Quality of Vegas Videos Vs. Final Cut Pro

Kenny Q wrote on 11/1/2007, 6:28 PM
Hello,
I am new to this forum.
I am a professional DJ and I am interested in editing music videos.

I''ve been a Sound Forge user for years and I've always been interested in buying Vegas.
A friend of mine who DJs using big screen videos (and uses Final Cut Studio) told me that he wouldn't recomend Vegas because the images are not as clear on a big projected screen.

He told me that he used to use Vegas but made the switch to Final Cut Pro and now his videos look better.

Another friend told me that Vegas is easier to learn and that editing mixed music videos in Vegas is much faster.

Is this true?
Does Vegas and Final cut put out the same quality videos?

Thanks,
Kenny Q

Comments

ReneH wrote on 11/1/2007, 6:45 PM
Kenny,

I would say your friend bought into the FCP and Apple hype. He probably attended public school at the time when Apple was giving away computers to school districts, like a drug dealer gives away cocaine and heroine to hook and create a "market" for their wares.

Also, I don't think your friend has any serious time in Vegas, otherwise, he would have stayed with it. More than likely, the videos he's talking about were bad as a result of bad lighting and perhaps bad options/selections while rendering the files. In all fairness, I am sure both programs crank out good videos, its the end user who selects the best render options overall.
GlennChan wrote on 11/1/2007, 6:54 PM
The quality of the video will mostly come down to how good the editor is and how much time and care is put into the project.

Technically, both Vegas and FCP will pretty much put out the same quality video. If it the video isn't clear then chances are it's being encoded incorrectly.

In Vegas, you need to manually wrangle color space conversions to get proper encoding. Some info:
http://glennchan.info/articles/vegas/colorspaces/colorspaces.html
rmack350 wrote on 11/1/2007, 6:56 PM
Yeah, it's pretty unlikey that Final Cut actually makes better video but I suppose there's always the chance that it leads a user to make better choices...

What I'd suggest you do is edit on Vegas, and then tell him it was edited on Final Cut. Better yet, cut two videos on Vegas and say one was on FCP. See if he says the FCP one looks better. My guess is he got more praise from his friends when he said he'd edited something on FCP, and so he felt better about it.


Rob Mack
farss wrote on 11/1/2007, 6:56 PM
If you don't know what you're doing it's not too hard to make some pretty hohum looking video using Vegas compared to FCP. I think a number of us have mentioned this issue several times, if you don't setup Vegas properly it's an issue, more so if you live in PAL land.

If you do take the time to know what you're doing then the results are exactly the same, well at least with DV. In fact I've many times used Vegas to fix some horrible messes made in FCP.

When you step up to broadcast formats like Digibetacam and BetaSP (think serious money here) then yes, FCP has had the edge over Vegas technical quality wise. Vegas Pro 8 addresses this issue.

Bob.
Kenny Q wrote on 11/1/2007, 7:29 PM
Thanks for your replies. (I like Rmac350's reply).

I'm going to look into getting Vegas.

We are using music videos that we receive from record companies on DVD (like the ones on MTV). We are editing out certain dialog that many of these videos have and in some cases stripping the audio and pasting different audio.

Thanks for your help.
I'm sure that I will have many questions in the future.

- Kenny Q
Jay M wrote on 11/2/2007, 5:26 PM
Considering that you are mostly dealing with the audio, then vegas is heads and shoulders above all other video editors.

~Jay
kentwolf wrote on 11/2/2007, 6:35 PM
>>... it's pretty unlikey that Final Cut actually makes better video...

I frequently work on some projects with a guy who is a FCP guy and there is never an issue interchanging video between the 2 apps. This has been the case since Vegas 5, at least for me.

Any video quality issues, as has been stated, are more than likely *user* issues rather *app* issues.
rmack350 wrote on 11/2/2007, 6:58 PM
Kent,

This always comes up so maybe you can recap. How do you interchange video between the two applications? What do you find works well?

Rob
busterkeaton wrote on 11/2/2007, 8:05 PM
As a Sound Forge user, there is no question whatsoever you should use Vegas.

Download the demo of Vegas and find out easy it is to use. Post your questions here.
With Vegas you will spend your time learning how to make your videos better. With FCP, the first several months will just learning how to make the video.
Laurence wrote on 11/2/2007, 9:56 PM
When I switched from FCP to Vegas several years ago, the Vegas DV codec was noticably better than the one used by FCP. I also thought that the mpeg 2 compression looked noticably better. At the time, Apple seemed to be more concerned with render time than video quality and DVD Studio Pro rendered DVDs way faster. This was at the expense of quality though, which was one of the reasons why I switched.

I still feel that Vegas does a better job of downrezzing than FCP. In fact, I feel that the difference is so big that an FCP user is better off downconverting on capture than they are in downrezzing an HD project if they care at all about the quality of their DVDs.

Now many of us capture and edit in HDV and downconvert final projects to SD for DVDs because we feel that gives us better quality than what you get with an SD convert on capture. That difference in quality is subtle, but it is worth the extra effort. That extra difference is also something that I have yet to see achieved on a Mac with FCP.

The way I see it, you have the following tiers with SD DVD production:

1: Good: Shoot in SD, make SD DVDs.
2: Better: Shoot in HDV, downconvert on capture. Edit in SD and make SD DVDs.
3: Best: Shoot in HDV, edit in HDV, downconvert HDV masters to SD to make SD DVDs.

In this scheme, the middle option is the best an FCP user can do.

On the other hand, if you are working entirely in HD, FCP has 10 bit color and some other niceties that give it a bit of an advantage.

In my case, shooting HDV, I'm further ahead quality-wise with Vegas.
kentwolf wrote on 11/3/2007, 12:51 PM
>>...How do you interchange video between the two applications?...

Vegas 4-8 to FCP (the latest whatever it is)

I have always been able to send Vegas rendered NTSC DV AVI files, targa sequences, as well as their favorite (not mine), Quicktime. Audio files have also not proven to be a problem (MP3, WAV and some other Apple format, the name which escapes me now; AAC?).

It probably says more about the FCP setup rather than anything I do. I do not do anything extraordinary to ensure all is OK with FCP.

...and that's my story. :)
kentwolf wrote on 11/3/2007, 12:54 PM
>>...With Vegas you will spend your time learning how to make your videos better..

I cannot agree more. Sure beats having to figure out workarounds and the like.

With Vegas, you can concentrate on *videos*; not making the program work/not crash (like for Pinnacle stuff). Novel concept. :)
JoeMess wrote on 11/3/2007, 2:24 PM
I have noticed color differences when comparing sorenson compressed quicktime rendered with Vegas 7 and the latest version of Compressor (the compression application that comes with FCP and DVD Studio Pro). It appears that Apple does some automatic color adjustments that bump up saturation by default. Using the Vegas, convert Studio RGB to Computer RGB gave me the same results in Vegas 7 as FCP. I have not yet compared the same files with 8. This might sound like a positive for FCP, but it is not. FCP, especially in computer/web sizes and formats, has a Russion Roulette problem on output. I am never sure what I am going to get until after the compressor round. With Vegas, particularly using the render to memory feature, I know exactly what my output will look like. Get Vegas, especially if you are used to the Sound Forge GUI. The integration of the two is remarkable. As a matter of fact, I use the batch converter feature in Sound Forge 9 to batch render Vegas video projects "Compressor-style" with excellent results at work.

Joe
GlennChan wrote on 11/4/2007, 12:50 AM
1- It should be that Vegas makes the image too washed out by default. Not FCP making the image too saturated.

In Vegas, you sometimes need to manually stick the "studio RGB to computer RGB" conversions in there to avoid having the image too washed out. Sorenson is one format where you have to do this.

2- FCP generally handles levels and color space conversions for you. (I like this aspect of FCP.) There are a few bugs in Quicktime doing inappropriate color management (e.g. roundtrips to AE and back) and a down/upconversion bug with 709Y'CbCr<-->RGB<-->601Y'CbCr.

One you know the issues, it isn't a problem with either platform since you can figure out how to do things correctly.