Course,

I did a lot of digging and didn't find the "bargains with legitimate licenses" out there on eBay for FCP Studio that you have found. Kudos on that. (I couldn't find my way out of the world of "Apple's Price" and the $50 you can save off that at MacMall.)

The DVDA VS. DVD Studio Pro isn't quite fair, as we're talking about NLEs. I own Studio Pro but have never even opened it. I've heard it has better features than DVDA and have no reason to believe otherwise.

[Auto crossfades...]

As for the sharing argument - you're right. A lot of people use FCP right now. (A lot of THEM used to use Avid?) The only way (IMO) to change the tide is to make the difference in the field. The more people in positions of power who call Vegas as their app of choice, the more we'll see the industry taking Vegas more seriously. The more it rises (I believe) the more robust it will become for the high-end users. Sony's a double-edged sword - they have the resources to make Vegas what it "could be," be, but they're big enough that Vegas has to make their radar first. I can't believe the people standing behind Vegas (VASST, Zenoté, etc.) would be hanging around if this ship was sinking.

When it comes to sheer, simple workflow and intuitiveess, I think Vegas is the king. The more converts we get, the better chance it has at gaining in market share. You don't get there by complaining about what it doesn't do - you get there by fighting for what it CAN do, knowing that, as with everything, there is always room for improvement.

DGates is right on the money: "This says more about Sony Vegas than it does about Red Giant." The message on the wall is that RG doesn't think enough of Vegas as a viable app to continue developing MB plugs. Pay attention fellow editors, PP looks better every day.

CS2 runs ok on XP64 as long as you don't need to burn anything to DVD... At least that has been my experience

Vegas uses 1/3 the resources during a render than PPro does. While rendering out a straight AVI, PPro uses 60% CPU utilization - yet eats up 1.5GB RAM - and this on a simple project. Same project in Vegas uses almost 100% CPU utilization and 1/3 the RAM. I have repeated the render several times just to make sure and the results are consistently the same. That speaks volumes from my perspective. Since rendering is all about CPU - my personal testing shows Vegas is more efficient.

10bit video - haven't had a need for it, so I guess I don't miss it. Since I make sure I white balance my work as much as possible, I shouldn't have to need to do heavy color correction. If I do need to color correct, I have found Vegas to be easier to work with than Adobe's color correction tools.

After Effects - haven't had a need for it either, even though I have AE 6.5 pro - again, if I don't need it, I'm not missing it.

I'm currently in post production on a project for a client. A similar first project was done post production in PPro/Audition and took much longer because of the old way of editing work flow. Oddball render errors (both XP Pro 32 and 64bit). Started the edit today in Vegas and watched my editing time cut almost in half for the point I stopped at today. That speaks volumes to me considering I was more proficient in PPro/Audition than Vegas - and yet, I've discovered I'm still more productive in Vegas and Sound Forge than Adobe's Production Suite.

My needs are probably different from everyone else here on the forums. I do virtually all straight cuts and dissolves. I need not only a solid video editor, I need professional audio editing tools - Sony's apps do this for me. It was a kludge working with Adobe's apps. FCS is actually worse in this regards, and I have edited with FCS (but not FCS2). Since I do it all, I have the luxury of choosing the tools I work with - others may not have that.

My understanding is that the Associated Press just purchased a large number of licenses for Vegas specifically to get their video journalists productive under tight deadlines while editing both in the field and at their offices. I also have it on good authority that training material is being developed specifically targeting video journalists using Vegas for news gathering - IMO, that is Vegas' strength - lean and mean - no fluff, and gets the job done on virtually any Windows based machine out there. I don't think that can be said for the triple A apps.

Each to his own I guess...

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt

Jessariah,

I bought my FCS last year, an older version + the $199 Suite upgrade. You can still find good deals, but perhaps not each and every day.

AE Pro has been available for just over $300 if I remember correctly.

Why not compare DVDA vs. DVDSP? They are both part of each's single box package ("Vegas+DVDA" vs. "FCS").

We can call for Vegas as our app of choice, but if we are not able to do the job, I'm stumped.

I totally resonate with you on the sheer, simple workflow and intuitiveness of Vegas though.

Howevah, if we don't let Sony know that the product has serious lacks that are stumping the pros, they may think they have years to improve it without customers getting stressed.

We can fight for what it can do, but if our competitors are fighting with more capable weapons, we have a duty to tell our "arms dealer" that we are getting overpowered and need something heavier.

Right now it's sometimes our "piss ant .22s" against their automatic .50 caliber JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point) sprinklers with grenade launchers on top...

If the arms dealer says he thought everyone was looking for something suitable for shooting rabbits, and we thought of getting bison for dinner, we have a supply problem.

Course,

I do not argue that Vegas is lacking in some areas. I've been begging for a better titler for years (and the "lite-Boris-freebie" or the Wild Form "we can do it for Flash, why not AVI?" didn't do it for me) I DO argue that a) those areas are an "abandon ship" situation; and b) those areas keep Vegas users from being "better editors."

I guess my thing is this - there are improvements that Vegas could see. No argumemts at all. Pressing for those imporvements isn't a bad thing - especially since the "pros" are the ones who are gonna be the first to "always" upgrade. My biggest problem is the series of threats to "leave for good" when certain features are not addressed. That presumes that Vegas is not capable of delivering the goods on a "pro" level, and that's just simply not the case. (IMO) If it was, you wouldn't see companies like VASST investing so heavily into it.

While I would prefer to pay several hundred more $ and get more features in Vegas, I realize that they may be targeting a different market. What I really would like, however, is for Vegas to work better with plugins so that I could add features afterwards (good titler being #1).

My biggest problem is the series of threats to "leave for good" when certain features are not addressed. That presumes that Vegas is not capable of delivering the goods on a "pro" level, and that's just simply not the case. (IMO) If it was, you wouldn't see companies like VASST investing so heavily into it.

"Pros" is not one simple category with identical needs.

There are filmmakers, wedding & event videographers, corporate, educational, scientific, artistic, and many more, and that's before even getting into the prosumers.

Many of them couldn't care less about SDI, others depend on it.

Some absolutely need to support high-bit video, others don't know what they're missing :O).

Some spend half their production time in After Effects, so they'd like an efficient work flow for that.

And so much more.

I think everyone in this forum, including especially all the fence straddlers, have in common that they really love Vegas. Otherwise they would just leave instead of just talking about it.

But like always when love is involved, we care!

And when we care, we can't help but speak out when people hurt themselves through what we see as bad behavior.

We love Vegas, and we heard Vegas say that it was going to "be a pro level NLE for sure now."

Then we have different interpretations of what that means. And because we care, we say, "Hey Vegas, you can do much better than that! If you had done your homework (a decent titler), you would have gotten much better grades (sales)!" Etc.

And why do we care about Vegas grades/sales/etc.? Because we see Vegas as the odd skinny kid in the school yard, and we are worried about it being muscled out of existence by the big Apple and Adobe boys.

Then we wouldn't have Vegas to kick around in this forum anymore :O).

Seriously, we like the unique way Vegas works, and we'd like for it to add the features that would make it possible for many more pros to share our enjoyment.

Excellent statement Course. I love Vegas more than I could ever dream of loving Premiere. Its just that right now, premiere offers a better overall work flow for footage use in AE and then Encore for BD Authoring.

We all want Vegas to succeed and perhaps thats why we all have such high expectations with every release. Many of us have spent a lot of time defending and encouraging others to use Vegas only to have the big boys catch up and even surpass what Vegas has done.

The problem is those that don't need the features that the those that threaten to leave over do not understand until they themselves find themselves in need of those features. Take multicamming for instance. Granted that plug ins are available for that at a small cost but Vegas should at least offer a two cam multicam natively instead of requiring its users to fork over money. But unless you use multicam often, that feature doesn't matter until you need it. The same goes for high bit video.

Furthermore, some will always be content with the titler as they don't have a need for robust titler or content with other features. It is us who do complain that gets things changed for the good of the program and that benefits all of us and allows guys like Jay to make his "qualified" and unqualified remarks at will. It wasn't that long ago that users kept asking why the move to HDV since they see no need for it while others wanted increased work flow. After enough noise, the work flow improved and those that claimed to have no need to go HDV has since moved to HDV thus benefiting from those changes.

Vegas will always have a place in my tool box. I just want to continue to reach for my main tool (Vegas) first before I have to reach for other tools to get the job done.

...right now, Premiere offers a better overall work flow for footage use in AE and then Encore for BD Authoring.

BD? Is that the Sony standard for high definition discs?
Tsk, tsk...

(Sorry, I can't help the friendly ribbing, I'm sure there are many engineers in Madison who see the irony here. They are probably chafing under an edict not to support high definition recording of any kind. Perhaps they can get some Adobe brochures together to show what they are up against..., that's how these things get changed.)

It wasn't that long ago that users kept asking why the move to HDV since they see no need for it while others wanted increased work flow. After enough noise, the work flow improved and those that claimed to have no need to go HDV has since moved to HDV thus benefiting from those changes.

Right on!

Well said, Course. Bravo
You P@.
As was said above, Vegas has been my main tool for years now. It's done everything I've asked. But I'm growing in skill and needs. I'd like my tools to grow with me.
My next few personal projects will be asking a lot of my NLE. If I want to "take it to the next level," I have needs that Vegas isn't easily ready to handle.
I DON'T want to jump ship, I don't want to learn a whole new platform (let alone a whole new OS), and i don't want work a little here and a little there (I already do that with Vegas/Boris/AE, etc).
With just a few tweaks on the surface (and a whole new, ground up, re-write, I'm afraid), Vegas can be number 1 again, and not just a tool that gets us by.
Many folk here remember when Vegas was on the forefront of just about every aspect of the NLE world.
V8 can have a special place again - if they listen to their user base.
Long Live VEGAS! You'll never burn out... please don't fade away.

I don't want to learn a whole new platform (let alone a whole new OS)

You could do it! Even a notorious grumbler like John C. Dvorak didn't find it so hard to learn a new OS: http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/990.html.

:O)