Seriously, I think the new colour scheme is awful. Such a shame - otherwise such a great upgrade. I posted this about it in the audio forum:

- The new interface look. A big yuck from me I'm afraid. I don't know if it's because I work in XP Classic mode, but it just looks horrible. Too washed out and pasty and the white track and mixer faders are particularly nasty. Sony - fine if you want to do this, but you need to make it a lot more customizable or skinable, or at least have the option to retain something more like the old V4 look. I hate to say it, but it terms of look, the words toy-like spring to mind.

I've played with the saturation controls in options and they don't tone it down enough for me. Well, certain things tone down ok, other icons all but disappear. There's no getting away from the fact that the overall look feels very messy. V4 just felt cleaner. This is a direction in interface look that fortunately under Sonic Foundry, the products never went in. Can anyone say Sonar?

---

There's those couple of 'tweaking' options at the moment. But, Sony, either change this look or make it completely customizable. Inc. all the track and mixer controls which just look horrible!

I <really> hope Sony address this in the next update and provide us with a look that is professional as the software itself.

Ben

I agree about Sonar -- especially 3. Everything glows in blue & green. Not sure a few icons changing in V5 is quite the disaster, though...

I'll probably forget all about it too in a few days...

Remember you can change the color scheme and save it in XP. My Vegas is always dark grey--I make it that way.

Vitalforce - my Vegas is dark grey too. But don't you think the new icons, etc look even more garish this way?? Esp. the white faders and mute icons - too bright contrasting with the dark grey. Hmmm...

I thought that with all the new colors in the buttons, that it was nice that they muted the colors a little. You don't want a lot of extra colors in the interference to prejudice your eyes when you are color correcting something.

The 4.0 interface was nice. The 5.0 interface is nice. They are just different. But then I also think the Apple Shake interface is nice. As far as color schemes go, I would prefer something like that if I had to choose.

JBJones

Yep. I think I prefer this over the old Vegas Brown Bag look. But then, I like how Gnome looks as well. Still, might as well make it skinnable.

In fact, I've had layouts set up in the past where you could easily see past Vegas to the desktop. Kind of useful but I wished I could make Vegas look different from everything elso so I could telll it apart from all the other brown bags.

Rob Mack

Gnome? You refering to Linux there?

JBJones

I can't believe I'm as hung up on this as I am, but the V5 UI looks like something I might have to "live with" or "tolerate" if I want its other features. And I'm seriously thinking if it's worth it. I've got a month to decide, I guess -- this morning I had my credit card in hand, and now there's no hurry...

When I made the Hello Kitty joke I'd hoped someone would take notice. Instead people, including some of the Sony team -- seem to think just sliding the opacity around will help the situation out. It's less about the colors -- though the muted pastels look like they do belong in the women's clothing section of a JCPenney catalogue -- it's the icon design, too. Instead of the clean, stiff-edged corners and curves of Vegas 4, we've got Gummy Bear buttons and Smurff sliders.

Not that my frustration stops there, mind you -- it's not just the UI that's ridiculous, it's what it implies about the direction Vegas is headed. Remember when BJ_M broke the HD rendering in Vegas 3? I went through the roof! A program I spent less than $500 on is doing what costs thousands elsewhere. Vegas 4 just capitalized on this momentum -- suddenly we had three-wheel color correcting and scopes, supersampling and some other much-needed features. When the HD rendering was brought into the fold, I couldn't have been more pleased -- finally, a company aside from Apple doing something kickass, rock-solid and edgy.

Now, I look at the drippy, satiny icons of Vegas 5 and I think "Wait, did my grandmother come over and f*ck with my machine while I was out?" It's clear with an interface like this that Sony is sending a message to the kinds of Vegas users who feel disinfranchised by a Fisher Price inspired skin: Sony wants to hijack a cool, David-vs.Goliath kickass app and push it into the realm formerly reserved for kiddie software.

Uhm, on further thought maybe another company deserves my money.

- jim

"Instead of the clean, stiff-edged corners and curves of Vegas 4, we've got Gummy Bear buttons and Smurff sliders."


Maybe Sony can offer different skins in 5.0b. You know:

Hello Kitty (default)
Gummy Bears
Smurffs
Macho (And Not At All Effeminate) Manly Mr. Man
Brewski
Vegas 4 Nostalgia
etc.
;-)

DELETED

Now this is scary, I'm agreeing with Zippy!
Having about zero artistic talent myself I will not agree or disagee with anyones evaluation of the UI but the majority seem to dislike it and I must say even the V4 UI looked too simplistic.
All of us here know that was actually a good thing but when you're trying to convinve someone that what they're looking at is a truly pro product it's the initial impression that count.
No matter what you show them 'under the hood' you're always fighting that first impression. Many years ago IBM tried to sell a mainframe minus all the pointless flashing lights, they just couldn't sell it and it isn't hard to see why, oftenly those we have to convince to part with money don't know a rats about what we're recommending a company buys. All they see are the obvious things, more flashing lights, more serious looking icons and widgets the better.

All I can say is at least it shouldn't take a large effort to change the colour scheme and why wasn't this tested on a focus group? After all the other hubris that was created about this release it would seem plain dumb if it's acceptance was held back by how it looks.

To me personally it doesn't matter a rats, I'll be using it either way, but when the client looks over my shoulder. OK, I'll buy a big control surface, don't need it for what I do but should give me lots of kudos with clients, just need to find the one with the most flashing lights.

Damn and I could have bought an old Grass Valley system for a few hundred, that would have blown them away.

Does anyone here not realize that you can <completely> alter the look of the UI in V5 (different colors / window location/setup) and you can save these for on-the-fly switching? Maybe I am missing the whole point of these "problems"... I have installed V5 and I don't see the big deal that is being raised here.

Remember, during the Internet boom, web sites competed with each other based on their "look?" I do. I also remember that magazine writers that reviewed web sites included "web design" in the criteria for which sites were the "best."

Now, the Internet boom is over, and look which two sites made it to the top:

eBay
Amazon

Not exactly eye-catching. In fact, they are arguably the most utilitarian sites every designed. What web designers (hopefully) learned from this is:

It is the function that matters. The glitzy design elements just get in the way.

Am I arguing that you can't have a beautifully designed UI that is also functional? Actually, yes. There is a certain ambiguity that is essential to art, but ambiguity is the last thing you need when you are trying to combine 400 clips from three cameras and finish the project before the client comes to visit in three hours.

I have installed V5 and I don't see the big deal that is being raised here.

There is no big deal. Some people have too much time on their hands. The new icons deliver a more consistent and professional look than the previous ones. Of course some people won't like them. I think it's a riot that a few posters on a user forum could possibly be mistaken for the "majority" :)

"Does anyone here not realize that you can <completely> alter the look of the UI in V5 (different colors / window location/setup) and you can save these for on-the-fly switching?"

If by "<completely>" you mean "<partially>," then yes, I realised that.

I spent yesterday morning (and afternoon...) scanning the New Features .pdf, the manual, all while having a copy of Vegas 5 open. I haven't yet stumbled upon the preferences tab that allows you to change the shape of the sliders, their colors, and the "look and feel" of the icon sets. I know I can "tone down" the saturation of the icons, though this still doesn't address how soft'n'cudly they look. Maybe I'm missing this tab?

My girlfriend -- a near Luddite -- came down so I could walk her through some of the new features. She's an actress and we'd met when I offered to edit a film she produced. She knew the Vegas 5 release would be like Chri'mas in July for me and so she kindly made like she was excited and put her glasses on to get a better look at what was on screen. Her first comment was, are you ready --

"What's with the little sunbursts and weird colors? That looks terrible."

Please, let me make something clear, because people are confusing what I'm saying for what others are or have said. I KNOW color and edge design doesn't change functionality. I KNOW that Vegas 5 is Vegas 4 plus some improvements. My point is that the UI, like many of the "improvements," show Sony's true colors (hah...):

Vegas 5 is, as Lance Bacheldor said after FCP 4 was released, an "also ran." Vegas had a good life as the underdog app that strangely ran circles around most of the higher end apps in some very quirky ways -- but those days look to be over. It's is now set squarely aimed at end-user, mom-n-pop family video editors, and no longer has higher aspirations ala PPro and FCP.

You can see this clearly in where fun was prioritized over functionality. Ever since 3.0, since I like many of us have been clamoring to get Vegas some respect, all everyone's been shouting about is better capture tools, better EDL export and import, and better media management. Instead we're thrown a few bones in this area -- we have sublips but no improved organizational structure to put them in.

It's not so much that Vegas 5's improvements were pointless or unwelcome -- it's that they are really telling about Sony's priorities. Vegas 4 added toys and fun things, only they were second to the real tools that got us excited (three-wheel and secondary CC, supersampling, motion blur, scopes, to name a few...)

Vegas 5 looks like a lot of toys that the real tools took the back seat to.

- jim

I'm guessing that Sony was aiming for a blend between the plainess of Vegas 4 and the super bubbly and roundness of Apples' designs.

JBJones

The baby-blue icons I see are a light, relaxing color that do not take away from the function. I also like the bright white (thin) opacity bar because it's utilitarian and I can see it better than the old grey one.

Before downloading the demo I had the impression from the first posts here that Sony had decided to put some kind of garish, in your face skin on the program. Nothing could be further from the truth -- just a slight color--scheme change that looks fine to me.

Vegas is now set squarely aimed at end-user, mom-n-pop family video editors, and no longer has higher aspirations ala PPro and FCP.

My god your right! I don't know why I didn't see that before, but now that you told us your girlfriend doesn't like the new icons...

The last opinion I seek on colors and shapes is that of a women. They live in a different universe and have no connection to reality.

JJK

For the life of me, I can't figure out why of all the changes this one is getting the most attention.

I've never been a fan of software that reinvents the wheel interface-wise for no practical reason. One of the big reasons I liked Sonic Foundry's stuff in the first place is that it was designed to follow the "official" Windows GUI guidelines, making it much easier to settle into than, say, Cool Edit Pro (and now Adobe Audition) and Adobe's other stuff that tends to exist in its own little private universe. Vegas 5 has finally adopted the XP look and feel (only three years late) and the subdued colours mean that the interface doesn't distract from what you're actually working on.

A quick bit of playing around on the Display options tab shows that by simply dragging both the Saturation and Tint sliders all the way to the left, you can get clean, elegant grayscale icons. You'll probably have to restart Vegas for the change to fully take effect.

By combining the Tint slider with changes to the active window title bar color in Control Panel (if you don't like the subtle colouring of the toolbars in Vegas I'm sure you've toned down the other elements of your GUI), you can create just about any look you might want. For complete and total boredom, you can even turn off the use of Windows XP themes from the General tab, thereby eliminating the round corners of buttons.

As for the icons themselves looking soft and cuddly, I honestly can't figure that out. What I see are icons that are (by and large) very clear and identifiable. It's much easier to figure out what they represent, especially on my laptop display running at 1920x1200.

The interface is clean, unobtrusive and above all functional. You can even set the dock area to auto-hide now, which is a great feature if you're stuck on a 17" monitor.

planders : right on !