Sony is also going to sell some of its assets....

I wonder if the media software division will be one of those assets......................

It's interesting.

Certainly not good.

Actually, it wouldn't be bad either - depending on which company purchased them. I mean it might be good if a software company owned a software company and I've never understood Sony's reason to delve into Sonic Foundry in the first place. Had Sony swooped in and started doing smart stuff like including trial versions of Vegas with every Vio and Handycam, then I could chalk up the acquisition as Sony trying to push into new markets, but I still get the same advertisements as when it was Sonic.

Sony's biggest problem (on almost every level) is that they compete with themselves. Back in 1995, when I was young chap working at Circuit City, Sony had two lines of everything. In audio gear they had Sony, and Sony ES and in video they regular, and Sony Vega. From a marketing perspective, it makes it hard to push one without stepping on the toes of another product line. Xpri and Vegas should be in the same product line with the same interface, like Avid has been doing.

Maybe Avid will buy it and make it suck! Scratch that, I don't want to lose Vegas, it really is my favorite NLE.

Jeff

What I could never understand is how Sony included Premiere from Adobe on their laptops and desktops instead of taking a chance to push their own product. It boggles the mind.

And folks wonder why they are cutting heads. They should start at the top and work their way down.
Jimmy

Maybe Avid will buy it and make it suck! Scratch that, I don't want to lose Vegas, it really is my favorite NLE.

Too late Jeff. You already used that nasty 4 letter word (A**d) in public :-)

Mike

Or, maybe they've finally got a Chairman with some ba**s that can make changes happen. His keynote speech earlier this year was phenomenal, and some of the changes he announced that would take place, are now taking place. Who knows...maybe we'll start seeing Vegas on Sony laptops soon.

"Too late Jeff. You already used that nasty 4 letter word (A**d) in public :-)"

But what chance does an NLE have if it's not owned by a company that starts with an A.

Apple
Avid
Adobe

But what chance does an NLE have if it's not owned by a company that starts with an A.

Sony stands out in the crowd?
:-)

Mike

Alot of this is old news and deals with the fact that tv tube business is about dead,( sony was about 3 years behind in displays) and also general and new customer products require fewer mech. subsystems, ( ie, the death of vhs players, cd players). The new sony's tv screens, replacing the tv tube, requires new factories, ( which is how done thru new business partners), and ...etc.

Also, Sony is pushing blueray as the all purpose media,( in most cases).

I'm with Spot on this....they finally have a leader who has the guts to make needed changes. I'm optimistic that Sony will come out of this a better company. Heck look at Nissan, same situation, and look where they are today.

> Heck look at Nissan, same situation, and look where they are today.

Oh yeah? I used to love Nissan's video editor, and NOW where is it??? :-)

A small point, a new Sony leader for the "new Sony line" is nice, but remember all these new products were designed one/two years ago under the old management. The new guy gets the credit for plans well in place, but its giving Sony a new image in the business market and less talk about why the old management did or didn't do this....etc.

Gee, I've been through all this before with EditDV. It had a truly elegant user interface and functionality above and beyond its competitors. Then it went through 3 different companies, changed its name to Cinestream, all the time picking up new features and new bugs while old bugs and inconveniences were ignored. When Cinestream was dumped by its final owner, I went looking and found Vegas.

So far, Vegas has been picking up new features and bugs while old bugs and inconveniences are ignored. Hope history doesn't repeat itself.

Jeremy

Whatever happens, i hope vegas borrows some of avid's editing basics, before stuffing in another silly under developed feature like 3d transforms, the media manager and bezier masking.

Jeremy,
The new bugs are a result of new features. That's the way things are. Video editing software is hugely complex, it's not Notepad or Word, and it's harder to trackdown and fix some bugs. Not only are people doing a variety of different things with the software, they've each got very different systems and very different software on those systems. The fact that you often see one person complaining about a bug followed by other people who say they don't get that bug is a good example of the complexities.

The best way to help the situation is to calmly report bugs along with all of the pertinent information for reproducing the bug-- it's hard to track a bug if you can't see it in action. Posting things like "damn this buggy software" or "when is Sony going to get it right" doesn't help anyone. (I'm not saying you do that but we've all seen posts like that.) I understand frustration, but surely it's better to be a part of the solution rather than work against it and guarantee future frustration.

Lastly, remember that it's not always Vegas' fault, as we saw with the complaints about rendering to Quicktime 7.

Fred

The new bugs are a result of new features.

Sure, I quite agree. I used to write software. (Though thorough enough testing can help minimize the damage.)

My beef is that old bugs and misfeatures are carried along for version after new version. How many people have complained about Vegas's inability to deal sensibly with veg files, source files, and rendered files in different directories? The new track motion dialog did away with the useful motion-trail feature of the old one. There really is a long list, and most of the items have to do with day-to-day functionality and ease of workflow. I'm not whining and bitching, I have posted bug reports and product suggestions with Sony. I just don't see much happening as a result.

The main thrust of my post was to point out a parallel in recent history, a sad story of a promising product mismanaged into its own demise.

Jeremy

The older the bug, the harder the fix. Carried over means it's even harder to fix now. New complexities.

Lets all pull our money together and buy out the Sony Software division. I'll chip in a couple hudred bucks!!!

Avid Xpress Pro has no problem rendering to Quicktime 7 H.264 :)

Are you sure its not Vegas's fault?

actuatly, the "history" of bugs isn't from sony, it's from sofo. many "bugs" people complain about were around when sofo ran things, and sony didn't buy them until just before v5 release. If the history starts with v5 to 6, I'd say they did good. they brought in some good stuff, made some good optomizations, HD, etc.

i've never been a sony fan however, and even though what they do is legal, i'm not a fan of companies that decieve the consumer on purpose to push products.

for ~$1,500 is better damn work, and right away!