Plug-in Support Limitations

Leigh wrote on 3/2/2008, 6:04 PM
I, and many others, are frustrated by Vegas' plug-in architecture's limitations.

I am a fan of the suberb "Neat Video" plug-in, but the Vegas version of the product suffers from "glitches" that Premiere Pro and other editors don't exhibit. As I'm not a developer myself, I can't be more specific, but see this thread for more information (from the developer of NeatVideo):

www.neatvideo.com/nvforum/viewtopic.php?t=180

What do we have to do to get Sony to improve this area of Vegas? Apparently, this area of Vegas has not received any signficant work for some time. I'd really like to see this become a priority but I get the feeling that nothing is being done to improve this area of Vegas.

Vegas Pro 8 is an amazing product. Maybe we'd begin to see more third party support if the current limitations were addressed? I'd just be happy to be able to use NeatVideo in my workflow...

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/2/2008, 6:58 PM
sony hasn't seem interested in improving plugin support. Sad as they have much more $$ then sonic foundry did. Plus, before sony, the support response time was a day or two. Since Sony took over, nearly EVERY single support message, unless painfully simple, gets the same response.

I find it especially dishearting they're not working closer with 3rd party dev's too.
Rob-Candlelght Prductions wrote on 3/2/2008, 8:43 PM
I second the poor response times I've gotten when I needed help. That said, tech. support across the board has never been worse (bad support isn't a SONY exclusive!).

If architecture limitations are hindering 3rd party support, it would seem like a strategic benefit for SONY to address. I recently purchased the NEAT plug-in.. the thing is indeed *awesome*, albiet very slow. Presumably because of SONY plug-in limitations I had to apply their effect to the media rather than the track or clip, which significantly hampered rendering time (it seemed to have to apply it even in areas where that clip wasn't being displayed :-( )

I wonder if this "limit" (whatever it is) is part of the reason that SMARTSound isn't planning on a Vegas plug-in (despite that product directly competing with SONY's equivalent)?
johnmeyer wrote on 3/2/2008, 9:16 PM
I've said it many times: Third party support is the single most important factor in gaining and maintaining market share. Sonic Foundry (Madison) has never truly understood this. Too bad for them (and for us).
farss wrote on 3/2/2008, 10:16 PM
From memory what John is saying has been said by many of us over the years. Worst of all it applies just as much on the audio as well as the video side.
The dramatic improvement in the quality of the images we can aquire today makes this even more pressing.

Bob.
PeterWright wrote on 3/2/2008, 10:32 PM
I've used the Neat video noise reduction a bit, and have always been able to apply it at event level. The main problem was flickering during preview playback, but once I found that this wasn't in the final rendered output, it was tolerable.

Are there other specific shortcomings that users are experiencing?
John_Cline wrote on 3/3/2008, 12:05 AM
I've used the NeatVideo plugin in Vegas quite a bit. I've never experienced any problems with it except for one thing. It is primarily a spatial noise reduction system, but it does have a temporal component. It defaults to one frame and I found that it delays the video by one frame after a render, therefore the audio ends up leading by one frame. I just slip the audio one frame later (to the right) and the audio/video sync is maintained. If you have some particularly noisy video and decide to set the temporal noise reduction to two frames, then you must compensate by two frames instead of one. This is a Vegas problem, not a NeatVideo problem. Vlad from the NeatVideo Team discusses it here:

http://www.neatvideo.com/nvforum/viewtopic.php?t=193

I, too, would like to see Sony get off their lazy butts and fix some of these issues that are preventing third-party developers from porting their plugins to Vegas. I'd also like to see Sony get off their aforementioned lazy butts and fix the Blackmagic Intensity Pro MJPEG file problem!

John
farss wrote on 3/3/2008, 12:59 AM
Reading that Neat Video thread was painful but familiar.

Bob.
Leigh wrote on 3/3/2008, 6:23 AM
I've emailed Sony, in the hope of raising their awareness of the scale of the problem. If enough of us get on to them about it, maybe they'll take it seriously enough to do something about it...
TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/3/2008, 6:26 AM
Sadly, I doubt it. :(
johnmeyer wrote on 3/3/2008, 9:56 AM
I've emailed Sony, in the hope of raising their awareness of the scale of the problem. If enough of us get on to them about it, maybe they'll take it seriously enough to do something about it...

They won't. They know how to design great software, but they don't have a clue about how to win in the marketplace.
StormMarc wrote on 3/3/2008, 10:21 AM
I agree, third party plugin support is really terrible. One of the biggest flaws in an otherwise amazing program.

Marc
Steve Mann wrote on 3/3/2008, 1:54 PM
Yes, it is an architectural issue. Vegas does not alter the original AVI file, so there is no place for the plug-in to "hook" to the video.

It could be done, but then it wouldn't be Vegas any more.
farss wrote on 3/3/2008, 2:27 PM
No other NLE appears to alter the original AVI file either!

Bob.
StormMarc wrote on 3/3/2008, 2:54 PM
I think this is one of the main reasons Vegas has not "caught on" in many circles. I mean if you like using boris (for example) as a plug-in and then you try to use it in Vegas it's a joke compared to how other NLEs work with it.

Marc