agreed on the fact that there are some things that I wish Vegas would do :) we all do of course.

I had not really delt with any of the Vegas team before, but While I was demoing - Dave Hill was in there and I shot the breeze with him, and dropped some things in his ear, asked questions etc... He asked me if I was using the MM, which I had Just began using, but I was pretty blown away buy how quickly he was able to pull things up for me, and just drag/drop tags on to clips.

Anyway - after talking to him, I have Very little concern that Vegas won't be taken care of. The guys is just plain great, and very down to earth. I wish I would have gotten his card while he was there though. ahh well, perhaps next year.

Anyway, like I said - I don't think that there's a LOT we have to worry about.

now what I want to see is the ability to make the PS3 a renderstation for Vegas, those Cell chips were AMAZING from the guys that I was talking to that came out of the invite only demonstrations.

C'MON CELL ARCHITECTURE!!!! BRING ME SOME SMOKIN HOT RENDERS!!!

I don't see why they wouldn't do it, might require some kind of specialized connection or something, but it would be well worth it by the bug eyes that I saw from the guys that came out of there.

Dave

... and then you have to consider who's using more than 20% of the features currently available in Vegas ... I see a ton of posts from slideshow makers and home video enthusiasts not only here but on PPro2 forums and elsewhere all using the "pro" versions ... if Sony/Madison knows only 5% of their customer base are using 90% or more of the features, then does the latest/greatest features make any sense to them ..? ... maybe it isn't enough of a base to make a profit ... I don't know but I'm sure they look into things like this ...

of course they look into things like that :). However I find that there were some pretty big folks looking at Vegas from places, when I was there, talking to them (because they thought that that was the vegas booth if they came from one side). Fortunately I was pretty bright when it comes to Vegas, so I was able to give them good info if I wasn't busy.

but it's a great way to kill your company if you put a ton of your resources into options taht 5% of the users utilize. This isn't some 1.5 million dollar Turnkey system like SONAPS. It's an editor. that being said - it does have some decent competition.

Dave

> [DSE] And if you compare Sony's presentation of Vegas on the stage
> compared to FCS, Avid Xpress, or Premiere Pro...it's woefully
> lacking. But those companies don't have other products to really
> show, either.

What? Adobe and Apple each have a giant suite of products to show. I sat through an hour long, somewhat annoying, Premiere presentation with about 120 other seated users and 50 standies. Adobe was SELLING Premiere to us on a big screen. (Plus you could buy it at the show for 15% off.)

> Soundtrack for example, barely is noticable at NAB.
> But all videographers need to make soundtracks

See, that's where things go wrong. NLE's should not be marketed to videographers, they should be marketed to 'editors'. If a videographer wants to be an editor, that's cool, but NLE's are for editors. No videographer is as good an editor as someone who just edits professionally, and if Vegas wants to be perceived in the marketplace as 'pro' it must be a tool pro editors can use.

Dave, if Sony would introduce a dualcore AMD with two cells as slaves, multi track realtime HD editing would be a walk in the park. The problem would be moving data from disk drives fast enought! But I doubt if we see this soon. The XPRI and cell marriage has the big boys attention, vegas could be threat to Sony Broadcast plans if development is not well planned.

Why AMD and cells and not powerchip and cells? AMD have superior power management and very clean execution, thou the not the same instruction as the cell, the AMD could execute the massive amount X86 programs and the cells would support the video demands for thru-put. An all powerchip system would probably be linux base, excluding a large number of users who like MS products and apps that run on MS OSs. Plus this would bring Apple into the pic and we do not want FCP running on the cell too soon.

There was no XPRI per se at the booth this year. They had some of it's functionality in SONAPS though - the big brother of HDXchange (and at QUITE a price tag too). XPRI is not going to be advanced anymore (beyond some fixes). I think they rolled it (at least some of it) into the SONAPS system. At the booth that's what they were tellin folks that were asking about it.

I'd be happy with a PS3 render farm :) or a daisychain renderstation :) mmmmm even better.

The thing is that GPU is a potential option too, just as slong as it's not required - but the feeling I get from Vegas is that it will not ever be one of those apps that requires some specific hardware card, or at least it wouldn't require a hardware card if they did start utilizing one.

Anyway - just my thoughts on things. LOL - what do I know :)

Dave

DAve, were you doing demos of HDXchange for Sony?

Dave, the XPRI is the clip editor for SONAPS network systems. The XPRI is still Sony's advance editor, but now there is a mobile XPRI also. I not sure about the HDXchange product line for small businesses.

Proxies editing future is a question, when investing millions, that needs closer study. Its a good solution now, but a year from now?

>>>I don't want much: I just want Vegas to be faster, better, easier and have more power and capabilities than any other system out there<<<

it already is and even if v.7 doesn't come out until 2008 , the current version of vegas will still be better than next versions of FCP, Premiere, or trash that is called Avid express pro. Just about anything you can do on those can be done twice as fast with vegas.

Some people here are starting to believe marketing hype a little too much. And avid's media management and insistence on their crappy formats is a joke. It's 2006, Avid was fine 15 years ago, now it should justt crawl away and die ( but let XSI go free before that, because that is great app which doesn't deserve to be associated with avid )

even if v.7 doesn't come out until 2008 , the current version of vegas will still be better than next versions of FCP, Premiere, or trash that is called Avid express pro.

That's a pretty strong statement.

I can think of many cases when the current versions of FCP, PP, or Avid are far more capable than Vegas.

And vice versa.

It depends on your needs.

If you need to do collaborative editing, Vegas will be at the end of that list.

If you work with 10-bit video, or even if you want the best quality from 8-bit in and 8-bit out, Vegas can't do it other than in the most simple of cases (no multiple intermediates).

If you work with After Effects a lot, Premiere Pro lets you work much faster, and it can keep intermediate results in 16-bit or even 32-bit float which looks vastly better if you want effects that behave like film.

Avid is the best cutter of the bunch for quick editing when you know what you're doing.

FCP has great integration with Shake and Motion, and it gets support for new formats well before Vegas. Even for Sony cameras, like the XDCAM HD in Apple's booth at NAB for everyone to try with full ingest.

FCP even allows you to edit 2K (2048x1536) on a MacBook pro laptop, I saw it at NAB.

FCP, PP, and Avid have support for film (the real thing, with sprocket holes...). This of course doesn't matter if you don't shoot film, but if you do...

Lots more can be said (tape/film time code, etc.), but the above is at least a representative sample.

Vegas is the winner when it comes to editing&finishing DV25 (unless you're in a newsroom, where the renders will make your life impossible). It can do good in HDV too, with a bit of help from Cineform.

Vegas allows you to do more in one tool than any of the other NLEs, and it has more flexible audio handling too.

Still, if you want the best quality for either video or audio, you have to look elsewhere.

There is a reason more and more Hollywood movies are edited on FCP, it has support for a lot of mid range and high end tools that Vegas can't touch.

Premiere Pro 2.0 is coming on strong because of its very strong integration with After Effects and Photoshop especially. Totally different league from how you work with those apps to and from Vegas, and the net result is much time saved, although you pay a bit more for the NLE.

There is no reason for us to sound like Apple users, "the followers of the only true prophet!"

Vegas stands on its own and for many, although not all, people, it will be the best choice.

So enjoy your editing, knowing that you made the best choice for yourself.

yea - I was working the HDXchange booth all through NAB. not sure if you proxie editing question was directed at HDXchange, but it only used the proxies for browsing and storyboarding. The editors used the original files. And at a 50K price tag it's pretty attainable for productions houses that utilize collaborative workflow, or those that want to utilize the ability to browse their footage by similar images rather than text matches.

I'd like to see Vegas reach out to the higher bit rates as well as the higher end folks, but they also need to get better integration with products that are out there, I think that is the hardest part of really establishing yourself in the industry (just my opinion, but houses don't want to use something with very little support and other companies don't want to integrate with something that doesn't have a large market share). Kind of a chiken/egg thing.

mmmm chicken.....

oh... sorry... anyway - I'm off to KFC :)

Dave

.................................It's 2006, Avid was fine 15 years ago, now it should justt crawl away and die ..................................

The Avid of 15 years ago is hardly the product offerings of AVID today, like it or hate it, aint going no where, they are still the standard most are compared to, and for some jobs the best tool to use. IMO

Dave, are working with Sony on the HDXchange product line? if so, congrats!!! I have not yet review the HDXchange product line, so its new to me. I have studied the SONAPS network, I trying to decide if the networking is really a major step forward or more of a side-step, or baby-step. For many stations with old equipment, SONAPS structure would be a big step forward and at a fair price. I like the mobile XPRI for overseas or remote events without support.

Avid's bins and keyboard editing workflow is just too dam good. It will be interesting to see what impact avid's new more affordable media composer will have on the editing world.

It still isnt as cheap as final cut :)

or Vegas...

or Premiere Pro...

I think the lesson here is... if you want to beat avid... do it now, copy workflow ideas... features... build in better bins and fast keyboard editing workflows into vegas, with monitor 2 windows, an overwrite mode, perhaps hardware in the future...

I'm just not sure where Vegas wants to fit into the AVID and FCP world. I mean they really do own the editing world. Avid more so of course...

So where does Vegas want to be? Does it want to dethrown FCP? or is Sony happy with Vegas being 3rd?

Whats the goal? To take the film editing world or the hobbiest world?

Now's the time to figure that out i think.

I don't care that Sony didn't introduce Vegas 7 at NAB. I do care that Sony is not Marketing Vegas more aggressively. IMO the print ads suck, and Vegas precense at NAB shows lack of interest. Even if the market Sony is aiming for is the "Event and Corporate" videographers, Sony could be doing a better job in their marketing of Vegas.

So where does Vegas want to be? Does it want to dethrone FCP? or is Sony happy with Vegas being 3rd? Whats the goal? To take the film editing world or the hobbyist world?

If those of us that follow every move can't figure this out, then obviously the general marketplace won't have a clue -- a phrase that also describes Sony's marketing of this wonderful product.

I don't care that Sony didn't introduce Vegas 7 at NAB. I do care that Sony is not Marketing Vegas more aggressively.

I agree with both points. I care too, and it kills me to see such a great product handled so negligently. See my further comments here:

My Hard-Edge Assessment of Sony's Marketing

It's funny, this whole thing reminds me of the Commodore Amiga. It was years ahead of it's competition in it's support of Video, the Toaster was released, which had huge implications in the market, and Commodore responded by releasing the amiga 3000. which the Toaster didn't fit in. By the time they responded with the Toaster 4000, they had lost their edge, and died a painful death. It was a shame watching a great product be destroyed by a coorporation out of touch with the current status of the market.

I did NAB freelance work for them. I demoed in that booth for NAB.

If you are familiar with the DVStation, you are relatively familiar with the HDXchange product. It doesn't have an editor built in, but it definately has some pretty powerfull collaborative workflow tools.

Haven't seen the mobile XPRI, but it would be fun to mess with for a while.

I was talking to some of the guys that are working on the XPRI product line. It is a PHAT product.

anyway, definately check into the HDXchange, it's not SONAPS, but it's very similar with much much less sticker shock. It was only announced on the Sunday before NAB or the Monday of NAB. Won't be out till September 1, but definately worth some looking into.

Dave

passing observations after over 30 years in the business:

a. a lot of editors want everything right away. they usually get it in dribs and drabs. (not so with the em2 i started on)

b. editors are in general a neurotic bunch, we need peer group confirmation that we're using the best possible tool, otherwise we bite our nails and bang our heads against the wall.

c. having invested in that tool, we then defend it to death, whether it's worthy or not.

d. nab is seroius business indeed (never been, but stmpe is the pal equivqlent). sony shifts multi $k cameras there to tv networks. vegas is pretty much small chips compared to their pro product line.

e. avid is well entrenched at tv network level - vegas doesn't come close to newsroom practicality.

f. fcp is the logical step for mac based operations (and mac was the original tv editor installation).

g. film? if you shoot film them you'll be happy spending money on a system that works speifically for film, be it avid or fcp. and it won't be on your average pc or budget.

h. vegas is great, and since i'm not answerable to my clients as to how i arrive at the final product, it doesn't really matter.

i. if my client questions what i use (and they have rarely), i tell him to tell me what i should use and why. as yet, the only response is, 'they use it in tv'. i then simply point out that i'm happy to use avid composer, as long as he's willing to accept trilpe my rate for installing it.

j. just keep producing knock out products and your clients will keep coming back, and spreading the word - about YOU, not you equipment.

leslie

>>>Vegas allows you to do more in one tool than any of the other NLEs, and it has more flexible audio handling too.<<<

That, plus the most intuitive, no nonsense workflow is what matters. And sound is just fine. I don't think we have to look elsewhere to get better sound. Not to mention that Vegas can be used as a fully functional audio mutitrack recorder.

Fusion is where it's at, so I couldn't care less about adobe integrating premiere with aftereffects, or those other flamable smoke puffing overhyped compositors.

Vegas + Fusion = you can stick all those others you know where ( generally speaking, not directed at anybody on this forum ).

I've had a pleasure of working with someone in avid express pro, and it's laughable. That app is a joke and costs three times as much as Vegas. That should be a freebie included with every DV camcorder, if they could actually make it intuitive and not such a resource hog. It really is not worth more than $50 and could also almost qualify as a trojan with all of the crap it installs and keeps running in the background. And all this is completely unnecessary today. It carries so much baggage from 10-15 years ago it's unreal.

If you're using fusion for post fx, then really all you need is an editor, and frankly vegas doesnt have the basic needs of editing down. Poor media management, no keyboard workflow, no overwrite mode, hard to color correct in due to lack of before and after frames, no monitor window...

While it is true that vegas does a hell of a lot, and some really incredible things.... a lot of those things arent worth much to you, if you're already using fusion to do them.

Fusion is a far better post tool.

What we need is a good editor

What is Fusion? Can't seem to find anything on google about it.