Man, I did the same thing that you are doing. I read and re-read the posts, and almost stayed with 4. Then, I remember that when 4 came out, there were lots and lots of "ohmyghosh this is a bug" posts that were apparently due to, uh, mostly a lack of computer skills. With that in mind, I upgraded to v 5. Personally, I like it, it has some useable additions, and the new DVD2A is a significant improvement over DVDA1. I have ha NO problems with purchase, registration, or use of the system.

The way I figure it is Sony will work the bugs out and while they are offering the great price for upgrading, take it! You could use V4 in the mean time until you feel good about the updates that you receive for V5 and then make the switch. Unfortunately all software comes with bugs. As a programmer I know that I can't find all the bugs myself because there are too many computer environments out there in the real world that we are not able to test. That is my humble opinion.

I second the great price for the upgrade, take it comment. I can assure you they are working on bug fixes as we write. Things will be cleaned up in the wash. To anyone worried about bug problems, go for it and buy the upgrade.

You certainly should not hold off because of bug reports. Like other Sofo/Sony products, this is a production-quality release. No problems there.

If you plan to use the DVD Architect part of the release, then the decision is the proverbial "no-brainer." DVDA 2.0 is the real deal, whereas DVDA 1.0 was pretty much a joke. DVDA 2.0 is a great product.

As far as the new feature in Vegas 5 itself, that is a much tougher call. Like many people, I was sorely disappointed by the lack of workflow enhancement features. Can I edit faster in Vegas 5? No. Can I render faster in Vegas 5? No. (Network rendering has turned out to be, for me, a disappointment -- see my various posts on the subject). Am I going to produce more work each day, or get the project to the client any sooner because of improvements in Vegas 5.0? No.

However, if you do a lot of fX, then the new masking and compositing modes are extremely important and definitely worth the upgrade. Also, the folks over in the sound forum have been very excited about all the improvements in the sound area. So, if you use Vegas as an audio mixer, then you definitely should upgrade. (Although my most-desired audio feature, the ability to assign audio fX to events, like you can do with video, and interactively adjust the audio, like you can do in Sound Forge, did not get added).

Hope that helps! My recommendation is to get it.

Some of the glitches in vegas 5 can also be do to the fact on how much junk do we put in computers. Screensavers, programs sometimes not compatible with windows, or etc. Some people have problems with vegas 4, 5. So my point is if you need it get, if you don't stay with vegas 4. We get so caught up with always wanting what the Joneses have. If you're making great videos editing with V4 then why do you need Vegas 5? That's my take. Out.