The last time I talked to them was a month ago, on the Monday that V5 came out. Took many phone calls to get through, but the woman I talked to was a 10. She took my order faster than anyone I've ever dealt with, even though I had an issue with a credit that Sony had extended on a previous order. She figured that out in not time at all. I got my software in the mail within a week.

I'm about to do a complete HDD format and my biggest concern is re-registering Vegas once I re-install it. Anyone done this before? Any problems with it? With Customer Service swamped handling V5 issues, I'm afraid I'll be lost in the crowd.

I've re-installed V4 many, many times. No problems. :)

I have noticed that since Sony took over, it's harder to get responces fro mcustomer service. I can't even find an e-mail: I gotta use their online form. Problem was that I needed a user name/password. It doesn't like my e-mail addresses. Says they are already in use. Try my other one. Same thing. Getting agravated. I try to recover my password. Got my password. Checked my e-mail addresses. I had my mail e-mail as the username on the account but my other e-mail was the e-mail address for the account. .Ok. So I go to change my e-mails. WON'T LET ME! I had to change my e-mail settings. Still doesn't work right.

The new online customer service online sucks. :( I prefered e-mailing someone.

The e-mail support I noticed has about a one week lead time or more on it right now. I have e-mailed support twice in the last couple of weeks and it took about 5 or 6 business days to get an answer. I am sure that they are just swamped right now.

It's definitely the flood related to the release of Vegas 5--in normal times I've received responses via custcenter.com in as little as 15 minutes. I certainly have no complaints, and all of my inquiries have been dealt with to my satisfaction.

My nickel's worth is that customer service is excellent. As far as emails, I can't comment, but in the times (several) that I've had to have service, they've been great. Their manager has on occasion followed up with a call to see if things were resolved, and they are very, very busy. I've been on their call floor several times, and with the success of Vegas, it may be that they just need more people. They work their collective asses off, I've seen it more than once. And the call center people are tightly screened, and well trained. It's not that you will ever find someone thumbing through a book for FAQ's when you call. They know what's up.

Hello everybody,

We are trying our best to get to all the emails that piled up during the Vegas 5 launch. We are a small group of people (there are 8 of us total) who try to run the most efficient systems possible. and I know I speak for everyone in Customer Service and Technical Support when I say we are dedicated to providing you the best support possible. I'll be honest, we're a bit behind on emails right now, catching up slowly but surely. This always happens during a new product launch. But if you compare that to the Vegas 3.0 and 4.0 launches which saw us over two weeks behind on emails, you'd say "hey not bad!". The point is, we're trying our best, working overtime, to get you the help you need so you can enjoy the products we help produce.

Always remember, If your request is an emergency (such as goshep's HDD format if he doesn't have internet access), if you can't just click "register online" from the application, which most can, then give us a call for help. 1-800-577-6642, from 9AM to 5PM CST, M-F. You might have to wait a bit (no more than 6 minutes this week) but we'll be there for you when you need us.

HappyFriar, let me look into the problem you are having with your login to our support website, www.custcenter.com, tomorrow when I'm back in the office. I'll follow up with you personally on that issue. Usually, the system is very forgiving and easy to use.

As for a simple email address vs. an online form, sorry guys, but in this day of SPAM, raunch, and viral attacks, we had to tighten the ship. Before adopting our online system we literally spent 3 hours a day filtering out junk mail, just to get to the honest requests for help. What a waste of time! I'm sure any email administrator out there would agree with me there...

For the record, our new online system provides you instant answers via a knowledgebase, and allows you to provide feedback on articles you find there. If an issue is detected in our software, we immediately post information on the problem to the knowledgebase and try to issue workarounds while the bug gets fixed. We are publishing new articles and tutorials daily, so always check the knowledgebase first before going to contact us. You'll soon find a "Tips and Tricks" section under each product category, with articles published by the Sony developers themselves.

It's also worth it to mention that the system tracks all your previous requests so you can go back and look at what you asked before. This is especially helpful for the people that are always losing their serial numbers. Ask us once for them, we'll give them to you, and you can always go back, log into the system, and see your request. No need to back up the emails we send you since they are all stored for you forever.

Anyways, the point of this diatribe is that we're here to help, give us a chance and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. If you aren't, then let me know about it.

Sincerely,
Josh
Manager, Customer Service
Sony Pictures Digital
Media Software and Services

Josh,

Way to go! A good tech support department is worth as much as the product itself. It is great to hear from the manager!

If you read some of my posts, you know that I am constantly criticizing, giving suggestions, cajoling, etc.

I don't usually spend time singing the praises of Sony.

However, let me do that now: Your support is some of the best in the industry and you, and all your people, should be darn proud of what you do every day.

Thank you!

I called about some glited videos from the Vision series, they were totaly cool and willing to send me one clip in particualar as I needed it for the project that I bought the Vision Series for.

My new ones are on the way.

- Ray

www.undergroundplanet.com

Sony Broadcast tech support is awesome. One hopes the Media Division can be even half as good (that means merely excellent).

Peter

Hey Mut,
Thats what I emailed Sony regarding,I also posted a thread on the same. I have the vision 4 series and about three of them have frames with some sort of noise or glitch. was that the same deal you had?
I'm guessing it was maybe a problem in the pressing or the master,cuz the disc looks fine and Ive tried loading the files with two separate drives. still always the same frame.
I thought about calling Sony but its not an emergency, I dont need the clips right away for a project. so I emailed them. I figure theye are busy with the new release and all.
so did they end up sending you a replacement disc?
Just wondering if your prob was the same and the solution.
Eric

I have yet to test the waters with customer service, being a relative newcomer to Screenblast, and now, Vegas 5. However I have spent a lof of time reading posts in these formus, and my observation is that there is a far greater presence of Sony reps in situations where help and opinion seems to be beyond the realm of the most forum members. That's reassuring to me, as one who has yet to receive a comment or answer in response to questions/issues posted on a competing (guess which one...) product's forum. The only way you can get their attention is to write critically of their product.

Even though the "E" mail response is slow my phone call to switch the older V4 I sold to my buddy was handled extremely fast.

JJK

I've been dealing with Vegas products for years. I have ALWAYS had the BEST assistance from both Sonic Foundry AND Sony. Email and phone, both outstanding!
And I appreciate it.

I’ve had to call Sony support on several occasions and they have always been responsive and have gone out of their way to resolve my problems. One of them was a strange issue where the XFX-3 PlugIns would not show as registered in other applications after upgrading from Sonic Foundry Vegas 4.0d to Sony Vegas 4.0e. They worked fine in Sony/SoFo apps but showed up as DEMO in other DirectX applications. Since support could not figure out why this was happening, they issued me a serial number for XFX-3 so that I could download the standalone version and get it out of demo mode.

Recently, I purchased ACID Pro on eBay and the seller sent an email to Sony to transfer ownership. About a week later he got a reply with an apology that it took so long, but that they were having an unusually heavy workload due to the Vegas launch. The email included instructions which he forwarded to me to complete the transfer. Great customer service.

Also, I have seldom seen the kind of representation from a company in user supported forums than Sony has here. We are very lucky that so many Sony reps are reading these threads and replying where appropriate. I think the Sony support is an example of what other companies customer support should aspire to. Great work guys. We appreciate it!

~jr

The few times I have used Sonic Foundry and Sony C.S., I have always had excellent response and great resolutions. I wish a lot of other companies would take notice and see that good customer service is paramount to running any company (I work in client services in my day job...).

dave

epirb, sorry for the late reply. Yea, that's the deal, same thing and its apparently a known issue. They are sending replacements ( Volume 3 and 4 are the only ones with glitches ). In the mean time I just went in and took out the one bad frame of the ones I needed, almost imperceptible.

Good luck !

- Ray

www.undergroundplanet.com

only 8 support techs? Wow. :)

That's pretty good though. It signifies 2 important things:

1) The products are good and aren't very many issues so there is no need for many many techs

2) the company puts their prioritys in order: making a better product is more important that hiring guys to fix it. :)

You guys do good work though (never dealt with you on an issue though, but I'd like to say thanks to Nicholas Wiesmueller for putting up with my on a Screenblast Acid legal issue).

Thanks for the e-mail (you remind me of me when I ran a website!)