This may be slightly OT but something you may want to "play around with" is the concept of using both together in synergy via Satish's free frameserver plugin available for both programs. (www.debugmode.com)

Here is what I mean, you may well have favorite routines or methods in Premiere that you are comfortable with. You may also develop some of those for Vegas. Assuming you have a reasonably powerful machine with decent memory you can "serve" from the time-line of one to the time-line of the other AND THEN BACK to another instance of Vegas without rendering.

You may find you can have your cake and eat it too, although that expression really never made any damn sense to me :)

If nothing else this method may well ease the transition to Vegas as your "primary NLE" if you do decide to make it. I also realize you may find this method is too convoluted for everyday use, but it may allow you to occasionally use a favorite Premiere feature when it would be convenient to you.

Just throwing out the thought to you in a "for what it is worth manner". Good luck.

>>>"Why is it that no matter what I do when I'm trying to use either a video effect or a transition effect I can never get the darn effect to fade in nicely and exit nicely? It's always so abrupt that it looks,..well,... cheap! <<<<

Thats easy, simply extend the transition, by dragging the clip more, into the adjoining clip.(Overlap).

For the fades extend the fades, by grabbing the symbol,looks like a quarter of a circle, and dragging into the clip more. You can make the fade into a transition by dragging the transition into the fade area, as you would with the overlap.

Ed

Concerning transitions,

Depending on the quality of your preview, transitions can look very abrupt until they are rendered. You also may have some very short transitions on your timeline. As another poster suggested, extend the transition area. Do this by putting your mouse pointer in the upper corner of the transition area until it changes to a 1/4 circle. Keep holding the left mouse button down and drag the corner in whichever direction your transition needs to go. You can extend them as long as you wish. There are also default transition settings which are usually set to 7 frames as the default until you change it. They are silky smoothe once rendered.

As a former Premiere user for many years, I think you'll find Vegas a refreshing change and a pleasure to work with once you're up to speed. Of course there are some users who are having problems, but hopefully you won't experience any drastic problems.

Mike

I am not much of manual reader too and I find many good things just by experimenting with, but some times I have to reach for manual to refresh some stuff. If you have problem with transition is not because of Vegas, but your natural (and mine too) dislike to manuals. I did "test drive" the Premiere and found it easy to use when goes to simple transitions, but Vegas have more power to control. Take your time and experiment with transitions and you will found out that the limitation is only yor imagination.

The Premiere to Vegas transation was hard for me too. I got Vegas when SF gave away the free 4.0 beta. I FORCED myself to do some work completly in Vegas w/o using premiere. After a week of using Vegas at home and Premiere at work, I pre-ordered my copy of Vegas 4. :) If you force yourself to use just vegas for a little bit, you won't want to use premiere again (i dread every time I use it at work). Working with Vegas is much more fluid-like with Vegas, kinda like putting you feet in the wet sand at the beacj. it just feels so goooooooood. :)

I'm not much of a manual reader in the normal sence: i use it for bathroom reading. :) reading the manual can be quite useful though. Many, many simple questions posted on the forum could be answer if they pulled out the manual (or used the help file).

i'm not quite sure by what you mean when the effect doesn't fade in/out nicely? do you mean when 2 clips are overlapping you can't get a transition to properly transation? or do you mean that when you gave a transation at the start/end of a lone event it doesn't look right? i haven't run into any transation problems yet.

Yeah Friar! "Working with Vegas is much more fluid-like with Vegas, " - This is my opinion too. For others coming from a more "strict", predetermined NLE is a bit of a shock - it's gotta be more diffcult than that - surey?

I've never used Premmy, though I've seen pros use it. I have used VideoWave and Studio7, which are based around the "Storyboard" type of NLE. Both present to the user a "fixed" approach to the NLE operator. One has to remember that Vegas - coming out of SOFo a major audio software comnpany - is comparatively more flexible. But coming with this approach AND from a background of audio software, where flexibility is "built-in" and necessary, it can be fairly daunting. Yes, there are rules and bolted down procedures, but for the experienced "other" NLE operator it can be quite unnerving to believe, think and then accomplish something, like dissolves, in what may appear to be too easy. I still remember almost jumping out of my swivel chair, when I saw how easy it was to do a dissolve and then the automatic dissolve between 2 clips by "forcing" one clip over the other! THEN to see how easy it was to apply a "standard" transition at the overlap - Couldn't - DIDN'T believe that was all that was needed. It had to more diffucult than? NO!

But back to your original posting: Like Friar - what exactly are you finding looking weak with the transitions? - I have shown my work to pros and others, and they have never commented on the trannies being amateur. Perhaps you might wish to expand on your thoughts a bit. I'm willing to discuss this further, as I too can learn from a pro like yourself, and I respect your knowledge and experience. I too could be missing something - really!

I've learnt to read and re-read the Free manual; do the VegTutes - now all over the place on the web; view Chienworks site - where our colleagues are making Vegas-films; read the several Vegas websites; test test and test ideas out and of course post here to get a reality check on what I understand about this fab NLE s/w.

Looking over the fence is fine, what will you lose by jumping that particualr divide? - Hey, as others have pointed out here, you can always cut a "door" or build a gate in that fence - yeah? Don't forget that old saying - "Fences make for good nieghbours!" - yeah?

Best regards

Grazie

I think, but am not sure, what Toogtown means about transistion wise it is easier in Premiere because in Premiere you can edit, cuts only wise, and simply butt one end up to another...you want to add a dissolve orf something you drop it in, and again - no real issues. Now with VV there is no "stop" to a clip - in other words you drop in a clip and push it back to what you think is the end of the other clip but it does not stop - it just goes over that clip. If you have the transitions button on it gives you a dissolve even if you don't want one there. If you are not careful you can end up with a 1 or 2 frame dissolve that you don't want. Yes this drag and drop dissolve method is extremely 'easy" compared to Premiere. Now here is what I *think* Toogtown is saying - in Premiere you put the dissolve in and set the A > B or B > A setting and than you can set a % to start and end *AND* if you want to set the length you click on it and type in the length 5 frames, 5 seconds...whatever. In VV there isn't a way to click on a dissolve once it is in place and type in the length, you have to drag the ends around until you get the time you want. Also you have all these "hidden" options - right click on the transition and then "fade type" to see what I mean if you don't know.

So, at least to me, dropping in a cross dissolve in Premiere is easier because really all you do is drop it in and set the time. It is sort of a no brainer if you want to look at it that way. VV is not intuative that way - because you can always get a cross dissolve if you are not careful and it is not easy/intuative to change the length. I think this could be easy to solve if the SoFo team just made it so when the "Automatic Crossfades" button was OFF the video would just 'butt up' to the other take and not go "into" it, and when the button was turned ON the video would only go as far as the default crossfade setting and not more *AND* once it was in place all one would have to do is type in the length if you wanted to change it. ..dragging it around is not the best way IMO.

I still use Premiere because it has features I need for certian projects. I am trying to cut a feature with VV now. In the past I have used it to cut quick and easy things where fades and dissolves only had to go on 'feel' and not exact times/frames. Yes I can slap together a promo or a music video much easier with VV but I am far from dumping Premiere as an edit system. VV will have to add a lot more, basic, 'pro' type features before that happens.

Small list of things you can do in Vegas that are hard or impossible to do in Primere:

1. Set up tracks by dragging and dropping.
2. Preview effects and event pan crops in real time frame by frame as you change them.
3. Use color correction tools and split screen to fix color problems.
4. Work with Mpeg and other files without rerendering.
6. Be able to do professional quality multi track audio editing, with a multitude of processing and effects.
7. Real time preview to external monitor.
9. Scripting, scripting, scripting, Check out Excalabur!!!!!!!!
10. Easy and quick compositing.
11. Real time key framing.
12. AC3 encoding.
13. Markers to set chapter points in DVDA
14. Video scopes to analyze and adjust your video.
15. 5.1 Surround sound mixing.
16 High Definition editing and output.
17. Dynamic RAM preview (although realtime preview is so good I rarely use it)
18. Support for 14 Progressive and Panasonic AG-DVX100
19. Other things I can't think of at the moment.

I used Primere for a long time. When I first started using Vegas, I had problems doing what to me were simple tasks in Primere. What I discovered was that Vegas had developed much simplier, faster, easier to use functions to complete the same tesks and because I was used to Primere, it took me a little while to figure out how to do these functions. When I started to see the logic of Vegas it was wonderful. The basic editing functions in Vegas were direct and simple to execute. The workflow is very quick. Just being able to instantly preview each change made in still or moving mode as I made them has saved me hours of work. After I got into the swing of Vegas, I began to discover and am still discovering all the powerful features hidden under the hood. I started reading the posts on this and other forums, downloading tutorials and Veg files and trying them out. Comparing Primere to Vegas is like comparing your father's stuffy old cadalic to a custom race car. I would estimate that if I worked on the same project in Vegas and Primere, that I would complete the project in Vegas in about a third of the time. I really think it would be in your best interest to take the time to explore Vegas and see if you don't agree. It could save you time and money.

Happy editing, Wobblyboy

Hmmm....

I just have to take some issues with what you just said wobblyboy. First though on some points we need to estabish that Premiere 6.5 has been out now for a while and perhaps you are talking about Premiere version 4? 5? Also I love VV and I am not saying this to say "oh VV is bad" I am saying this becuase what you have said is not fully correct.

So what you said -

>> things you can do in Vegas that are hard or impossible to do in Premiere:
>>1. Set up tracks by dragging and dropping.

I am not sure what you mean because in Premiere you have your bins and your media and if you want to all you do is drag and drop that media from the bins onto the timeline. Drop it where you want it and on whatever track you want it to go to. VV allows for the same thing. I edit this way with both set ups. You add the filters and plug-ins the same way - your drag them onto the media you want them on. Same in both Premiere and VV.

>>2. Preview effects and event pan crops in real time frame by frame as you change them.

Depends on what effects and what you mean by "real time". Premiere can, and does, allow for 'real time preview' of most effects as of Version 6.5. You could always scrub the time line and see the effects as well in the past. Beyond that many of the plug-ins open in their own window and you can see a frame by frame advance there as well. For example can click on the built in "motion" setting for an event and it opens up a window where you can set motions like flipping the image or zooms or 'pans' and it shows you the effect in faster than real time. In a plug-in such a BigFX FilmFX it too has a preview window that you can set to "update everytime" and you will see changes as they are made. In VV you can see the changes in the preview window, same a Premiere. The VV Spice Master 2.1 plug has it's won preview window and I am guessing probably Boris for VV will as well. As for "real time" - results vary I am sure from system to system but both Premiere and VV have 'real time' viewing.

>>3. Use color correction tools and split screen to fix color problems.

VV now offers p[retty awesome CC built in - correct. But Premiere has some very good Plug-in available - Vixen and Synthetic Aperture's tools are great and both offer scopes and such. Synthetic Aperture does have a split screen as well as zebra stipes. So number 3 is a partial truth because VV has it built in, and Premiere doesn't. And yes having it built in is a plus for many people but you didn't specify 'built in' as part of your point.

>>4. Work with Mpeg and other files without rerendering.

Again not sure exactly what you mean. You can edit QT, AVI and Mpgs in Premiere - in the same project. If you mean to imply that VV can print out to DV without rendering that is not correct, the same as it is for Premiere. In order to do a 'PTT' via firewire all the files would need to be in the DV AVI format. And aside from that - you need to render *any* file to the final you want when you are done. But as far as working on it in the timeline..no, you don't need to re-render *before* you work on it.

>>6. Be able to do professional quality multi track audio editing, with a multitude of processing and effects.

And this is why I was first into VV - for the audio. No one ever said that Premiere was an audio editing system. They are trying to do more audio, such as adding the DX filters import now. But I have always used Sound Forge to work on audio before I master, so to speak. I do the same with VV but VV allows better control for laying in audio I feel. BUT - I will say that Premieres automation of the mixing controls is veeerrryyy nice. Now that Abobe purchased Cool Edit Pro we will see how Premiere changes to interact with the multi track editing side of things.

>>7. Real time preview to external monitor.

Again - not sure what you mean. Premiere allows the same type of "preview" via firewire that VV does. Premiere also allows the audio to be sent out via firewire, something lacking in VV's preview to external monitor function. Also Premiere tends of have more stable playback from the timeline during firewire preview. Now if you mean 'external monitor' as an NTSC monitor/TV hooked up to your video card, sort of a TV OUT/Dual monitor set up - Premiere supports that as well.

>>9. Scripting, scripting, scripting, Check out Excalabur!!!!!!!!

Provided a person can write it this is awesome. And Excalabur is a plug-in you can purchase for VV no matter how it got to that point (ie - a front end to a script) so on the point of scripting - yes VV has this and Premiere does not. As for Plug-Ins availabe - yes VV has some but Premiere has many many MANY more available.

>>11. Easy and quick compositing.

Depends on what you want to do - really Premiere is made to edit video but it can composite and it is very simple and easy to do. Just drop an item over something. Than set the method for blending. Or if you want to have it 'faded' you just set the opacity on the higher tracks. But if you want to get complex that is what AE is for. But "easy and quick" - well, sure Premiere can do that. I have built simple titles using Premiere and Photoshop. I could take those same elements and bring them into VV and so the same thing as well. I think a better point might be that VV can do more complex comositing than Premiere, but than I go back to saying that Premiere never said it was made to do complex compisiting and if you want to compare things like that than compare VV to AE, not premiere. (To use you car example - 'Hey my 2003 sports car can go faster than your 2003 John Deer tractor!')

>>11. Real time key framing.

Again with the "real time". Premiere can do keyframes and they playback "real time" if that is what you mean. Do you mean adding markers real time? During playback just hit * on the number pad or ALT+CTRL+= and markers will be dropped in. Sorry if I don't get this one.

>>12. AC3 encoding.

Premiere AC3 encoding is available with a plug-in. I beieve Surcode makes one.

>>13. Markers to set chapter points in DVDA

Adobe is pushing it's new "Encore DVD" software and from what I understand Premiere 7 will have some sort of intercation with this - thusly there *may* be translation from Premiere markers to Encore DVD that same way VV goes to DVDA. Having said that it would be pretty hard for Premiere 6.5 to have support for DVDA because Premiere 6.5 came out before DVDA did, not to mention VV markers probably don't move over to say DVDit or the like either.

>>14. Video scopes to analyze and adjust your video.

See my answer to number 3.

>>15. 5.1 Surround sound mixing.

Correct, but again - to do 5:1 in VV you need to get something additional. A plug-in. On top of that go back to what I said in number 6. Premiere was not made to be an audio workstation, it was made to be an editing system - for video. You want 5:1 - Nuendo is there and works very well. So like compositing and Premiere you want to compare something compare VV to Nuendo for the ability to mix in surround.

>>16. High Definition editing and output.

Correct me if I am wrong - SoFo has already said currently there is no way to *output* HD. Yes you can edit but you can not output, and getting into VV is still up in the air as well from what I can tell. As for Premiere - sorry, it does indeed do HD *AND* you can output it as well. Of course you are talking about hardware here but it has also been discussed on these boards that for VV to be able to really edit HD and output it it would prebably need some sort of expensive system. Want to see a HD Card that works with Premiere? Go here. I asked SoFo about support for these cards but no one from SoFo has responded.

>>17. Dynamic RAM preview (although realtime preview is so good I rarely use it)

Premiere does this. You just have to tell it - you choose "Preview to RAM". You get a lot of options really - You can preview by scrubbing, Preview from disk, preview from RAM or preview to Screen. obviouslt they all depend of your system, the speed, the video card and the amount of RAM. But sorry - again, you were wrong. VV and Premiere can both use RAM for previews.

>>18. Support for 14 Progressive and Panasonic AG-DVX100

Yes the support for 24P is very nice and works very well. But again, if you want something external to prep your files for editing there is DVFilm Maker. Something that DVX100 users who edited with VV had to use prior to the release of VV 4.0b a scant few months ago. Who is to say that Premiere 7 won't also support it?

>>19. Other things I can't think of at the moment.

Oh I am sure you can. ;)

Look - I know this isn't an Adobe forum but I also sort of feel I have to stand up for Premiere because it does get thrashed a lot and I don't mind being alone in the wilderness. I sttod alone over in the Adobe forums when VV 4 came out and I posted "Is Vegas Video 4 a Premiere killer?" See I think VV current strong points have to do with audio. yes the CC correction and now the 24P support are extremely nice as well. So I think that is you want 24P support, awesome audio capabilaties and built in CC than yeah - VV is for you. If you need things like wide plug-in avalablity, compatable EDL support, ability to do online and open ended hardware support that VV probably is not for you.

Wow,..some great points here! OK,.. I have played around with Vegas today for a couple of hours and it DOES produce some beautiful stuff. I have spent the last hour though trying to find out how to change a clip's speed (slow motion) and I'll be darned if I can't figure out (what is normally such an easy task in Premiere) how to do it!!!! I was ready to scream when there is no mention in the help menu after I typed in search words like "speed", "slow motion", and "length"!! This is EXACTLY what I hate about the learning curve. If someone could please tell me how to adjust the speed of an individual clip on the timeline so that I can achieve a slow motion effect I would certainly be in debt to you!!!! Good God,...I can't believe that I can't figure something so obviously simple out in this application!!!! I figured it out in five seconds in Premiere, but again,...this is NOT Premiere and I know I must be patient!

Togo

To slo-mo on vegas hold the control key and left click-drag an end of your clip (audio or video). If you do that to audio, you have the option of adjusting the pitch along with the length.

filmy- I think that wobbly boy was trying to say that for the small price vegas blows premiere away. I've been using premiere at work for 3 years, and I can't stand using it. It constantly crashes, slow to respond takes forever (one time I waited 3 minutes for Premiere to load up: not a file, just to goto the new project screen!), the Matrox RT2500 was/is a complete joke (2 realtime layers, then you need to render just to preview!). The are only thing I found premiere useful for, and that was using the RT2500 for realtime analog output. Premiere 6.5 may be better then 6.0, but for the cost fo the upgrade I bought Vegas 4, with the surround sound (which isn't a plugin, dolby digital is), realtime waveform monitor,simple text editor in vegas (which cuts down on photoshop files!), and vegas also uses the alpha channel in PSD files by default (sucks when you forget to turn on alpha channel in premiere.) It's not a matter of features, but of the flow and user friendlyness. I just didn't find premiere friendly.

Slow mo wasn't so bad and I also tried it by inserting something called a velocity envelope. Either way produced a slow motion,..but the results had a lined pixelation in the motion. I resolved this by forcing a resample and the results were great. The audio in Vegas is par excellence!!

TDolce - Try playing around with the VE.

Right click on the VE. Drop down menu FULL of other options.

You can add points, for making changes, right click again on the point you've just added; try changing the forwards and backwards motion, by adjusting the "%" value. 100%=Normal Speed; >100%=faster; 0%="Stand Still" and %<0%, that is negative numbers, video goes into reverse!

Adding further points to the VE, with more changes, gives fab control over the whole length of the clip. Great fun!

Regards,

Grazie

I just spent about an hour writing a long reply describing all the things that seem easier for me to do in Vegas. Accidently clicked the wrong "X" and lost it all. So I guess I will go with the short reply. Don't get me wrong, I used Primere for a long time and loved it. I still open Primere once in a while for certain things. However, at least for me, Vegas is much easier and faster to use. I like being able to preview and bring files directly to time line from Explorer window, I like automatic transition creation, I like changing timeline scale by dragging edge of timeline bar, etc..... I didn't mean to say that you couldn't do these functions in Primere, for me, it's just easier and faster to do them in Vegas. I haven't really used Primere for some time and I apologize if I infered that Primere couldn't do some functions that it can do. What does bother me is when people try Vegas, don't take the time to explore it properly and then say that it dosen't work right because it dosen't do things the way Primere does them. I think everyone has the right to choose the tools that work best for them. I'm just such a Vegas fan that I would like people to give Vegas a good try before deciding on something else.

Wobbly,

You are sooo right. I have never gone this far as I have with Vegas this week. I just told myself that I'm going to just give it real effort this time and I'm liking it. I'm really, really liking it! The stability alone makes me giddy!

td

You might also be interested to know that if you have Excalabur script, you can change velocity envelope and it will automatically adjust event length to include entire event. Excalabur also provides several other functions that are worth way more than it's modest price, I think $39. The biggest one for me is that I can shoot multi cam and quickly sync it up using Excalabur. This means I can shoot several cams at a live music event, get a board feed on dat (or even multi track on ADAT) for audio, and quickly sync up clips in Vegas. You could record a show with no central multiplexor, just people with digital cameras, record dat or multitrack audio from the main board, place it in Vegas, sync it up, and edit and mix both audio and video. Very COOL!!!!

Sometimes it seems that Vegas performs functions in such a stright forward and easy manner that it's hard to figure out how to do something. When you are use to and looking for a complicated way to do something, the simple and easy is not always so obivous.

I've found Vegas's most significant advantages to be its stability and its color correction plugins. While Vegas has crashed on me a few times, it's no more than a tiny fraction of the times I was able to send Premiere packing. And even then, it's usually some glitch that only causes me to save, close, and then re-open Vegas - not a full-blown Alt-Ctl-Del restart like with Adobe. Also, the color correction tools in Vegas are really no better than Vixen in Premiere (in fact, Vixen I would rate Vixen slightly higher), but they are free and more than adequate for most tasks.

The main disadvantage to Vegas is its "uniqueness." By that I mean that it seems to do a lot of things differently than the rest of the NLE pack - not necessarily worse, just different. This of course adds a learning curve to veteran NLE users. It also makes several things counter-intuitive, such as applying transitions. However, I'm sure than enough time with it would overcome this disadvantage.

It also seems to function better as a stand-alone package rather than a piece of a larger workstation. Several users have complained about its ability to handle Adobe-rendered media (there appears to be a time-code issue, although I'm not completely convinced of this yet) and Vegas's ability to import/export EDL's is limited at best. Finally, Vegas's media management capabilities are pretty non-existent - though, in fairness, they are no worse than Premiere's. This is one of those rare features that I think FCP and Avid have always made a priority out of, while other companies have place farther down on the list.

In sum, don't switch if you don't have time to learn how to use Vegas properly, or if you plan to keep using several different pieces of software together. However, if you're looking for an all-in-one package that will do basic compositing, editing, and audio mixing, for a really good price, then Vegas fits the bill.

To touch on one earlier point, I think you can also right-click on a clip and go to "Properties," and there set the exact percentage by which you want a clip to slow down (or speed up) to a precise degree. That's an alternative to doing it with the Ctrl-Mouse method, pulling on the right "end" of an event and using the intuitive feel. The glory of the quick-and-dirty mouse-related stuff, of course, is that you can 'estimate' an effect or transition, then fine-tune it with the realtime preview. You can try out five changes, abandon them and start over before another NLE can render a time selection in one clip!

I had no pro NLE experience at all when I started with Video Factory, then quickly to Vegas 3 and now VV4. I've tried out demos of Premiere and other big-boy NLE's and I lost patience trying to get effects I can do in seconds in VV4! Once you've seen Paree....

My point is, I'm a low-budget filmmaker with a fulltime job during day hours. The time savings in doing cuts, cross-fades, color correction and sound is the difference between bringing in a project on time and having to reschedule post-production events for weeks.
People can't believe how fast I can deliver something. They think I'm smart. Huuhhh...

You are smart, you are using Vegas.

PREMIER 6.5 is a BIG SHIT !! and sure than PREMIERE 7.0 will be THE MOTHER OF THE SHITS!!

ADOBE.... HAS FUCKED!!

Greetings at the users and people's Sonic Foundry

juan2003

if that was a greeting, I'd hate to read your abuse!

Maybe you guys already knew this but, if for some reason you cannot finish your video in Vegas 4, you can spit out a CMX 3600 cuts-only edl (using a script). This is the easy method for moving a Vegas project to another video system. I have tested this quite a bit myself and the cutlist opens up just fine in AVID EDL Manager (a companion tool that ships with all AVID editing apps). Create a sequence from that, recapture- off you go.

If you need to move a complex audio project as OMF to or FROM Protools or whatever else supports OMF, you can use EDL convert- they just updated that to work better with Vegas, tried it, all is well.