Sony Digital Pictures & Vegas

PAW wrote on 9/17/2003, 5:31 AM
Hello All,

Just picked this up on MyDMN and thought it may be of interest here

PAW


With the ink still drying on Sony's acquisition of the media assets of Sonic Foundry, some users might be waiting for the other shoe to drop. But there is no other shoe, just continuing development and innovations with the applications, which include Vegas, Sound Forge and ACID, says Andrew Schneider, Senior VP/GM of Sony's Screenblast Business Unit.

The first thought that occurred to many users of the highly regarded audio and video programs upon hearing about the acquisition was: "What's going to happen with my application now?" No one wants to see their favorite application suddenly folded into another one or a platform be dropped altogether, as with the PC version of Logic Audio when Apple acquired Emagic.

But Sony Pictures Digital is committed to the Sonic Foundry products and their user base -- and also to the development team, which joined Sony from Sonic Foundry, says Schneider. He notes that Sony Pictures Digital and Sonic Foundry already had a relationship that began in 1999 with the development of Screenblast Movie Studio video editing software and Screenblast Acid Pro, both Sony-branded consumer applications.

"As we grew to know the Sonic Foundry team and management, we really came to admire not only their engineering, but their passion and dedication to what they were doing," Schneider says. "Certainly their products have been standard-setters in the industry for many years, and we saw a bigger opportunity to offer an entire line of software solutions from mass consumer applications all the way up to professional and broadcast applications."

He adds that users of products such as Sound Forge and Vegas can feel confident about continued development of their applications. "I think this is a tremendous opportunity to build upon firm foundation that the Madison team has already established, and really provide increased levels of support, increased levels of technical innovation and sophistication -- all the while listening to the marketplace and taking their feedback into account, certainly. So, I think there's nothing but good things ahead."

Sonic Foundry's Madison, WI-based media products development and management team has also joined Sony. "The plans are to stay and build out the Madison team. That's the core right there," says Schneider.

"The commitment to these products and the professional market is absolutely there, as well as the commitment to the guys who created it. It's a great marriage of two innovative companies both known for cutting edge techologies and design. When you put the two together, there's going to be some great stuff to talk about in the coming months," Schneider concludes.

Comments

Grazie wrote on 9/17/2003, 6:23 AM
Here! Here!

Go Forth and Be Creative!

Grazie
gold wrote on 9/17/2003, 7:43 AM
That's encouraging
It seems from all the other press releases by Andrew Schneider, e.g.,
http://www.emedialive.com/news/2003/0722_1.html
that the Vegas/DVD-A development team may have been "reassigned" of late to incorporating the Vegas and DVDA engines into Screenblast Movie Studio. Does this article imply that Vegas/DVDA will be continued as standalone products for the professional developer or that there is a Screenblast Movie Studio Pro in development to replace them? I'm not good at reading between the lines.
John_Cline wrote on 9/17/2003, 8:56 AM
I think it's highly unlikely that Sony will discontinue development of Vegas and DVDA for the professional market. Sony has tried over and over to crack the pro NLE markets without much success. With Vegas and DVDA, they might now have their best shot yet.

The Sonic Foundry team with Sony's money behind them seems like a winning combination. So far, I like the way Sony is handling the SoFo acquisition.

John
wcoxe1 wrote on 9/17/2003, 9:45 AM
Putting features in low-end products which were first introduced in higher-end products seems to be the norm. I suspect that, to keep competitive at the low end, Sony, and everyone else, will simply add new features from above. That makes it important to add even NEWer features in the high-end.

Looking forward to an improved Vegas.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/17/2003, 9:53 AM
The main concern I'm having about Sony is that they aren't being as generous with the info as SF was. The "Product Comparison" and "Features" list for Screenblast ACID and Movie Studio are incomplete. They just point out features that are special to the Sony product that the competition doesn't have (ie Acid says it comes with Sound Forge and the competition doesn't. Of course they don't! They're the competition!). I found the complete feature lists/comparisons much better. The movie studio page doesn't even say how many tracks it does. They also dont have a comparison with the full blown products (Acid Pro 4 & Vegas 4) vs the lower end products (Acid 4 and Movie Studio). That list was one of the key desisions that brought me to buy Vegas instead of Video Factory (and the nice lady with customer service that answered all my questions!).

No demo's isn't nice eighter. Well, on the Screenblast ACID site they have a Flash movie/demo, but I gave up on waiting for that to load after 5 minutes. Also, there is no screenshots showing what the interface look like anymore. I bought Screenblast Acid 4, and there wearn't even screenshots on the box!

Also, with the old Sonic Foundry line, if you had a plugin/feature in one program it was available in the other (All my old Sound Forge plugins were available for Vegas, i could export in mpeg-2 in Sound Forge with my Vegas plugin). When I bought Screenblast Acid 4, it has a Flash export. This export option shows up in Vegas but rendres a file of 0k in size!

On the plus side, Sony lowered the price of some of the boxed software to the same price as the downloadable ones. :)

Perhaps when everything becomes fully "Sonyized" these things will be worked out. :)
BrianStanding wrote on 9/17/2003, 10:00 AM
TheHappyFriar,

Is this more what you had in mind?
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/soundforge7.asp

Note the Sony nameplate on the box. Other than that, looks like the same kind of release we've seen before from Sonic Foundry.

Maybe Sony's treating the Screenblast and Vegas/Sound Forge/DVDA lines differently?
TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/17/2003, 10:44 AM
That's what I was thinking of, but I didn't see a feature list. Not out yet? And doesn't that box look like Vegas 4, but red instead of yellow/orange? :)
JakeHannam wrote on 9/17/2003, 12:48 PM
I think it is healthy to be skeptical about all this. I hope that Sony does not drop the ball with the SOFO products but I would't bet the farm on it.

Does anyone remember what happened to Digital Origin's EditDV when they were sold to Media 100? They renamed it Cinestream but now you NEVER hear anything about it. It just died on the vine as far as I can tell ...

At one time, EditDV was THE alternative to Premiere (just like Vegas is now). Keep your fingers crossed and let Sony know how you feel about it. It may help.

Jake