When is Vegas 6 available to the public, this year or 2006?

I predict Monday at 10 AM EDT.

We have fixed the following issues in Vegas 6:

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John

"New! Tape style audio scrubbing"

I hope that means what I think it means.

The main thing I'm saying is that at about every Vegas release you seem to push out the fact that there isn't enough audio features. I have no problem with this at all, you have the right to ask for those features. What I was saying is that it might be a dead end and there are other tools like Nuendo (I use Cubase on occasions) that are well suited for the job and that it might be a better idea to invest money in a platform that is dedicated to audio than a platform that once was an audio app (for 2 versions) but is now more of a video app....

Now I guess this is the pessimistic point of view and I truly hope we will see the day when the 2 camps are happy.
I try to be happy with what I have have, I'm a bit sick of people complaining (be it on the audio or video side) about missing features when the app isn't even released yet. We still don't know all the features and we might have some surprises...

In between, I'm also an audio guy, I'm a student in music composition and my primary tool is Vegas. (that I have used since version 2). I'd also like to see more audio features in Vegas, but if it doesn't happen well I'll go elsewhere for those features, I'm young, I can learn.

>I suspect the audio guys will find uses for nested projects too.

Absolutely. For audio production I edit/create in Sonar 4, but tweak files in Sound Forge 7 (upgraded to 8, but am waiting for the first patch before I go back to it). Sonar uses layers of audio which you can have in one channel or folder. It appears that nested projects is the same idea. For audio, it's a boon...take portions of previously completed or in-progress projects and stitch them together? I'll probably end up using Vegas for that kind of thing. If you're NOT able to find an audio application for nested project editing, then you're probably limiting the type of projects you work on, or just like doing really boring stuff. (-;

Well, nested projects is one very good reason for me to get it, especially with a long form project I am working on. But one thing I REALLY want to know is if they have implemented MXF file editing on the timeline as per Pinnacle and Avid. It was hinted at many many months ago, so I hope it is! Even better if I can import clip lists from the xdcam PDZ1 software. This would speed up my production dramatically for some projects.

Yeah, this would be kind of 'last missing link' to the broadcast area.

Marco

Bgil,

1 Decklink cards are not designed for effects acceleration. They are input/output devices. I think others have mentioned in different threads that it is very unlikely that Vegas will go down the road of hardware acceleration because of
A. the way Vegas is currently designed
B. Acceleration hardware quickly becomes obsolete as faster computers can do more with the software.
C Even with hardware acceleration it's easy to add enough layers where the hardward card cannot keep up. In this case the gracefully degrading preview window of Vegas is a better workflow.

2 I don't think Sony is going to promote any third party products in relation to Vegas yet. They may be the same as Vegas 5, they may be different, but I think Sony wants the spolight on themselves.

3 Yes. Vegas 6 should run faster. Especially for hyperthreading or dual cpu machines. The article mentions that Vegas felt zippier on a 3 year-old dual Xeon box.

just got back to somewhat being alive and i am back online to check forums. Saw this thread and wanted to comment a bit.

Trying to be a but nuetral really I am but as some have pointed out with Vegas 5 the audio side of things seemed to be popping - video was complaining too many audio updates. Audio was saying "Well Vegas is, after all, an audio app" and blah blah. I have said many times I came to Vegas looking for an audio app and the video side was sort of a nice add on, if you will. Vegas has tried hard to be sort of a swiss army knife of NLE/DAW's and it may end up being its downfall at some point. Each time somehting comes out someone in some camp complains.

may I also point out that when Premier Pro went fgrom 1.0 to 1.5 Adobe charged $99.00 and people complained at thins. Sony is charging what...$200.00 for the upgrade abnd people are for the most part fine. Add on the now, included, Cinefrom codec and "Windows Secondary Display" - which I will point out Adobe included in February as a free upgrade to PPro from 1.5 to 1.5.1 - and you have a lot of people who just forked over cash to get the full CIneform codec and have started to ask "Do we get some sort of added discount now?". In the past people have said that Premiere and others were trying to be like Vegas, now if you read the "new" faetures isn't Vegas trying to be somewhat like Premiere and other NLE's? I am just pointing out soime things - not saying this is good or bad. Just that I read this thread and see the same old comments coming out.

I think it sounds like the development team has been listening and had tried hard to look into the future and balance what is out there and what is coming and tried to put out something that works. Decklink support is going to be great - although it wa spointed out after last years NAB that "when" support did come it was going to be very basic - so the fact it seems to allow for scene detection, batch capture and frame accurate uotput might indicate they got a bit more working...which is a good thing. Nesting will be a great thing. I laughed at the statement about how "Previously, Vegas had support for EDLs" because this is a much debated topic at times, including comments direct from SoFo/Sony about how limited/non-existant EDL support was - but to see that there is hope for project interchange with the aaf addition is, IMO, a great thing.

Marketing hype is alway going to be there - and really there has been HD/HDV support for a long time - since what...Version 3 was it? it is just that now we have presets and the ability to actually export/PTT is all. No matter what the case I am interested in Vegas 6 more than I was Vegas 5. In the long run I might still end up uising Premire Pro to edit and Vegas to finish...I don't know.

No matter what I'll buy the upgrade. I've always looked at it as an investment. I just don't want to see a upgrade like we used to get back in the day like "envelope hold" or some other really cheezy "add-on".

Vst support is cool because my Uad card runs better with that format than DX. [Buster the uad card is hardware accel. for audio fx...I wouldn't be surprised if vegas got something like that for video.]

I guess all I'm saying is that I hope we get some BIG features like "fx freeze" and "asio dm" and not just like "new envelope types".

Ed.

ReWire, ReWire ...

Yes Vegas needs rewire,This would remove my use of Acid altogether (whose interface I hate when compared to Vegas') Vegas is a great tool for pre production, live performance, and post production. Few (if any) editors can match its capabilities and performance.

MIDI sequencing is also on the top of my list. This capability would really seal Vegas' place as the best all around multimedia tool that I can think of.

Yes and yes - well said Murk!

With Sony trying to market Vegas now <as> a multimedia tool, it's not just us audio-only guys who are or should be pushing for these things. MIDI sequencing - even if basic - and ReWire would take Vegas' already incredible media production tools to the next level. There would be nothing close to it around in terms of a broad feature set, or of course in the fantastic way the features are implemented.

I really hope we can sit here in a year's time with Vegas 7 on the way, and look back and be so pleased that Sony listened to us about these things...

Ben

Not that I've ever used Acid, but I was hoping you'd be able to nest acid projects into Vegas as well as Veg projects.

Do you think it would make sense for Sony to fork Vegas into Vegas Video and Vegas audio? Maybe offer a basic Vegas feature set that you could then add the additional features too?

Rob Mack

Forking Vegas into two separate progs would be a mistake. I do audio and video in combination, and I need all the AV features in a single app.

I agree. Forking the product would be disastorous and Sony would lose a lot of customers. I am not an audio guy but couldnt the same things be accomplished in Sound Forge and Acid thus nullifying any need to seperate the product?

Besides, for the small upgrade price, you get the best of both worlds. Id rather spend $200 and get audio/video upgrade then to spend $200 each for audio and then for video upgrades.

Im thrilled because now I can shelve my Avid. Woot Woot.

"count on it" quote by DSE after hearing "i hope they are holding something back"

i like to here that ;) Is it monday yet? lol. wow.. I never thought I would ask that question in my lifetime....

nobody will be. People will think of new features, then even if they added something lke ReWire, something else will be wanted too, and people will say sony dropped the ballagain.

It's a loose/loose situation. :)

"I am not an audio guy but couldnt the same things be accomplished in Sound Forge and Acid thus nullifying any need to seperate the product?"

pmasters, just to clear you up on the audio side, here's some background on the Vegas, Acid, Forge side of things.

Acid cannot do MANY multitrack, editing eccential basic features like Vegas. We as audio users have asked for this capability in Acid. As audio users we are told by Sony, that Acid is not a DAW, it is a loop sequencer and it will stay focused on being a loop Sequencer, Vegas is their multrack DAW app. Sound Forge is primarily a Stereo audio editor, it's great for the mastering processs of audio, it has NO multitrack editing DAW features. You can think of analogy as Sound Forge is to Vegas for audio, quite like Photoshop is to Vegas for Video. Sound Forge and Vegas intergrate weill together for this aspect where you can open audio in Vegas directly into Sound Forge and edit it in Sound Forge and all changes in Forge get updated in Vegas.

The major problem for audio users is they are looking for the ability to work with Vegas and Acid together, so we have the best of both worlds of Acid features and Vegas features.

One way to accomplish this is to sync both together with MIDI sync. There are 2 types of midi sync. One is midi TIME CODE (ie SMPTE), the other is Midi BEAT CLOCK. Midi Beat clock is the better solution of sync because there is less drift between the 2 apps running together. As far as using Midi Beat Clock for sync is that Acid generates Midi Beat Clock, and Vegas generates midi Beat Clock. Neither one of them will sync to MIDI BEAT CLOCK, which means there's no way to sync them together using the better method.

The even better solution than all of the midi sync options is through REWIRE syncing capabilities. Through Rewire you can have Sample accurate sync between both Acid and Vegas when running them together. Think of having to use 2 seperate apps for doing your video editing and they sync them together at FRAME by FRAME accuracy with one another. This is what you would want right? Well the midi sync doesn't quite give you that. Rewire also allows you to route audio from one app into the other. So as a Video analogy of ACID/VEGAS working together, imagine having the Video monitor output from Acid being able to show up in a Video Track in Vegas, where it can be further enhanced and combined with the existing video tracks in Vegas and all previewed together in the Vegas master video preview Window. This is ideally what you would want if you where forced to work with 2 seperate apps to do your video editing right? Well here's a recent reply from the Sony developers when we ask for the Rewire capabilities in Vegas. Obviously from this reply, they have looked into adding Rewire capabilities in Vegas. Also, you've seen the pictures from the V6 articles. You don't see a master tempo fader do you, like you see in Acid? My hopes for seeing Rewire abilities in Vegas are minimal at this point.

SonyPCH said: "{ReWire hosting in Vegas would be very limited since Vegas doesn't have a tempo map. It doesn't map well to medium/longer form video creation/editing that Vegas is great at."

So you know what the sad part of the story is? Vegas is our multitrack DAW of choice, and we also love the power of Acid and are comfortable with using it because of it's similar UI to Vegas, but ultimately need to use them both together. Acid can be rewire synced with most every other DAW, Protools, Nuendo, Sonar, etc.......but we can't Rewire Acid and Vegas together. How sad is that when they're made by the same company? The other sad part, is that let's say we wanted to work with the 2 apps seperately and then import everything we did in Acid into Vegas. You can't simply just SAVE the Acid project and open it in Vegas or even render an Acid project as a Vegas project, these feature don't exist although we've been asking for years and version upon version revision. We have to render each track seperately from Acid then individually add them as new audio tracks seperately in Vegas. So the same analogy on a Video perspective, say you have 20 seperate Video tracks assembled in Acid, you have to render them as seperate tracks from Acid, then individually add them into Vegas. Well not the end of the world, but how effencient would you see that as a work around work flow limitation?

As an overall analogy, imagine all the eccential features you NEEDED in your video editor work was split up between 2 seperate apps made by the same company and you couldn't have the best technology available to work with them together on a single project. Now imagine you're told one of the major reasons you couldn't have that functionality is because it would break the audio features in Vegas, which you rarely or never even use. Then let's say, well this other app (ie Acid) doesn't have those audio features, so can we get the video features in Vegas, put into Acid? The answer you get, is NO because Acid is not an NLE.

Now with all that, would you find yourself a little frustrated? You think you might find yourself complaining about all the audio features being added without addressing a basic necessity video feature for your workflow?

I have no problem with Vegas being primarily an NLE with great audio features, I say let it's development focus in that area and flurish. Acid now has a bigger recognized name in the audio community than Vegas anyway. Let it's development focus in on the DAW eccential features, and there's no need to break up Vegas into 2 programs.......but unfortunately we're told Acid isn't going to do that either. Where do we turn? We turn to other software developers that are listening to their audio user's needs and that's not an easy step after working with an app for many years.

If you really want to understand the frustrated audio users perspective, go read this thread in the Vegas Audio forum. It's a pretty long read. In this discussion every user was contributing their thoughts of what we needed. Not one person was arguing as goes on in this Vegas Video forum that I see here in a regular basis. No name calling, swearing...etc. We where trying to have a constructive conversation and let Sony know our frustrations. Every user in the discussion in agreement with one another. You know what Sony did? They LOCKED the thread. They basically told us to SHUT UP, we're tired of listening to what you want.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=367782&Replies=129&Page=0

Rednroll, thank you for taking the time to explain it. While it doesnt affect me because I am definitely not an audio guy, I feel for the audio guys and hope they get what they need. I definitely understand the frustration when you put it into video perspective.

I agree that it doesnt make sense why they couldnt marry the two a little bit better seeing how Sony developes both apps. Is it possible that this is a marketing move to increase sales for both products?

As a video guy, I am happy with all the new features but I am sure one day I will need the audio features that you all need now. Ill throw in my support for these features as well to help your all's cause. I honestly see Vegas 7 being more audio than video because I think it will be hard to create enough new features on the video side. True there are things missing but there has to be a point where you cant keep adding at the same pace.

I hope the audio guys have some awesome surprises come tomorrow.

"Is it possible that this is a marketing move to increase sales for both products?"

Not my viewpoint, but definately a point made by many of the audio users over the years.

Red,

I tried to read through the whole thread but just couldn't get there. It makes me think that Sony should just set a cap on the number of posts in a thread. 100 would be way more than enough.

I don't think the thread got too hostile. Just too long. They just aren't useful to users when they get that long. Maybe threads should be capped at about 30 posts.

Rob Mack

Where did the pundits go that used to say they wanted to be charged MORE for the upgrades? They used to come out of the woodwork every year and post that nonsense. They were too funny. I miss them.

John