Some thoughts on VPro after about a year of use....

D7K wrote on 6/11/2017, 12:12 PM

I was a long time movie studio user (as I did just some web stuff for clients and like the combination of Acid Studio/Sound Forge which was included in the suite) and when I sensed that the product (as well as Acid Pro and Vegas) were EOL, I looked around and tried Premier and Resolve. Too much muscle memory and gray matter dedicated to the Vegas type work flow so I jumped on the $200 with upgrade offer from Magix.

I do mostly stock video stuff and don't really push Vegas, but I just did a series for a local non-profit as a feel good thing. I have long experience with creating and shooting commercials and short business videos (film before that) so I thought doing something for a non-profit as community service would be a fun thing. It was interesting but not quite the fun I expected.

Vegas was such a great tool to post process these two cameras, dual audio (actually tri audio), unlighted project with. I might be a little more than an old retired amateur but give the relatively simple production studio I have (i7700 32 gig / RX480 8 gig/ 500 Gig SSD / 6 T B's online/ Vegas/Acid PRO 7/ Photoshop+ LR (handy for somethings video), older version PluralEyes, and full version Mercalli Pro, studio speakers, 4K TV / 2.7K color corrected monitor and for sound a Tascam D60 + various mics, and for music a Casio PX-5S and lots of loops and a Music Maker 15 (actually not a bad program for midi work as is Acid Pro 7). Not a great studio but workable. This is just to give you an idea how a consumer and not a pro can integrate Vegas as the key element in a home video studio for the non-professional.

I like the floating docks in Vegas as I work on the 4K TV and use the color corrected monitor as the preview area, The 4K TV makes the size and type in Vegas very readable even when tired. The multi camera function when I have clips ready to sync is a real time saver in getting an integrated final product (notice that Magix added this to Studio).

I find the FX stuff very intuitive and easy to use. And so far have not found one that did produce fine results. The ProDad stuff is very good - since I can make a comparison with the full versions, I think they add tremendous value - especially for field work. By habit I still use the full version as I often have many videos for stock work that need just a touch even when using a heavy video head and tripod i the field due to wind (when you drive a 100 miles to film a specific animal that you don't know if you will see, when you do you shoot in whatever the conditions are). If I did not own the full version of ProDad (which I got because Studio's stabilization was very bad) just the inclusion of these two plugins would have made me purchase the Magix deal.

Sometimes I do use a fisheye and with 4K video a little crop and the Reduce Fisheye in the lens correction FX is a very useful tool. Just so happens the m43 Rok 7.5 fisheye when DeFished and crop slightly is a hyper sharp lens with a "special" feel to it. Again Vegas has a tool that really works for me.

I always used to try and do grading by eye on my corrected monitor, as most of my stuff was for websites. Using the builtin grading tools is fast and very easy to understand and use, which I found very useful for the nonprofit project I did as well as giving all my videos the same look when I submit batches of stock videos..

Let talks sound. Anyone trying to do their sound would do well to find a book specifically written on what the various audio FX are for and how to use them. With DAW being so popular now you can find such a book and audio filters basically all work the same for the specific function they do. A little reading with really help, although if a book sounds too daunting take the time to read the help files on each filter, they are quite informative.

Overall, Vegas is a very good program at the promotion price I feel it was a steal. Is is worth the full price - I'd say yes if you are a "Pro-Sumer" or a PRO. I am hoping that Magix continues to improve a very good product and that we also see a new version of acid (64 Bit) that is well integrated with Vegas - perhaps with a PluralEyes type capacity.

If you have used a NLE before and are not planning on doing large difficult projects you might consider starting with studio as the shared functions are identical if not very similar between the two programs and Studio does have the "learner" settings that will help you get started.

Many of the posts in this forum are from frustrated users would have not taken the time to learn the program or about the various technical issues that come from a complex mixture of hardware, operating systems, plugins, and various codecs. There are many helpful users on this forum that are very patience and have a wealth of knowledge about Vegas and how to use that. This is a very large Plus for using Vegas. It also appears that Magix is committed to being significantly more involved in the forum than Sony at the end was.

Value is a combination of cost and benefits and how they fulfill actual needs. I think VegPro 14 is a high value tool for those of us who work or play in the video world.

Comments

ushere wrote on 6/12/2017, 12:20 AM

Many of the posts in this forum are from frustrated users would have not taken the time to learn the program or about the various technical issues that come from a complex mixture of hardware, operating systems, plugins, and various codecs.

well said - and it's not just vegas, but nearly every other nle requires that the user has some knowledge of basic pc operation/hardware, and of course, the ability to RTFM.

i used to be quite active on the vegas forum, and other ones, but as the years pass all I'm seeing is questions that stem from laziness (nearly all can be answered from a quick search, or referring to nick hope's, great guide pages and FAQ's).

on top of that is the never ending whine about some codec not working natively in vegas (or other nle). if it doesn't work, simply transcode - i'd much prefer the nle coders to be working on stability and reliability than chasing every manufacturer's proprietary codec. and this is notably so with gamers, who should consult nick's FAQ before complaining.

(/r)

JJKizak wrote on 6/12/2017, 6:46 AM

The biggest problem I had was learning all of the terminology of video editing which is not easy when you are passed 50.

JJK

VEGAS_CommunityManager wrote on 6/19/2017, 5:39 AM

@D7K Thank you for your feedback. Such a detailed review is very valuable for us and especially help to motivate us to develop an even better software each day.

fr0sty wrote on 6/19/2017, 3:53 PM

Vegas 14 suite has turned out to be fantastic for the most part. Honestly I think the majority of the negativity is from people who see how fast and intuitive Vegas' UI is, and realize that if it just managed to get some modern features in (GH5 10 bit compatibility, modern GPU support, better color grading tools, better text generation tools, to name a few) it would be the industry standard editing app. No other NLE I've ever used comes close to the speed of Vegas' workflow, and time is money. Some bugs still persist. I hired a guy to shoot some b-roll of a bridal expo for me with his BlackMagic Cinema camera, and I'm having a hell of a time editing all of that video without Vegas crashing every 5 minutes. It hangs when rendering as well. I'm at the point where I might have to render the files to intermediates using another app.

That said, enough bugs were fixed and new features added to keep me happy. I would like to see some more stuff added via updates, especially stability fixes, before 15 launches. Keep up the good work, though. Don't just aim to make a good NLE, make it the best.