Rob,

Audition is actually a program that used to be called "Cool Edit Pro," it was written and formerly marketed by Syntrillium. Adobe recently purchased Cool Edit Pro and put their name on it. Cool Edit is really a quite capable audio editor and multitrack recording system. I can't comment on its loop-based capabilities since I've never used it for that.

James

Cool Edit is by no means a joke. It's a great tool. It's not Vegas, nor is it ACID, but it's a very powerful alternative to Vegas. The lack of integration with Premiere and After Effects is sad, but...they'll learn, I'm sure.
Premiere Pro is a very good editor, and on good systems is quite stable. Resembles much of Vegas, AVID, Liquid, and even Ulead tools in the new build. It's nice looking, easy on the eyes, and full of under the hood features. Adobe did this one right, IMO

>>>Overall it seems like Adobe has finally caught up with the Sonic Foundry line, although their loop based product called Audition is a joke. It took two years for them to get here.<<<

How long how you been using computers? How long for doing audio/graphics/editing? Adobe catches up to Sony? Sony still has a ways to go before they catch up to Adobe in terms of user base and product offerings that cater to higher end "pro" users. Premiere has been around for a long time compared Vegas Video/Vegas. I do not see anything like Photoshop offered by SoFo/Sony. if you went to to the level of compositing that After Effects can do with a SoFo/Sony product you need to purchase a "plug-in" that is as expensive as After Effects is - Boris RedGL. And as for Adobe having a "loop based product" - that is news to me, and most people probably. Adobe Audition is Cool Edit Pro 2.0/2.1 that Adobe purchased from syntrillium (http://www.adobe.com/special/products/audition/syntrillium.html for more details). And I don't ever recall it being touted as a "loop based product" but as a DAW/multi track mixing product. And adding on to that part - there was SoFo with Sound Forge but if onewanted something that could handle multi tracks - Cool Edit Pro. Vegas Audio was not out...let alone Vegas Video. As far as the DVD authoring part - both SoFo/Sony and Adobe are new to the game. Adobe's product is more full featured and has an interface that is very much a NLE timeline. You can insert Subtitles and more. +DVD from SoFo/Sony is very basic and aimed at ease of use over details. (And on the "lesser" end - you have Sony pushing their $99.95 Screenblast Movie Studio as if it were better than Vegas because, unlike Vegas, it comes with 'intergrated DVD authoring' built in that allows you to get, and use, material from the 'Sony Pictures Digital Authoring Center'. People say that what you get is some watered down DVD program that is not intergrated and is really Sonic's MyDVD or something like that)

But I will cut you some slack because now that Sony bought up the SoFo line the user base will grow along with the "Hey maw, lookie here what I kin do wit this hare dig-i-tale cam-e-raw!!" newbies. What really rubs me the wrong way is people who come into these forums just to bad mouth another companys product line. And clearly that was the point of the orginal post. Many threads can found asking "When is the next version of (SoFo/Sony Product here) coming?" without the Ulead/Adobe/Avid product bashing theme. Likewise there are many topical disscusions about what other products can do, and can't, compared to VV. Almost any thread about VV and hardware/EDL/film matchback support are perfect examples.

This is not a "Adobe rocks" post - it is just that SoFo came out with products that filled a needed gap - Acid comes to mind. Sound Forge comes to mind. Acoustic Mirror comes to mind (Talk about being a Pro tool - this plug-in was aimed at foley and ADR - post production use. Amazing piece of software) The first Surround encoder aimed at game developers. Yeah some continue, some faded, some now intergrated with products. SoFo just rules when it comes to audio. Coming up as a hip kind of alternative to all the NLE traditional software out there - that seems to be what VV was (and is). Because of the lack of certian types of things it seems to be aimed at the DIY crowd and now people are wanting it to go more Pro. (Ok...sure, I am one of those but I also wanted SoFo to do something for audio that was Multi track - Vegas Audio...tah dah! And those who remember the various flavors - Vegas Audio, Vegas Video, Vegas Pro and such. So who know? Maybe Sony Screenblast is the low newbie end, Sony Vegas is the mid/consumer end and maybe there will be something like Sony Vegas Online for the hardware 'pro' based users. But than again 1394b is backwards compatable so maybe the next Vegas will use that and be able to bring in SD and HD this way. Who knows.)