Anyhow---maybe one of the reasons that Sonic had to sell Vegas is that there pricing structure didn't work--who knows----Look, there is plenty of competition out there in the Prosumer/Pro NLE world---fact is, its a very vital industry. The beauty of it is that capitalism works here---lots of competition forcing manufactuers to improve there products and be very conscious of price. I wish the same could be said for other industries.

Grazie, if I understood you, I am in agreement with you.

I'm more than willing to pay an increase if the product is improved. All I'm saying is that the price increase should be in proportion to the improvement.

I do not advocate raising the price simply to say, "See, we're as expesnive as FPC or Avid Express, so we're just as good." Price does not equal quality.

Does that make any sense?

"I do what I must do when I must do it."
Great philosophy, Tor!

J--

In my life I seem to remember an endless row of sales representatives all telling me there will be a severe price increase next month or so. Better give us your money now. Even though sometimes they are right, I've found that I'm better off not believing them anytime. I do what I must do when I must do it.
This is one of the times I wish there was an "ignore this thread" button.
Tor

I'm very encouraged by what Spot is saying. It does seem like an update is imminient. It reminds me of how when the GL2 was about to come out, Canon started offering rebates on the GL1 or when the Pioneer 107 DVD drive was about to be announce prices on the 106 were slashed hard.

Perhaps I shouldn't have been coy about it earlier, but here is the website

Videoguys

For those of you outside the US, I don't know the figures, but I assume that Videoguys is one of the top five retailers in the DV market in US. Or at least at the prosumer level. This may just be because Gary of videoguys is very active in the online DV community.

here is the quote

"We have been informed that effective January 1, 2004 Vegas4 will be sold through the Sony Electronics division at substantially higher prices. We still have inventory on hand from the old Sony Pictures Group. We will continue to offer our fantastic Vegas & Vegas+DVD promotions as long as we have inventory or year end - whichever comes first. The new price for Vegas will be $499.95 and the new price for Vegas+DVD will go to $699.95 effective January 1st. "

Thanks, Buster, for sharing the link.

Interesting thing, the page at Videoguys states, "The new price for Vegas will be $499.95 and the new price for Vegas+DVD will go to $699.95 effective January 1st."

However, on Sony's current Product Page, the price today is $559.96 and the price for Vegas+DVD is $799.96. Now, I'm not the brightest light on the tree this year, but those don't look like "substantially higher prices" to me. Sounds more to me like misleading advertising.

Or am I am missing something here???

J--

"The new price for Vegas will be $499.95 and the new price for Vegas+DVD will go to $699.95 effective January 1st."

Check what videoguys is selling Vegas for today.

Vegas 4 and training DVDs $349.95
Vegas 4+DVD and training DVDs $549.95

And the prices above included Spot's 4 DVD training package, so those prices are pretty darn good.

EDIT:

They also sell Vegas without Spot's DVDs. The bundle price means you save $50 on the DVD series. So their price for Vegas today is $299 and Vegas+DVD is $499

". . . so those prices are pretty darn good."

Granted! But I took "substantially higher prices" to mean something closer to Vegas' competitors (in the eleventy-hundred dollar price range).

Interesting, I see that Avid has lowered the price on Express DV. As I recall, Avid Express DV was well over $1K when I first looked at it a few years ago, before buying Vegas. Wonder who they're trying to compete with? ;o)

J--

I agree with Grazie. Review the supply and demand graph. When the price goes up, sales go down. Sony knows this. This is economics 101. Sony is in the business to make money first and foremost, all companies are. If they do plan to implement a substantial price increase it is because their economic models say that they have a flat supply curve in relation to their demand curve, or that a price increase will amount to very few people choosing not to purchase the product. Big companies don’t make price increases unless they feel they can increase their revenue. If that is true, we should feel good that we found a great value in the market at the time of our purchases.

There was also a good point made about people not thinking of Vegas as a premium software package if they don't pay the premium price.

Market forces will direct Sony’s decision.

Korey

Here is an interesting thought about the word PRO.
It seems like the old" Protools is the leader in the industry" garble is of course with video apps as well. Someone who uses Avid thinks it is the greatest because the industry said so. Their clients ask do you use Avid or Final Cut?
They don't ask do you use Vegas. They go what is Vegas??
I was offered a job for $13.00 hr to work for a training video company and they were dead set on using their Avid setup which they said was slow at best. I offered to take the job at such a lowball pay only if I was allowed to use Vegas and my own computer. I spent a weekend with Avid and found it to be just that, SLOW!
They said NO! I said there is nothing different nd work would flow faster between the two apps. They said "If you go to France everyone speaks French, not another language".
That was the dumbest thing I heard yet. I obviously declined the job which really killed me to do, but I do make aheck of alot more an hour on my own. I just need to make it more frequent. LOL
Yes it is a small world We vegas folks are in, but as Spot said, Sony is huge and will make hopefully abetter impact. I do see Vegas in other trade mags which it is never been before. Give it a chance to blossom to it's full extent and I think it will be a hell of a Flower! ; )
David

David, interesting story!

I've had producers ask me what software I use, too. When I say Vegas, there is a brief silence, then, "Never heard of it." But it hasn't prevented me from getting a job . . . not yet, anyway.

The problem I run into, more often than not, is the tape format. Only once that I can remember have I lost a job because I didn't shoot in Beta. When I tell everyone they can have it in Beta SP or Digi-Beta and use the mini-DV as a back-up, they are satisfied.

It's just a matter of time and educating the rest of world, isn't it?

J--

Hey guys,

Don't get me wrong I don't want to pay FCP upgrade prices any more than you do. But when it comes to r&d it ain't cheep. And like I said before the feature set of Vegas/acid is behind our competitors...not by much. But still enough that those that would choose vegas go in other directions because they can't wait any longer for vegas/acid to catch up.

For me it was shelling out for Sonar 2 when I found out that Vegas 3 still didn't have automated FX and no midi between either acid/vegas. Ofcourse the reasons that were given were "time+resources". Why? Cause sonic were in a cash crunch. Fine.

I doubt that the increase will be that bad. My last upgrade for sonar 3 producer costed $179. And that was from just an audio app. I thought $199 seemed fair for substantial improvements in both areas...Like I said I'm only guessing.

Ed.

BTW...I'm NOT saying I want midi in vegas...Keep up the good work in acid. Thats where I want to see midi improved in.

Quick, name one product with the Sony label on it that is cheaper than the competition ....

... I'm still waiting ...

Sony always prices slightly higher than the competition, based on real and perceived value. I would not be surprised if they carried this over to Vegas. However, note the modifier: slightly. I would be very surprised to see a huge price increase.

Adding up all the above, it looks like the price increase, and the probable price of an upgrade to a new version, will land around $150-$200 U.S. which is what I expected.

Reviewing Spot's thoughts, what leaps to mind is the stirring picture I would most like to see: That Sony Pictures (among other things a motion picture studio) instructs its in-house film editing engineers to disencumber themselves of Avid and Pro Tools, and replace them with its own hardware-and-EDL-friendly Vegas 5 as well as Sound Forge 7, then publicizes that fact. If anything will spark an industry revolution, that would.

This in turn, though, seems to suggest two versions of Vegas in the future--an "industry hardware" version and the prosumer version, a la Avid Express DV and the "bigger" Avids, since I wouldn't need the capability to output for a celluloid editor. Or wait--maybe I would....

From $300 to $500 is an over 66% increase. That sounds substantial to me.

So much speculation and about the only substance comes from SPOT (again!).
I use VV everyday now, churned out about 100 DVD, edited 100s of hours of footage. The purchase price is now irrelevant. What is relevant is how much of my time is used up making it do what needs to be done. Even if you only use VV as a hobby which is how I started out, I'll bet 98% of you hope one day to make a buck out of it.
So get realistic, it's a fraction of the price of a half decent camera, or a VCR, or a PC, even a decent studio monitor costs several times more than VV, Acid and SF together. If VV was twice the price but shaved 10% off the time it takes to get a job done it's money well spent. The last time I checked software doesn't wear out either.
For anyone serious about doing any job the cost of the tools is only relevant when you're talking orders of magnitude simply because you'll use them forever and only pay for them once. You're time is used up every day, the quality of your product is on display every day.

Farss, would you please mail me offline?
dse at sundancemediagroup.com

The last time I checked software doesn't wear out either.
For anyone serious about doing any job the cost of the tools is only relevant when you're talking orders of magnitude simply because you'll use them forever and only pay for them once. You're time is used up every day, the quality of your product is on display every day.
=========================================
Use them forever? Wear out?
In two years I have gone from Vegas 2.0 to 3.0 to 4.0 I don't plan to use 2.0 or 3.0 any longer. I don't get the analogy.

John

Maybe it's not an entirely valid analogy BUT you didn't have to buy the upgrade and I'd imagine you got value for your money, could do more with it or if you're lucky earn more money from it.
For years i struggled trying to belt nails in with a cheap hammer until one day I noticed that real carpenters use hammers made by Eastwing in the USA. Well that hammer cost me plenty nearly 30 years ago and apart from my dog chewing lots of the leather off the handle it's still going strong. Many of the other tools that I use have been handed down from my great grandfather.

I deal with many people still using ancient Media Composer systems, others still running VV Ver 2, FCP 1.2 and Macs that should have gone to pasture years ago.

I guess where I'm coming from is that buyig good tools isn't an expense, it's an investment, one that if you buy wisely pays a return. It's not the same as when your rent or the price of petrol goes up. Even if you're a hobbyist the return is greater satisfaction.

I think that there are four levels of vegas user:
1 - professional companies that do high quality work, but don't want to pay multi-thousand dollars for a program like Sony XPRI - this MIGHT make more of them look at vegas as a software option, but not all.
2 - Your lovable wedding video maker. Many of the people that want nice quality work, at a low price. They make thier living off of vegas, and don't want to spend more money on the software just for IMAGE.
3-Prosumer like me. I do a few odd jobs, but mostly I don't mind paying a couple hundred extra dollars for a nicer software package so that I can make my videos at top quality and ease of use.
4 - Big wallet, small brain average joe. These people just have lots of money and buy vegas because they heard its the best. They never really use it, kind of like your neighbor that paid 5 grand for his G5 Mac so that he can send email on it.


Cheroxy, I think you left out a group.

5- Small wallet, huge brain average joe. These people don't have lots of money and bought Vegas because it IS the best and is priced within reach. They only really use it as a hobby (read- one hell of a good way to relax from a stressful 40 hour week and raising 2 teenagers). Oh, I also send e-mails from this PC. :)

Some of us like the fact that Vegas is priced slightly higher than much lower quality software, which is why we buy it. Same goes for Sound Forge and Acid Pro 4.0. I have all three. Never put out a song created in Acid or edited in SF. Never made money from movies created in Vegas. But I'll tell you what, there isn't a day that goes by that I can't wait to get home and "play around" with this software!
With the tools I have available now (surround capabilities, midi capabilities in Acid, editing, burn to DVD, etc) I doubt I'll be tempted to upgrade on the next releases.
However, there are new buyers for this software all the time. If it's priced too high, they'll more than likely lose alot of this group. I figure we make up a good percentage of the user base, maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Everybody's looking to get the most bang for their buck, especially your average joe. So, what's more bang for your buck than Vegas...nothing!
If they increase the price to try to get the Pros to take notice, I don't think it's the best way.
Build an incredibly stable product, which has the capabilities of interacting with hardware controllers (big request on the audio side), which can render in formats that are compatible with the most used apps in the Pro field, then promote the hell out of it!
Increase the price if you want...but the guy who's dead set on using FCP or Avid isn't going to bother to switch. But build a stable product that is compatible with those two that a freelance can afford to buy, and I think you'll see increases in sales and arguably increases in Pros switching over.
Maybe what I'm suggesting isn't doable (compatibility with Avid and such), but if it was, I think THAT would be the way for Sony to get Pros to take notice.

¢¢

Myst, from what I see I would have to agree that the majority of vegas users are the "skilled hobbyist" like yourself (and me).

I think that is because that is how vegas started. I began a couple of years ago with video factory and then jumped to VV2. Back then the capabilities matched this userbase. It has grown into what I, and many feel is the BEST quality sub $1500 app out there. For that reason many professionals have jumped over to the faster, more stable boat lately. I imagine in a year or two more the user base will be more professional than non. Maybe, the price will have to go up to keep the amazing upgrades rolling like they have been. If that happens, like you said, vegas will be beyond what I want in a video editor. If that happens I hope they come out with a version that is between the screenblast and the amazing-professional-broadcast-HD Vegas. I'm serious. 90% of my projects are for family/friends for free AKA my hoppy/passion.

I don't mind paying a couple hundred dollars for my number one past time so that I can use the top quality codecs in a stable software. But more maybe out of my ability. If you are a professional using vegas to pay your mortgage, then there shouldn't be a problem paying more. Although, it is always nice to get such quality for a good price.

>>...it's a fraction of the price of a half decent camera, or a VCR, or a PC, even a decent studio monitor costs several times more than VV, Acid and SF together. If VV was twice the price but shaved 10% off the time it takes to get a job done it's money well spent..... If VV was twice the price but shaved 10% off the time it takes to get a job done it's money well spent. <<

>>I guess where I'm coming from is that buyig good tools isn't an expense, it's an investment, one that if you buy wisely pays a return. It's not the same as when your rent or the price of petrol goes up.<<

Very well said farss!
Randy

Fact is, Sony pays people top $$ to research all this and as mentioned, they're rarely wrong.
I can only state that as a hobbyist, if price becomes out of hobbyist's reach, they'll have to convert an awful lot of Pros!
Vegas 4 sold record numbers during it's launch. Numbers like 80,000 units were mentioned. Let's assume (Oh-oh!) 1/3 of those were hobbyists looking for the most bang for their buck. People that want more capabilities than Video Factory, and could justify the extra expense. If you alienate those buyers, you'll have to come up with about 25,000 Pros that are willing to switch to/ invest in Vegas. I dunno...
Don't kid yourself, software makers take the hobbyist group very seriously.We're much easier to please than the Pros. :)
I think if Sony makes Vegas compatible with Pro hardware/ competing software, the'll slowly gain converts and won't alienate the profitable hobbyist group.
Plug-ins are a great start. At work, my CAD/CAM software sells for a very reasonable price as opposed to others. However, if I want options like compatibility with ProENGINEER, I need to buy a plug-in for much more $$. That could be a way to go. If you make a living with this software, you don't mind investing if there's a return.

M