about this: on this posting, people make recommendations. If someone doesn't want to be an "ombudsperson," they can withdraw their name. If there is some consistency in recommendations, that person has the ability to "accept."

At that point, if it might cause them any problems with the forum, they can decide to take it off-forum via emails (or stay on the forum... I don't know enough about the rules to know if it'll cause someone to get reprimanded).

Then, on this posting, or a new one, someone is in charge of collecting a CONSENSUS of recommendations. Not obscure ones, but consistent requests.

Then, the few "ombudspeople" collect -- either via the forum or private email if need be -- statements from everyone agreeing that if that basic list isn't met, we won't buy V8.

This is NOT to cause Sony problems... likely the software developers would love for pressure to be put on Sony to get these things moving forward. Also, it may be great publicity for Sony, if it's done with a positive, collaborative intent, as it may highlight the product in the news (at least NLE forums,etc.): "Product development involving customers." It may make CNET homepage.

Two possible recommendations of individuals that have been even-handed in a number of ways on this issue: rmack350 or johnmeyer.
winrockpost wrote on 4/19/2007, 4:18 PM
Im not buying anymore sony hdv cams unless they have an interchangeable lens , plus I'd like to pick my color,, maybe red.
that el show em !
rmack350 wrote on 4/19/2007, 5:09 PM
RED!?

That's just crazytalk. I'll never buy any camera in any color if one of them's red.

Even handed my eye! (But thanks, I couldn't tell)

Rob
BrianStanding wrote on 4/19/2007, 5:34 PM
Here's a radical idea: after we achieve whatever we think is "consensus" on this extremely disparate board, why don't we all fill out the "Product Suggestion" form on the Sony website?
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/productsuggestion.asp

And before we start yelling about the SCS team being "completely unresponsive," I'd suggest you do a search on the term "wish list" in this forum, and see how many previous requests have been implemented in versions of Vegas. By my count, Sony/Sonic Foundry is batting about 60-70% or higher. Sure there are a few things, like the titler (except that I imagine Sony figures they've solved this by bundling Graffiti Ltd with Vegas), a storyboard (my pet peeve) and the VfW architecture, but on the whole, I think they've done a better job of listening to user input than, for example, Adobe has.
rmack350 wrote on 4/19/2007, 6:18 PM
I can think of a quite a few things that are in Vegas because of user requests.
-nested timelines
-network rendering
-preview on top
-dockable windows
-savable layouts
-more visible feedback as you edit
-Numpad 0 key plays around the cursor position (not what I was hoping but it's there)

But there's lots that could be there as well.

What would be nice to see is some sort of heavily moderated format so that users could see and talk about feature requests. It should require a login to see anything since it'd be full of good ideas. The moderating could just take the form of moving missfiled requests into the right categories and deleting the more rancorous posts.

Filing bug reports and feature suggestions are a little discouraging on this site because there's a lot of info to fill out and the actual text entry area is too small. That could be improved. Maybe I should go make a feature request...

Rob Mack
John_Cline wrote on 4/19/2007, 7:28 PM
NO NLE, I repeat, NO NLE can do it all. Not Avid, not Premiere, not FCP, not Speededit, not Edius and not Vegas...but for the numerous things that Vegas does do, it does 99% of them better and faster anything else out there.

Plus, the output from Vegas looks better than most other NLEs. For DV output, the Sony DV codec is (and always has been) leaps and bounds better than the Microsoft DV codec that Premiere and others use.

Vegas was also the first NLE to support the 480/24p framerate of the Panasonic DVX100 camcorders, it was also the first to support 1080/24p of the V1.

As far as the upcoming state of Vegas, Sony corporate's commitment to Vegas and this forum's users influence on the future direction of Vegas, read my post from Las Vegas at NAB toward the bottom of this thread:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=522147

It looks like the vast majority of Vegas users have two requests that come up over and over; 10-bit video support and a better titler. I have reason to believe we'll be seeing those two things (and more) sooner than later.

John
Cliff Etzel wrote on 4/19/2007, 9:07 PM
John - I didn't realize that Vegas used it's own DV codec. I kind of wondered why my stuff rendered out from PPro looked - well, kinda soft and mushy.

I have been actually delving into Vegas quite a bit today, and once I figured out how things work for a certain function, I'm not nearly as frustrated as I had been in the past.

You are right that there isn't one "cure" for editing, and I'm typically willing to change my ways to get the most for the least. I do like the way Vegas can cut dv clips in real time. Since my needs are really along the lines of shooting indie vj type work, the idea of cutting pieces quickly is a big thing for me. I did a side by side comparison of editing the same footage in V7 and PPro today - I was able to lay the tracks on the time line and edit quicker in V7 than in PPro. I had to jump through more hoops to get the same thing done in PPro as compared to V7.

I guess it really is about learning to do things the Vegas way - I just had never been willing to go through the steps until today.

Thanks for being a voice of reason....
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 4/19/2007, 10:34 PM
I think some people here have to look beyong one-man band abilities and understand that filmmaking is a collective effort. Likewise postproduction, even on small lever often involves at least a few individuals and it's up to those individuals to pick what software they use. Vegas does many things adequately but it lacks integration with other softwares. Vegas is a fine sound program that is untill you witness a pro in front of Pro Tools doing all its magic. Vegas is a fine color correction tool that is untill you see a pro in front of Final Touch (now part of FCS)...
John_Cline wrote on 4/19/2007, 10:59 PM
"Vegas does many things adequately but it lacks integration with other softwares.

Avid is the #1 video editing software in the world and it doesn't integrate with anything very well. You're either doing the entire project in Avid or you're going to go through a very time consuming process to export and import from Avid to an external app.

With Vegas, it's all .AVI (or .MOV, if you must) and it exports and imports to just about anything. I regularly pop stuff into Virtual Dub and After Effects to do specialized things that Vegas (or any other NLE) simply isn't designed to do. If I want to composite something beyond the compositing tools in Vegas, I do it somewhere else. Although, the compositing tools in Vegas are perfectly adequate for 90% of the stuff I need to do.

"...until you witness a pro in front of Pro Tools doing all its magic.

How about when you see a pro sitting in front of Vegas? I'm sure Michael Scumacher can make my Acura TL do things I've never dreamed of...

John
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/20/2007, 1:43 AM
Lemme just start by saying that I've not read through all these posts, but I can see that Mr. P is on one of his rampages again that he goes on semi- quarterly or so, about Vegas like someone who's a bi-polar editor that lives to rant about how bad, then how great, then how bad their software is, or something like that. So I don't really feel that I need to really read everything here.

I was working in the VASST Booth with Ultimate S 3 and Vegas, I also assisted in driving Vegas while a presentation was going on at the Art Beats booth. The Speed and Power of Vegas + US3 in the presentation had me just chuckling to myself because I saw eyes literally bugging out and jaws starting to hang as people saw me working with the ArtBeats footage and how quickly I could put something together in absolutely no more than 5-7 minutes that looked as good as some peoples finished products would.

The fact is that Vegas blows folks away when I kick together my projects so fast in Vegas and US3. Over and over again I had people tell me they were buying US3 and Vegas because it was so blazingly fast that they were going to save the money it took to buy it in one day.

So, though I'm glad to have people wanting improvements and making suggestions for those improvements, don't go running off at the mouth talking about how Sony is dropping the ball, how we're all falling behind and how Vegas is just not going pro, how they're doing this and that wrong etc... They're gaining market share, and they're impressing person after person that came through my booth, and I was right here in the middle of the it all these last few days with Major news companies telling me that they have all their field guys using vegas on laptops because it's so fast and great etc...

No offense to anyone, suggestions for change are great, however hollering that the sky is falling when you're indoors and can't see the sky does nothing but make you sound a little too easily swayed by the crowd. I could care less if you use Vegas, Movie Maker, or Avid Nitrous as long as you give me good results. More and more of the folks I was talking to agreed with me too, folks from major houses, to small one man bands, to News Networks.

Dave
p@mast3rs wrote on 4/20/2007, 2:35 AM
Well we wont go running off at the mouth if you dont sticking your head in the sand. Sony is doing it and is getting passed by in a major way. If you take the time to read again Dave, perhaps even slowly so you may understand it, NO ONE has said Vegas isnt a good NLE. Again, NO ONE said Vegas isnt a good NLE. Why people are concerned is because the competitors are offering way more integration than Sony ever thought about. They are offering the ability to complete an entire project from start to finish without having to render out to AE and then reimport and again and again and again.

If this was onyl about NLEs, then Vegas is the no brainer winner. But its about a lot more than that. Choose to ignore it but apparently I am not the only "bi-polar" editor out there as many others share the same concern. But its nice to see you make it personal with me. Ill be happy to continue this later.
Spot|DSE wrote on 4/20/2007, 3:00 AM
Patrick,
you're missing the point, I think, at several levels.
Integration is offered for proprietary tools. Export from FCS to *anything* as John mentioned, is very diffiicult. That's about to change, thankfully.
Premiere "integrates" with a sound editor, compositor, DVD authoring tool, and a graphics tool. Vegas has all of that integrated, aside from AE being seriously more powerful than Vegas' compositing tools, and Vegas not having a bridge to graphics editor.

Add to that the bloat that PP has become....Avid can't even read their own files from one level to another.
Apple may well deliver some great bells and whistles, and they always have. Adobe has some great bells and whistles; they always have. Vegas may have fewer bells and whistles, but it is still the most format-agnostic, resolution independent, rock solid multitrack recording tool, video editor, basic compositor, and webstreaming/compression tool on the market. It still happens to be by far the fastest.
One of Hollywood's currently most successful producer/directors is converting 3 rooms to nothing but Vegas. No, not Steve Oedekerk, he's been using Vegas since day one for small and not-so-small projects. I'm not at liberty to mention his name, but I do know that John Cline and a few others saw him in the Sony booth in a conference, and he quietly took Vegas training from our staff at NAB.
This guy has been responsible for well over 10 billion $$ in revenues over the past 18 years, with blockbusters as recent as last year, winning Academy awards. Why is he turning to Vegas? Speed and stability, plus format agnosticism.
And he bought his copy of Vegas, Sony Creative didn't even know he existed as a Vegas user until a week ago.

At NAB 2007, it was interesting to see Vegas running in so many various booths, seen in demos of non-Vegas related projects, stock footage supplier displays, and other sundry manufacturer, developer, reseller booths. Never before have I seen Vegas so accepted and displayed, and I've been to every NAB over the past 14 years or so, with the past 8 being somehow Vegas-related in my attendance.
True, Vegas doesn't have as pretty a face that Apple has, or Adobe may have, but it's rock solid, and editors really like that fact alone. So, Vegas is long in the tooth by your standards; that's an acceptable position. Final Cut, Avid Xpress, Premiere....they've all been long in the tooth at some point, and have had to upgrade a lot of things. Who knows what the next version of Vegas may hold, outside of the tech preview that was delivered at the Sony/AMD/VASST event early this week.
The industry overall was impressed enough to give the event front page status on two industry publications, plus several mentions over the week. According to VP Reinke, sales revenues of Vegas have been on a steady increase over the past year; Vegas is clearly doing well out there, despite any position or claim to the opposite by anyone in this small representation of the Vegas-user list. Slow and steady wins the race. XDCAM is the most used format in mid-level video, and XDCAM rocks with Vegas. The XDCAM/Vegas 7 featureset is rivaled by no one at this point. Could it be that the ground work has now been laid for something much bigger to arrive on the scene?
p@mast3rs wrote on 4/20/2007, 3:37 AM
Spot, all points understood and agreed. I suppose Im just getting frustrated always having to render out from Vegas to AE (specifically for use with Colorista). Hopefully Sony has something in the works to alleviate this kind of bottleneck for workflows.

Ill awlays be a veg head, no doubt. Im just tired of having to go to other apps to do more serious tasks or use plugins not available to Vegas.

BTW: US2 did an amazing job on school's Idol talent contest. Didnt work as well under Vista but once I put XP back on, US2 was awesome. Much thanks.
deusx wrote on 4/20/2007, 5:13 AM
>>>>"...until you witness a pro in front of Pro Tools doing all its magic<<<<

If he were a real pro he wouldn't need any magic.

#1 rule of sound recording. Get it right before it gets captured/recorded.

DO NOT expect to fix it in the mix.

Pro tools, just like Avid xpress is too picky about hardware, which was fine back in 1995, but is ridiculous nowadays. And AVID's way of doing things is quite absurd these days. They can stick their mojo you know where.

Vegas alone will do the job of both. That is pretty much the end of the story.
apit34356 wrote on 4/20/2007, 5:23 AM
As Spot pointed out, the real market goal is the XDCAM crowd; news, sports and docu' groups could have a couple of vegas/laptops vs one mobile XPRI system. Very affordable camera and software for in the field operations, means more unit sells for hardware and software. This can only help develop vegas for the rest of vegas users.
JJKizak wrote on 4/20/2007, 5:45 AM
The programmers are probably hung up on my suggestion to add a subtitle track to the V7 timeline for voice recognition software to create the track and have it correctible as easily as adding text criteria. Then after rendering to have DVD-A recognize it as a subtitle track and treat it as such. My meaning here is "actual sound track" (voice) converted to "text" into the subtitle track. Then add text designating who is speaking to the subtitle track.
JJK
TLF wrote on 4/20/2007, 5:49 AM
#1 rule of sound recording. Get it right before it gets captured/recorded.

Too right. I was trying to do record a voice over for a short film I've made, and thought that recording directly to PC would be the best bet. Wrong - the recording was extremely noisy with a massive DC offset. tried fixing in Goldwave... but the result was not good enough. Audition wasn't much better.

So back to the trusty old minidisc, then transferred to PC. Perfect!

Get it right first, then tweak it.

Worley
Tim L wrote on 4/20/2007, 6:03 AM
From Spot's post:
Who knows what the next version of Vegas may hold, outside of the tech preview that was delivered at the Sony/AMD/VASST event early this week.

Hmmm.... I guess I always figured Spot knows... but NDA always keeps him from saying...

(It would be interesting to see whats already running on his laptop, or maybe what's installed on some 64-bit computer hiding in the dark corners of the VASST offices???) [cue the mysterious sounding music...]

Keep the faith, everybody. I'm sure somebody at SCS reads every word of these forums, and I'm sure they are very well informed about our needs and our wishes. They spend long hours every day making their software even more astonishing for us. Sure, a little message from them once in a while would be nice -- letting us know what they're working on, and what to expect -- but I guess message or not, they're probably working on Vegas all the time, taking it to the next level.

Patience...

Tim L