I have found as many that Magic Bullet really is a hog on resources as compared to Ultimate S - They both more or less accomplish the same thing. I tested out both and found that Ultimate S does more with less - keeping in line with Vegas' work flow methodology (at least for me), and when it comes down to tight deadlines as I experience, I would rather have a tool that is more efficient and faster than one that has extra bells and whistles yet slows me down.

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt

Ultimate S? GPU-accelerated color correction for realtime-playback (on my system)? Remove artifacts from HDV and DV? Deep Color processing?

I hate to sound like a commercial but I don't see anything like that in Ultimate S. It does have some very useful tools in it but real-time deep color correction filters is not one of them.

I can see it being a slow-down with no GPU acceleration but on my machine with GPU, it's way faster the Vegas CC.

Plus I love the diffusion filters. Can't live without them.

It's a great product. But if they're crunching the numbers and seeing that it's in their best interest to drop Vegas support, then that's their prerogative.

This says more about Sony Vegas than it does about Red Giant.

First Cayman and now Red Giant and although not directly related in the middle Serious Magic got devoured.
Are the rats jumping cause they know there'll be nothing on board for them or because the ship is sinking. I get the feeling there's something significant afoot, what I don't know is if it's significantly good or bad.

Bob.

Hopefully, Sony is redesigning Vegas v8 to make it easier for third party companies to write plugins. I've heard from more than one company that Sony hasn't been particularly cooperative when it comes to third party support. This doesn't make much sense. It was third party support that made Premiere so popular years ago.

At the moment, I'd be happy if Sony would just cooperate with Blackmagic Design and give them whatever it is they need so Blackmagic can release Vegas drivers for the new Intensity Pro card. It's a pretty amazing card for not much money. The Intensity has I/O for HDMI or analog (composite, S-video and component) and can capture either uncompressed (8 or 10-bit YUV) or using Blackmagic's MJPEG codec. It also has analog 24-bit audio I/O with an S/PDIF or AES digital audio out. Vegas will read the YUV files captured by the Intensity, but not the MJPEG files. You also can't use the Intensity in Vegas for previewing to an external SD or HD monitor. Works flawlessly in Premiere... but I'd prefer to be using Vegas.

John

Vegas is really really hampered by the choice of VfW (Video for Windows) for I/O.

That decision served Vegas very well for a long time, but then Microsoft stopped keeping up with the world of video.

All Microsoft projects of the last 5+ years have been mired in ear-deep bureaucracy when it came to productization. Ballmer sees the company as a large organization chart; as long as each box in the chart is filled with a warm body (any body) the company is functioning well. By giving each and every one of their huge ant army of middle managers total veto rights over every release, very little gets released, and what is released ends up having being designed by a committee (the 43 ways to turn off a Vista laptop come to mind here).

Vegas' competitors realized long ago that Microsoft wasn't about to come out with a video interface suitable for professional use, so they looked elsewhere in order to get what they felt was absolutely, positively necessary: 10-bit video.

Then as computer performance increased over the last few years, 16-bit video was increasingly used to improve the quality of the output.

Finally in the last year, 32-bit floating point support became widely used in competing NLEs as well as low-cost add-ons (costing a few hundred $, like Magic Bullet) to substantially improve the quality of deliverables from post.

In the meantime, Vegas remained stuck in 8-bit, which limits what it can do.

My guess is that the Madison team has been busy over the last year (or longer) doing a rewrite of Vegas to get rid of the VfW code. This is a very substantial code change, so it seems natural that they would combine this with making the code 64-bit friendly for Vegas 8.

I really really love using Vegas, but I'm finding myself having to think more and more before each project about what I'm going to be unable to do.

Let's hope that Madison is just being fashionably late with this, like Adobe was with converting their major media apps to run on Intel Macs. That took a year longer than everyone had hoped, but finally it happened.

Right re: "This says more about Sony Vegas than it does about Red Giant."

And in the latest event dv, there's an article comparing the "big 3" nles and of course our cute little vegas wasnt' one of them...

I mean, come on if the software companies aren't supporting vegas and industry seems to be going elsewhere, the handwriting's on the wall... there's got to be SOME reason why most others aren't using Vegas... can't help but feel like I'm using a 2nd-place program, as much as I like it.. if industry's using other tools, there's a good reason.

-k

From the Red Giant Software website under the new product description:
"Magic Bullet Looks lets users define the style of their video or film with powerful imaging tools in Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro/Motion, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid, and Sony Vegas. The new user interface makes it much easier to create Looks and has 32 tools for doing everything from simple exposure adjustment to radical color changes. "

Well I switched fully over to Adobe CS3 as it gives me everything I want int heir suite. The only thing I find myself using Vegas for is the photo montages in Ultimate S2 and maybe some pre edit stuff before using it in Premiere. Adobe seems to be more pro oriented these days where Sony has digressed to be more consumer oriented. Seriously, it spoke volumes when Sony released Movie Studio 8 for Vista before it released what's supposed to be considered its flag ship app (Vegas).

Add to it the lack of requests fulfilled (titling, multicamming, 10 bit, etc...) its no wonder Vegas is considered a major player. We keep hearing how Vegas has such a wide user base (much larger than this forum) and how major director/editors/studios use Vegas but dont make the information public. Seriously, what gives with that?

I have said it before, if Sony is looking to gain industry acceptance, they should either use Vegas to edit a major feature film and then tout the hell out of it. Or better yet, sponsor/invest in a few unknown filmmakers and bankroll their productions with the conditions that it be cut on Vegas and have a crew document their journey. Thats marketing.

Does anyone else find it comical that guys like Kevin Smith have no problem coming out saying they love to cut on FCP or the Coen brothers the same thing or the Basement pimping Adobe products? I still have yet other than a few articles written by forum members coming out saying that Vegas made everything easier. Ill tell you why Because Vegas doesnt offer everything everyone needs to produce a major film. At least with Adobe, I can use a multitude of plugins if I cant find the right fit for my piece.

Vegas has been relegated to nothing more than a small production, event, wedding NLE. It sucks to say that. But the sooner we face the truth, the better off we will all be. Until Sony decides it wants to make a profit off Vegas, we will be stuck with what we have now. If there was a god, Adobe would buy out Vegas and replace Premiere with it. Then I will have truly known heaven.

Xander:

Yeah, but go to the beta test site and you will find Vegas is gone.

I use Adobe apps heavily but Premiere's audio is mediocre (as in FCP and Avid). I can't imagine giving up the audio tools in Vegas as I consider that the most important single feature of any visual production.

I just bought CS3 Production Premium and it has some amazing capability. I'll still use Vegas for some projects but I just could not wait any longer for a better titler. None of the third party titling plugins work like they should in Vegas (meaning instant feedback on monitor etc.) and we've been begging for a better titler since version 3 but Sony does not seem to care.

Oh well hopefully Sony will up the ante in the next release but the writing does seem to be on the wall.

Marc

While everyone else will be relying upon 32bit coding, the programmers in Madison are ramping up Vegas for 64bit - um - to me that is more forward thinking than relying on 32bit memory addressing. If I can run a dual or quad core cpu with a NATIVE 64 bit memory addressing scheme (My motherboard supports 16GB RAM right now), and be able to utilize it due to better memory management, forget about all the fluff.

I find it interesting that everyone who has jumped ship still comes back to brag about their new NLE (which seems to be mainly the Adobe Suite - haven't heard much about people jumping ship to Avid or FCS).

Mike Jones and I have corresponded on this topic - I agree with his take on this - Why use an archaic method of editing, having to jump between 2 or more apps to get the same things done alone in Vegas??? I'm inclined to John Cline's perspective here - I am using Vegas now to make me money in a shorter timeframe and I NEVER have to worry about whether my computer meets the hardware requirements - I use whatever I can and Vegas, Sound Forge, Acid Pro, Cinescore - they all just work. No weird error messages, no huge amounts of system resources being chewed up while rendering and then trying to get other things done, etc. And that is especially important for those editing on a laptop. My laptop is a single core Dell D400 - no dedicated graphics memory, 2GB of RAM, a competent field editing machine. Vegas just goes with the flow and allows me to be productive whether on this lowly laptop, or my main Dual core desktop running XP64 bit with 4GB of RAM. Adobe's apps do not see my DVD burner (even CS3), yet, all of SONY's apps see it just fine. Supposedly SONY's apps do not support XP 64bit, yet, there they are - happily running without any issues. Can't say that about the triple A apps.

I've spoken to more than one person privately and their take on Adobe's apps - nice concept - but only as long as you are using as high end a machine as possible - and that the machine specs match what the software requires. I would rather spend my money on other things than having to keep up with the Jones' on computer hardware.

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt

"Vegas has been relegated to nothing more than a small production, event, wedding NLE."

That's what I use it for. Has it ever occured to anyone that this is exactly what Vegas was designed to be?

For those projects that require more horsepower, I have Premiere and Avid Media Composer. Different tools for different jobs. I think what's causing a lot of problems is that Vegas is a much more capable NLE than it should be for the price and we expect it to compete feature for feature with the likes of FCP, Premiere and Avid. There are a multitude of things that Vegas does better and faster than any of them, but it was never intended to compete in the same market as those other NLEs. If it was, it would be priced the same as the other NLEs. The fact that it DOES compete with them just illustrates what a terrific value it is.

John

"Mike Jones and I have corresponded on this topic - I agree with his take on this - Why use an archaic method of editing, having to jump between 2 or more apps to get the same things done alone in Vegas???"

Thats where youre wrong. Vegas cannot do everything After Effects can and many use AE for titling, compositing, etc... Now, with Vegas, you have to render out a file to AE and then do your compositing and then render back out for Vegas. CS3 eliminates the uneeded render. Thats where the beauty of it is.

People can harp all they want on 64bit..but guess what...the titler will look just as crappy in 64bit as it did in 32bit. Do you not think that Adobe isnt currently coding for 64 bit? I know for a fact they are (dont ask how). The only thing Vegas will get out of 64bit is more RAM available. Sadly, the same features we lack now most probably will be lacking then.

Vegas has served its purpose for me especially in my early days of editing. But I have grown tremendously in knowledge and skill and tasks that I have become responsible for doing. Sadly my NLE of choice Vegas has failed to grow with me.

What was Sony's last earth shattering feature other than HDV? Does anyone even remember?

I guess it's what you're used to, but you're gonna have to pry Vegas out of my cold, dead fingers. My next feature might be shot on film (we're not sure yet), but if it's shot in HD, we're posting in Vegas. I've found FCP to be very much a pain, and with the future of films becoming much more streamlined I believe the demand for a widely-servicing app is going to grow, not shrink. Right now the focus is still on the 400-pound gorilla, but you hear more about Vegas now than yu did two years ago. It made HD VideoPro Mag's top five NLEs.

And there's the price point, too. Add AE or Shake to the FCP suite and you're at $2K. Vegas handles audio much better than the others, to the point where I rarely have to take anything into SoundForge. It does a very nice job handling 3D compositing. I did a fairly extensive VFX-based project a few years back and it was composited 100% in vegas. Do you like automatic cross fades? I do. Do you like being able to mix formats and rates on the timeline? I do. Do like being able to just caputre footage and have the app know what size and rate it is automatically? I do.

I still think that if Sony teamed up with someone like Wondertouch and put out a standalone that worked with Vegas like Motion works with FCP, it would turn a few heads.

"I still think that if Sony teamed up with someone like Wondertouch and put out a standalone that worked with Vegas like Motion works with FCP, it would turn a few heads."

Agreed. The same was said back then about Sony working with Serious Magic before Adobe acquired them. It just doesnt seem as if Sony is interested in growing and maturing. A Motion type app would definitely work. I wouldnt hold my breath though.

baby steps -- LIKE FIXING THIS SITE SO IT ISN'T THE SLOWEST ONE ON THE PLANET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry for yelling, trying to search something here and thinking about gettin out the freakin yellow pages.

Supposedly SONY's apps do not support XP 64bit, yet, there they are - happily running without any issues. Can't say that about the triple A apps.

Can't say that about the triple A apps?

Adobe Premiere Pro 2 runs perfectly on XP 64, in fact it runs better than on regular Win XP 32.

My laptop is a single core Dell D400 - no dedicated graphics memory, 2GB of RAM, a competent field editing machine. Vegas just goes with the flow.

Can you edit full-raster 10-bit HD footage on your laptop? Thanks to ProRes and Aja IO, FCP on a MacBook Pro can do that with good performance and even render out to an HDCAM SR deck, after processing in 10-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit float. That makes a difference for some people. There are different needs.

with sonic foundry it seems vegas was all about impressing the buyer.

With Sony, Vegas is not even on the map. Vegas does nothing for sony, at least, I believe.

but even with that, I'm not sure what Vegas lacks (titler being the exception) that is so damn distressful.

Frikin cut, move, fade, cut some more, move some more, fade some more...

Their right, I'm looking to do wed videos not frikin star wars episode 9.

I think PIXAR probably does not do anything with FCP or Vegas or AP? Perhaps they do but I've got my doubts about that.

Vegas is simply WAY FRIKIN easy to use. I've read that by about 100000000000000000 people. I tried liquid and got frustrated in about 10 minutes.

Just seems like Vegas is a good program to use and will never be tops but might be the easiest?

Aug

Do you like being able to mix formats and rates on the timeline? I do.

You mean like FCP 6?

Do like being able to just caputre footage and have the app know what size and rate it is automatically? I do.

Do you like seeing a pulldown codec list that's a mile long, so you know that no matter what you throw at it, you can expect it to be supported without conversion and re-rendering?

Do you need to use advanced DVD features that are in DVDSP but not in DVDA?

Do you need to exchange footage with other people? (The odds of them using Vegas are about slim to none.)

Do you like to have a good titler built-in? How about a really good, easy-to-use titler using Motion/LiveType?

Yes, if you don't have an eBay account and insist on paying full retail, you'll blow $2,300 on FCS + AE Pro. Of course you could pay about a thousand for the same thing (with legitimate licenses).

I agree that Vegas has a lot going for it, especially in audio (because it was originally an audio app).

And I love the workflow for just fast editing of video.

And I love Ultimate S and the other key plugs for Vegas.

The problem for me (and many others here) is that we end up with so many situations where we can't use Vegas no matter how much we want to, because Vegas just doesn't do a lot of things that are necessary when you want to go to the next level.

Perhaps Vegas 8 will answer our prayers, but I really would like to see a statement from Sony about where they see Vegas going:

Is it going to remain a prosumer NLE, or are there plans to take it to a professional level, at least matching the core of what Apple and Adobe offer?

(What about Avid? They have just discovered that there are few customers for a $5,000 software NLE, when the other two A's are offering complete packages for a fraction of that. Expect a major price drop and a slight reconfiguration of the product.)

Gosh Course,
all I want Vegas to do is what it says it can do, snip, snip, render and author a very basic DVD. Mastered well over 100 DVDs for replication using Vegas and DVDA and they're all defective. Thankfully most clients aren't too picky.
Forget about 10 bit and a linear light pipeline, I don't expect Vegas to do that, yeah it'd be awesome if it did, all I'd really like it to do first off is what it claims it can do without serious defect.

Bob.