I remember SOMEBODY here spoke great things of MC and wanted to get into it deeper. Can't remember who it was though....

It is a good program but if you watch the videos you can see the workflow is quite clunky compared to Vegas. To each their own I guess though Grazie.

I am really struggling here . .I really don't understand!

Grazie

Everyone here knows that MC stands for Microsoft's Moviemaker Clips don't we?

OK .. . still not there . .

G

Grazie - users such as Bill Ravens have since moved to MC for reasons they feel making the switch worth doing. I think B3T is pointing to MC Tutorials to show why MC, although an industry standard, is archaic in it's work flow methodology compared to Vegas' workflow - albeit it does have its place - especially since he is a former Liquid user.

But I'm only speculating

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalism blog

MC = Media Composer, an Avid product

Blink,

Thanks for those tutes!

They're Liquid->MC focused, but still provide useful info for new MC users.

There is no question that there are many things that are more hassle in MC than in Vegas.

A lot of that is not really fixable though, because it's caused by design choices that are vital for cutting long form material.

IMHO, Vegas is a top NLE for short form and for long form with less complicated media management.

When you get to scripted material with high shooting ratios and double sound, you really come to appreciate Avid's slow but sure way to do a lot of things, because it prevents you from from making a lot of mistakes that often add a lot of post production time when using other NLEs.

And when you're just doing what I call "elbow editing" to do a first cut of complex material, no other NLE gets close to what Avid can do. It's just got an "organic" feel to it when cutting, that other NLEs lack.

Clearly, a lot of people would benefit from using Vegas instead of whatever other NLE they are using now.

But not everybody.

That would be like saying a mountain bike is better than a road bike...

No problem Course. In the back of my mind I knew it was you that had a thing for MC. You like these kinds of backwards / inside out programs :)

Hey... "archaic" ... that's a GREAT word Cliff!

No matter what you say about Media Composer I've watched someone cut a program for broadcast with it on a laptop. Both I and a FCP user were gobsmacked at how fast this guy worked. Took him around half an hour including capturing the camera tape and emailing the EDL and invoice to the network.
What was kind of funny was the FCP guy thinking he'd get a reaction when he mentioned that I use Vegas. Turns out out this editor had cut a TV series with it that has international distro. Only reason he had to use Vegas was at the time it was the only NLE that'd handle footage from the bank of Sony HDD camcorders the show was shot with. His comments on Vegas were it's too slow and lacks the tools that editors need. See recent discussions about getting EDLs out of Vegas if you don't get the problem. FCP that he's also used a lot is just, well, too slow as well in his opinion.
I should point out that most of the material that front line editors cut doesn't need anything more than cutting. If the footage needs color correction or audio futzed around with they fire the cameraman / sound guy.
I find most of these discussions about the various NLEs that are out there say more about the skills of many Vegas users as editors than anything else. Any NLE is perfectly capable of editing. Acquiring the skills to use the most difficult to master transition of all, the cut, is another matter entirely. It took me a long time to realise that. I can honestly now say I suck at it. It took a couple of supervised edits with clients who do know good editing when they see it to grasp what are the basics of editing.

Bob.

As much as I understand the p[osition you take Bob with mainstream editing/sound/CC being done by different people, you fellow Aussie, Mike JOnes, has written quite a bit about how Vegas creates a paradigm shift in the way video content creation and post production is handled. His take on it, I and do believe in his position, is that suites are still very hollywood/motion picture oriented, something that is to a certain extent - according to him - an archaic form of post production.

Vegas creates an environment whereby most things are done within the single app - and I have to admit, I have found being a solovj working with Vegas, my work gets edited faster and with less hassle as compared to working with separate app suites from the triple AAA contenders.

Mike's position is that Vegas creates a more agile environment by which to edit content for multiple distribution avenues. True, it isn't meant in it's current version to handle 2k or 4k content, but I think the whole notion of content distribution as we know it is about to see a radical shift with more and more content being produced for the Internet with smaller HDV cameras that are more than capable of producing quality content from a technical standpoint - with everything from computers/laptops to hand held devices. Indie's are looking at this as a means of distribution/advertising their work. Vegas/DVDA can handle output to blu-ray so that's a non-issue for smaller shops.

Bottom line is - as you said - it's the skills of the editor, not the tool, but I do feel Vegas provides a glimpse of what post production should be for the 21st century - at least IMO...

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalism blog

Ah! At long last . . . "Media Composer" - right.

Thanks Cliff.

Grazie

Vegas does handle 2K, I tested this to some extent a few days ago.
I exported 2K (2048x1152) out of AE to the 10 bit BMD codec and Vegas 8 opened it just fine. That did mean I had to cook in the Look. Playback was around 5fps. Ppro on the same hardware played the native Prospect 2K RAW at 24fps, a pretty impressive performance considering it's having to debayer and apply a 3D LUT. What I'd like to see Vegas handle is OpenEXR and DNG. OpenEXR is free to use and DNG is an open source codec that more and more cameras will record to.

I certainly agree with Mike's sentiments and I've said much the same thing several times. Problem is Adobe seem to get the argument better than SCS do. Vegas just doesn't cut it compared to AE when it comes to motion graphics. It's not just the lack of plugin support, Vegas doesn't do vector based graphics which is quite an issue for a small production company that does graphics inhouse. I now find that things I laboured over for ages with Vegas are so much quicker and intuitive in AE and the results look better because of how AE works. That said I still prefer Vegas as the place to throw it all together, especially for mixing audio.

As for guys running around with palmcorders. A few weeks back I had the same discussion with the director of technical services for ENG of a local network. They've been forced to drop the VJ with his palmcorder. The model worked well with SD but with the uptake of HD it's just not working. The problem isn't the vision, it's the sound quality. Viewers are now watching and listening to the news on their big HTDVs and "cinema" sound systems and they're ringing up to complain about the poor sound quality. For them it's back to the traditional 2 man crew with one of them being a sound guy swinging a boom pole. If anyone can figure out how it can be done for ENG with one operator they'll make a lot of money.

Bob.

Here's my complete kit:

2 - SONY HC7's with A1U lens hoods (tabectomy done to both)
1 - Ambient Recordings TinyMike (This has performed as well as Sennheiser in a much smaller package - checkout the review here)
1 - SONY .7x HD W/A Lens with custom Cavision w/a lenshood adapter
1 - Sennheiser G2 Wireless Lav
1 - Samson Zoom H2 Audio Recorder with external mic if needed

I pack everything miuns the second camera in a bike messenger shoulder bag. If I need my complete kit, I use my photo backpack to carry it all with my Dell Latitude laptop for remote field editing with the complete SONY Production suite.

I'm capable of doing 95% of the work I shot by myself with this setup. A colleague of mine is still amazed that I am willing to put myself through the ringer by doing it all - he said shooting stills is like playing checkers, shooting video is a game of chess - so many variables to contend with, but for some strange reason, I can manage it most of the time - but that depends on a good nights sleep ;)

Do I make mistakes - yup. But I'm a control freak, and I don't trust anyone else with the work I'm shooting and so I shoot video like I use to shoot stills - solo - and the more I do it, the better I get at all aspects of the solovj paradigm. It's only a matter of time before the younger Gen X and Y shooters figure this stuff out and do it this way.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalism blog

There are 2 reasons why I left Vegas and moved to Media Composer.
1-Sony's customer support, what there is of it, is arrogant and insulting. Avid has an incredible customer support system, they finally saw the light about what's important to commercial customers.
2-Vegas' approach to managing color mapping is confusing, at best, wrong at worst. Every other NLE allows the user to KNOW whether he's remapping to RGB or YCrCb color space, and let's the user have some options. I also beleive sony has the 601->709 color conversions wrong. To me, color timing is critical. If I can't put faith in my NLE, it's time to move on. Avid does it right, right, right. Avid has never, repeat NEVER failed on me. Mid-workflow crashes are just unacceptable and Vegas has more than its share when editing hi rez footage. Great job for DV but not HD. And to add insult to injury, sony is in denial, as are many of its supporters.

If I had truly abandoned years of support for Vegas, I wouldn't, occasionally, peruse this forum. Vegas is a good NLE. Whether it will ever be able to handle HDv media remains to be seen, but I keep hoping. I haven't removed vegas from my workstations, but, it is relegated to 3rd string. I don't do much DV work anymore.

Anyone who would label MC as "clunky" obviously has never really gotten to be an adept user at MC. Avid's file managment system is a little bit hard to understand, that is, until you see the brilliance of it. Over the summer, I worked on 6 short films. Managing the file system and the smoothness of the workflow exceeds anything I could have done with Vegas. And AVID is truly cross platform. I can edit on a MAC, at school, bring the files home and edit on my PC via MACDRIVE7. Avid MC is truly awesome. For those with the $$$, Avid supports hardware acceleration, something Vegas will have to do if they ever really want hi-rez workflows. Proxy files for HDV is just archaic.I could never have imported the DNx175 files I was given by the film house with Vegas. nVidia's CUDA implementation is a sign of the times.

Now, if only certain people on this forum behaved a little more professionally, all problems would be solved...LOL. The bickering and insulting posts by certain people is passe, immature and unnecessary. Altho', lately this problem seems to have improved, here.

A lot of this conversation is moot, anyway. FCP is making significant inroads in LA. Avid MC remains a favorite with filmakers, but, TV serials are being done on FCP, more and more. Guess my next years task will be to learn FCP so I can make some decision about that NLE in my toolshed.

EOF

Great post, Bill!

Media Composer 3.0 really is rock stable, and going back to really old versions of it there are many who are still using old Avid Meridian systems, because "they never croak and they do the job so why upgrade?"

When I was evaluating pro NLEs a long time ago, I went to Avid Express first, because it seemed like a good product and I immediately felt at home with the way it cut footage. Just cuts, very organic and really fast. This is way beyond just Avid's "JKL" which has been copied by everybody (because it works so well). There is nothing I can say in words that could truly explain why Avids feel so great to make simple cuts on, other than possibly "there is nothing to slow you down."

I took a basic Avid Express Pro training, but was really disturbed by how often this NLE crashed, even on a system that was set up by Avid instructors just for training.

So with a heavy heart I continued looking.

And then I found Vegas 3, an NLE that never crashed.

Ridiculously stable. Couldn't make it keel over, and the audio part was a dream. Instant love. 'Nuff said.

Today, Vegas 3 is Vegas 8. It is still very stable for DV (which I don't shoot), but a bit wobbly with some other formats.

Avid has dumped Express Pro and dropped the price of Media Composer in half. Still $2,500, but that includes more than $3,000 worth of third party software such as Boris RED and Continuum Complete, Sonic DVDit, etc.

It's been said here many times: if you're a loner and do everything yourself, Vegas is hard to beat.

If you have to work with others, you better add FCP or Avid to your repertoire, or you'll be saying "Sorry!" a lot.

I used an Avid briefly as a hard drive recorder... it crashed. :( Apparently stability was a reason why many people held off upgrading their old systems.

Performance-wise, I wasn't very impressed (it was an Adrenaline HD I believe)... it's like FCP + 1 layer. There are big iron systems out there with a lot more power (e.g. Quantel, Mistika, Flame)... though that's kind of comparing apples to oranges.

As far as Avid as an editing system, I don't really have an opinion of it since I've not used it for that purpose. Some editors I talked to like Avid, but many high-end post facilities now have at least one copy of FCP.

In any case, all the editing systems out there have their own strengths and weaknesses.

I used an Avid briefly as a hard drive recorder... it crashed.

You did manage to pick the black sheep in the family.... Avid Adrenaline caused many people to go back to their Meridians. I think the problem was in the hardware interface (communicating with their Adrenaline box), poor coding.

They did learn from that, and Nitris DX etc. are extremely stable.

And the current software-only Media Composer version is ridiculously stable.

Flame is a turbo-charged effects system that is the leader in its niche.

Smoke is Autodesk's (formerly Discreet's) NLE, the NLE to end all NLEs, that is well worth the $120K it costs. If you need what it provides...

In any case, all the editing systems out there have their own strengths and weaknesses.

And they're designed for different target customers.

Vegas was rock solid when it was clear about who it wanted to serve. Today it seems it can't quite make up its mind, but for a lot of editors it will still be the #1 NLE even if cost is no object. Really. It will often do the job in less time and with less aggravation.