OT: Why Isn't SCS Promoting Vegas More???

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JohnK wrote on 3/28/2008, 1:52 PM
Just for information. I am editing on a MacPro (Intel 2ghz) using Sony Vegas Pro8 on Windows Vista ON BOOTCAMP. Works great. In fact MacPro is my fastest Windows machine.
jk
psg wrote on 3/28/2008, 3:21 PM
Cliff:

I think you're on to something here. A lot of marketing is about positioning your product carefully. In fact in Ries and Trout's book on Positioning, they suggested that unless you are 1,2 or 3 in a marketplace, no matter how much money you spend, it hards to sustain yourself in that marketplace.

Their solution, which I think is what you're getting at, is define a new market - maybe video journalism, or other groups - who don't have a long history with legacy tools and focus on the features that make your product fit that market (which I think you've done -- I read your blog).

That's what I would do I ran marketing at SCS.

PSG
Cliff Etzel wrote on 3/28/2008, 3:57 PM
Got off a skype call a few minutes ago with a friend/colleague of mine who just completed an FCP class and was ranting about how great it was and that it left everything else in the dust. Of course he's never used Vegas and eschews the notion of even thinking of running Windows.

I didn't even bother to point out that in order to accomplish what can be done within Vegas only, one has to go to multiple apps within the suite. He poo poo'd even trying Vegas out on his macbook running parallels or bootcamp.

I get the feeling that my fellow Solo VJ brethren are similarly brainwashed to believe this as well.

Oh well...

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | ImmersiveVJ.com
farss wrote on 3/28/2008, 4:19 PM
And therein lies the problem.
Looks like I'm about to 'steal' a project from an editor with a big Avid.
To do this I have to demo a mockup in HD on a big monitor.
Trying to get them to 'buy' my work using Vegas is an uphill battle.
Easier to get them to buy the idea using Ppro/AE. A lot of the 'prepress' work will be done in Illustrator anyway and Adobe's Bridge should make it much easier.
That said though for VJ work, good grief, iMovie would be adequate.

Bob.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 3/28/2008, 6:33 PM
For that matter, SCS could bundle Bootcamp, Vista and Vegas together. Then when Vegas crashed, you wouldn't know either what to blame or who to call, ;-)
Steve Mann wrote on 3/28/2008, 10:44 PM
Why do you have to "sell" the client on the tool you use (Vegas)? They just want the desired finished video project. Do you ask a carpenter what brand of hammer he uses?
ushere wrote on 3/28/2008, 11:16 PM
spot on steve!

the last two times i was asked 'what do i edit on?' i simply replied, what would you like? one was avid, the other fcp. i then asked why? neither could come up with anything better than something along the lines that they'd 'read about it'.

fortuntaely i was, and still am in a position to tell them go jump.... interestingly enough, when i did they asked why, and i replied it was obvious that they wanted a software salesman, not an editor.

leslie
deusx wrote on 3/28/2008, 11:28 PM
>>>I get the feeling that my fellow Solo VJ brethren are similarly brainwashed to believe this as well.<<<<

Not all of them are. I know a couple who use FCP, but have done real movies, and TV shows, on FCP, Avid, and have taken time to try Vegas. And they admitted Vegas was the quickest way to get things done. But they already know FCP well enough and use macs, so it's not enough of a reason to switch.

There are normal people using macs, may be a minority, but there are some.
Grazie wrote on 3/28/2008, 11:35 PM
Well, Steve, I like the analogy, but I do think there is "other" truths underlying your comment: I would definitely want to know under what Master Craftsman this carpenter had learnt the trade. And here that COULD mean AVID, FCP or Vegas. See?

And yes, of course, at the "hammer" level it is a silly argument. But when the "unwashed" are searching/punting for an editor all they know, is, all they know! And to borrow that well known piece of philosophy - we may not know, but we know we don't know!

I show people my work. I tell them how long I have been doing my work and the growing list of clients I have. Now, do they want the same?

At the end of the day, WE are the champions of Vegas - ALL of US!!

Grazie

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 3/29/2008, 12:26 AM
After Reading that Bobby G bit, at the end where it says

Vegas is such a powerful tool that lets you stay in one application for almost everything you need: audio editing, video editing and compositing, mastering and outputting of your project for a variety of media."

I think that the new slogan for Sony Creative Software should be, "the power of one."

Because it's true ( and with a little more development on the compositing side would be especially true ) that I can do pretty much everything in Vegas short of motion tracking that I need to do, really heavy compositing requires me to go outside of Vegas, but for 99% of my compositing work Vegas does what I need to do and does it all in one application.

Dave
Grazie wrote on 3/29/2008, 1:19 AM
I like it David! A bit like this?

1¹


Grazie



farss wrote on 3/29/2008, 4:49 AM
A little more development on the compositing side?

A major overhaul is what would be needed but that'd probably mean breaking a lot of things. I'm only upto 6 track of 720p so far and it's like wadding through custard. What it'd need is precomping of tracks so every time I move an element it doesn't redo the whole dang frame. Anything other than Best/Full leaves everything too fuzzy to judge what I'm doing. Everytime I add another track it gets slower too, that shouldn't / needn't happen.

Bob.
JJKizak wrote on 3/29/2008, 7:03 AM
I still think the heavy hitters of "understandingment" of complex Vegas editing actions should create a tutorial script on how to for beginners or occasional users that can't remember critical steps for difficult actions that are not performed every day. Set up the tutorial on Industrial standards with blocks and arrows to create "magnificent stuff without knowing anything". You first see a title of something you want to create, then follow block #1 which says, "Turn on computer". Step two "open Vegas", Step three, "open project". Or step 1, "assumes you have project on the timeline with proper preferences set", Step 2, open 5 new video tracks, Step 3, "set-blah blah blah".
The last place I worked had over 21 computers all of different manufactureres with these block diagrams and I had no trouble tweeking any of them and this included 140 grand chemical batch control computer to 8 grand pen recorders and complete lab humidity/temperature AC controls.
JJK
rmack350 wrote on 3/29/2008, 10:51 AM
I don't think SCS is going to beat adobe to releasing a 64-bit version of their NLE.

Rob
rmack350 wrote on 3/29/2008, 11:21 AM
"...I get the feeling that my fellow Solo VJ brethren are similarly brainwashed to believe this as well..."

If it's a matter of convincing the FCP users, rethink your priorities. All you need to do is get them to admit there are other edit systems. So just say "I use Vegas because it's fast and runs on the hardware I own. And it leaves me free time to (insert leisure activity here)". Don't try to make them say its better.

If it's a matter of convincing an employer...the realistic consideration is whether they want your project and media files. If they want that so that others can edit then you have to use the platform they want. Otherwise you just need to give them finished media. You may need a big portfolio to convince them that you can produce a lot of material with Vegas.

Rob Mack
jabloomf1230 wrote on 3/29/2008, 4:04 PM
LOL. Now, this blog is old, but it's still sorta funny to me:

http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/2006/12/64_bitswhen.html

You'd think that if Adobe is going to go 64 bit, Photoshop would be first in line for retooling. It's got a bigger market base than Premiere. There haven't been any rumors about Photoshop CS4 being 64 bit, so if its release is imminent, it's a well-kept secret.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 4/4/2008, 2:58 PM
Okay, now it's a rumor:

http://www.betanews.com/article/Adobe_CS4_will_be_64bit_but_only_on_Windows/1207258861
farss wrote on 4/4/2008, 3:15 PM
There could be some truth to it. I'm seeing a lot of plugins for Ppro / AE on sale at half price.

Bob.
Seth wrote on 4/4/2008, 11:13 PM
To busterkeaton, as far as Vegas being difficult to port, I have to disagree; Vegas does not use hardware acceleration, just a plain vanilla x86 processor and some memory, making it EASIER to port to the Mac than Adobe Premier was. In fact, I have just installed Vegas 5 on my MacBook Pro using Wine (granted, I haven't activated or run it yet). Here's proof http://picasaweb.google.com/LeIdiotSavant/VegasWineInstall/photo?authkey=1c67N1g9mzQ#5185634591779160482 There are two tricks with porting Vegas to Linux or any *nix variant like Mac OS: its dependency on the Microsoft .NET framework, a set of API's which helps programs like Vegas to run, and its dependence on several basic MS Windows API's. Novell has been developing an open source implementation of .NET called 'Mono', and Wine is an open source implementation of Windows API, which the new SCS Chief Technologist, whoever he or she is when SCS hires a new one, could use to make Vegas Pro 9 totally cross platform (read: Mac OS and Linux compatible in addition to Vista and Windows 7).

This would give post houses a really big reason to switch to Vegas. Think about it. Shake is cross platform (Mac OS & Linux). Nuke is cross platform (Mac/Win/Linux). Maya is cross platform (Mac/Win/Linux). Why? Because Linux is more favorable than Mac OS or Windows for large operations like feature film-making. If Vegas were certified for use on SuSe and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it would basically flood the market at its current price point, since there is nothing that even closely approximates it for Linux.