I too have Boris Red 4.1 and some of the other noteworthy features are:
Full 3D compositing using spheres, cylinders, cubes, extrusions (including text), planes, and splines.
Shadows and reflections.
Surface mapping of images and textures.
Camera control such as shutter angle, position, rotation
Multiple light-source control including color for ambient, point, and spot.
Bezier spline control for all keyframe parameters.
Conversion of raster image to vectors.
Animated charts including bar, pie, etc.
Import of text for credit rolls or subtitles.
Over 100 different filters including tracking, corner pinning, stabilization.
Image cloning (turn one bird into a flock or erase part of the scene)
OpenGL support.

As you probably can tell, I am a great fan of Boris Red. It is one of the best investments I made for the sort of corporate videos I produce.

From the sounds of it - unless doing heavy motion graphics, I wouldn't have great need for it.

So, if Boris is an excellent titler, is there a stand alone Titler that is just as good, cheaper, but without all the bells and whistles of Boris?

Have a look at ProDad Heroglyph for $99, it's pretty good

>>...is there a stand alone Titler that is just as good...

Boris Graffitti is "just as good."

In fact, it is the same titling features of Boris Red, but with some other Red features removed. It's like they took Red, removed some stuff, then left you with the titling features. It also costs a LOT less than Red.

I don't use Boris, simply because I cannot wrap my head around their interface. FWIW, Vegas ships with Boris Graffiti Ltd, so it shouldn't cost you anything to try it out.

I do use After Effects 7.0 for titling sequences, 2D animation, compositing and the occasional weird special effects. AE also has a couple of file conversions built-in (like FLV) that Vegas lacks. But I use it very seldom -- many folks will have no need for it whatsoever.

I'm with those who "cant wrap their heads around the interface" of Boris Graffiti LTD. I've read the documentation, and frankly, I can't figure out what this program is supposed to do. Worse, some of the documentation appears to be for the full version with only "oh by the way" mention that these features are not included (for example, using Graffiti as a plug-in to Vegas).

In the help text, the word "title" does not appear. This is supposed to be a titler? Pray tell, how?

Bob.

For those who find Boris products challenging, did you know that there are free online video tutorials at their web site (www.borisfx.com). I have been using Red for about half a year and feel that I know it pretty well, but I still watch the online tutorials every now and then when I forget certain procedures.

I had asked a question about Boris in another post on quality of Boris but I wonder why so many seem to to go to AE instead of Boris. Is it because of the interface, brand loyalty, $$ or is AE a better product?

Well, speaking for myself, as I've said, I've never been able to get the hang of the Boris interface. I had cut my NLE teeth on Adobe Premiere, so the After Effects interface was much more familiar to me.

The things I like about After Effects is the almost infinite degree of control in keyframing, FX and manipulation of composite layers. It's also fairly easy to build up increasing layers of complexity in projects, since it treats its own compositions exactly like media files. (Kind of like nested .VEG files in Vegas, but faster and more transparent.) It's also an industry standard, has tons of excellent plug-ins, and in the recent versions, has a large number of well designed presets.

That said, Vegas has started to catch up in the compositing department. I still find moving elements around in the composition window more intuitive in AE than Track Motion in Vegas.

At the risk of being shot down in flames I think Boris is rubbish. I have used Vegas from 3 to 7 and the text generation has not changed and is the worst thing about Vegas. Boris Ltd was tried and I though I would get the full version. Now when a support program has a manual that is twice the thickness of Vegas (the full one printed out on single sidded sheets of paper even) then something is wrong and it is this program. The interface needs a Philadelphia Lawyer to wade through and understand, the text generation is light years behind what is available elsewhere and worst of all it causes crashes. If you must use the program then save, save, save BEFORE you do any work in Boris.

Come on SONY instead of relying on third party stuff get your program up to date. You have the video and sound sorted now get the text sorted please.

Well I'm not going to shoot you down in flames but let me add this.
I had a fairly robust discussion with a FCP user today about how great all the widgets in the new FCP were. The conversation drifted over to the absolute magic I watched done with text using the latest Fusion with the odd extra plugin. Totally organic, totally photo realistic. I'd say those few seconds of text took the guy who was a guru hours to build. Both the MacMan and me agreed on one point. Everyone, no matter what the tool seems to think that complex things should be easy and they're not. Choose your poison, AE, Fusion, Combustion, Boris, FCP, whatever. Anything that has that real WOW factor takes a lot of time, a lot of skill and then a damn good artistic eye to get it to look just right.
Factor in months to really get to know how to use any of these tools. Factor in decades of experience and the right genes to know what looks right and not like a bad acid trip. And in the end be thankfull, if it was all too damn easy, just a mouse click to make a movie, we'd all be out of a job.

I'd also add that Boris does use the GPU, if you're having crashes first thing is try a better PC / GPU. I've had several apps that use the GPU become crash free once I switched them to another machine.

Bob.

Bluff Titler is really cheap, easy to use, and surprisingly versatile. You can try it for free as well (it just has a "demo" watermark).

I totally agree with Bob that highly impressive graphics do take hours to build. Sure the manual for Boris is a thick document but so is the flight manual of a 747 jet compared to that of a Cesna 150. With greater capability comes greater complexity.

It all comes down to what are your specific needs. I personally need to work with 3D text that casts shadows on other 3D objects and reflects other images. I need to work with extrusions of corporate logos that fly overhead like a giant starship, land in front of you and explode like a supernova. Doing all this takes a huge amount of work and a tool like Boris Red with very powerful features. For those who do not do this sort of compositing, there are other tools that are better suited for those needs that are probably much easier to use.

>>...Anything that has that real WOW factor takes a lot of time...

Thank you!

I have tried hard to convey this to others, but unless you are the one doing it, you have no idea.

Everyone likes the result, but not the receipe... :)