I liked being given a voice in this way. I thought many questions contemplated a re-tooled Vegas as a "go to" application for all editing needs, i.e., NLE, compositor, titler, (better) color grader, etc.

I asked for Blu-ray pop-up menus. Obviously, that's for DVDA. Is that like asking for a disco ball for my bedroom? (I'm one who really wants stability, but I don't consider that a "feature", so I offered something that would be new and that I would use a lot...the menus, not the ball!)

-Steve

I replied in all 4 categories...stability!
I found the questions that followed interesting about making Vegas play nice with other NLE's and about what other programs used in my workflow. Here's the link for anyone who didn't receive it yet... http://links.mail.sonycreativesoftware.com/ctt?kn=2&ms=NDQwMTEwNQS2&r=MTU5MTUwNjczODYS1&b=2&j=MjYzNDAyMTQ5S0&mt=1&rt=0

Ah, its cookie driven.. the link will work, changed my comment - sorry for confusion.

Paul.

Sorry, I posted too quickly and thought about that afterward...my bad.

I am happy that Sony seems to have taken some steps recently that are consistent with them getting the message that they need to listen to their paying customers. It sounds like they might have a new product manager or, at least, a new product management strategy that includes reaching out (e.g., on this forum and with surveys). This helps comfort me that Vegas Pro isn't necessarily lost within Sony.

My four suggested features:
1. Stability (I agree that this isn't a feature, but if their marketing folks hear us all crying out for it, then I don't think they can ignore it).
2. Motion tracking
3. Improved/Enhanced deinterlacing and scaling algorithms
4. Imrpoved/Enhanced slow motion effects with frame interpolation (akin to Twixtor).

I realize that 2-4 are available as plug-ins or outside of Vegas Pro. My point is that I'd like to see them included as something making it worth me upgrading next time, especially if done well.

I am also encouraged by the apparent short list of features that includes (at the top of my list) better color tools. I use MB Looks and love it - not so much for "looks," but for plain color correction. It would be nice to have good color correction tools built in to Vegas Pro, especially if I could keyframe them (which I can't do with MB Looks).

Sorry Woodenmike - its my bad!

Paul.

IMO, SCS needs to do the following:

1) Native AAF import/export in 64 bit Vegas Pro for collaborating with others
2) Rock solid stability is critical
3) Proper Closed Captioning
4) OMF import/export
5) Ditch the 32bit Vegas Pro completely and devote those programmers to the native 64 bit Vegas Pro becoming a true contender - not a fan boy NLE.
6) Ditch any compatibility with Windows XP. The world moved on years ago.

"4. Imrpoved/Enhanced slow motion effects with frame interpolation (akin to Twixtor).@JasonATL, Good one - I wish I'd thought of that before I replied.

...Jerry

In addition, SCS should quit catering to those on mediocre hardware specs.

Avid, Adobe and Apple all have hardware specs that are above Vegas Pro specs. Raise the bar on that and stability issues would probably go away for many.

And whatever happened to those certified workstation class computers? There's no link to them any longer on the SCS site that I can tell. I have to do a Google search to find them.

Cliff Etzel:
V11 already has ditched Windows XP.
JJK

I asked for three main things:

1- software stability
2- better gpu support
3- better image stabilization

Be careful what you wish for.

Closed captioning, complicated text generators, and importing non-standard or proprietary file types are three of the top ways to bring down an NLE based on my past experience.

I know they might be features you need.... but just sayin'..

- Mark

Word on your response Mark.

All I've ever wanted and requested time and time again from SCS was get rid of all the crap transitions, properly integrate AAF import and export natively in VP 64 bit and then improve upon the Color grading capabilities. The other stuff about codecs should only be addressed after they get Vegas Pro to a place worthy of its namesake.

JJK - I realized that after my posting regarding Windows XP. My bad.

just sayin'

For those of you reading this thread before you fill out the survey, I think I should correct a few misconceptions so you don't fail to request a feature for for fear that it might cause further instabilities.

I have seen these misconceptions stated in other threads, such as the recent one on tech support.

Ditch the 32bit Vegas Pro completely and devote those programmers to the native 64 bit Vegas Pro becoming a true contender Really?? Quick, name one thing you can do in the 64-bit version that cannot be done in 32-bit. Better yet, tell me what makes 64-bit "better" than 32-bit.

The idea that 64-bit will result in better stability is completely and totally false. Yes, if you go all the way back to the days of DOS, 286 computers and the hard-wired 640K (thats "K") memory limitations there were all sorts of instabilities in dealing with a small directly-addressable memory RAM memory space. The EMS and EEMS specs which attempted to temporarily fix that issue made matters even worse.

But those days and operating systems are long gone.

Ditch any compatibility with Windows XP. The world moved on years ago.This is another misconception. By this logic, we all should have ditched XP and moved to Vista. However, it turns out that Vista was worse in most respects.

Windows 7 is a fine operating system, but it is not clear to me that it has any benefits whatsoever for any given application. Do things actually run any faster in Windows 7 (they may start a little quicker, but do they run any faster)? Exactly what features can you get in an application running under Windows 7 that you can't get under XP? I'm not saying that there aren't any; in fact, I'm sure there are. However, I bet that no one in this forum can name one feature in Vegas 11 that actually requires Windows 7. This can be seen from the reports from a few people who made a couple of quick changes and have been able to get Vegas 11 to run on XP.

And, as already noted in a previous post, Vegas 11 HAS ditched XP.

Avid, Adobe and Apple all have hardware specs that are above Vegas Pro specs. Raise the bar on that and stability issues would probably go away for many.There is a seed of truth here, but not in the way this is stated. The seed of truth is that if Sony were to require all of us to have exactly one configuration which we purchased directly from them, then we would have fewer stability issues. However, this would have nothing to do about "raising" specs.

The reason for the Vegas 10 and Vegas 11 stability issues has absolutely zero to do with XP. In fact Windows XP is probably the finest, most stable O/S Microsoft ever produced. Stability issues also have zero to do with whether my computer has a fast or slow processor, or an IDE or SATA or SAS or RAID or any other drive configuration. However you want to define "raising specs," I don't think anything in a computer built today vs. one built five years ago is going to make your system more stable.

Instead, the reasons for Vegas 10 and Vegas 11 stability issues are:

1. The decision to provide GPU assist. It is crystal clear that this is causing many of the problems described in this forum. I say "crystal clear" because people have reported changes in stability as they have changed video cards or video drivers. I also say it because video driver stability has been a huge issue in this industry for the past fifteen years.

2. Buggy external plug-ins. I completely and totally applaud Sony's decision to increase support for third-party plug-ins. However, some of those plug-ins are causing problems. You can research the posts by jetdv shortly after Vegas 11 was first shipped for just one example of known problems with one external plug-in. I have personally experienced and documented problems with another well-known and widely used plug-in.

3. Bad code. There are definitely bugs in Vegas 10 & 11 that affect stability. I am working hard on trying to re-create these and document them. I am using a Windows 7 64-bit "virgin" system (I have nothing else installed, and the Windows 7 installation was done from scratch).

Closed captioning, complicated text generators, and importing non-standard or proprietary file types are three of the top ways to bring down an NLE based on my past experience.I don't think there is anything whatsoever in these tasks that inherently should lead to instability. Any new feature has this potential, and there is nothing unusual or obviously "dangerous" about these specific ones.

Having said that, there definitely was one feature that everyone was asking for that was known, before the fact, that it was going to destabilize everything, and that was GPU support. I've already described above why this is so. Unfortunately, this one will not go away just by Sony making some changes to their code. There are only two ways to "fix" the problem: 1) Get rid of the feature and instead improve timeline and render performance by taking better advantage of multi-core, multi-core, and multi-computer (render farm) setups; 2) Require that, in order to take advantage of GPU support, that you have one specific video card, and one specific driver for that card.

So, go ahead and ask for the features you really want and need, and do so without trying to make assumptions about whether such feature might degrade stability.

Nothing changes in these forums apparently - denial is a river in Egypt.

To me the full switch to 64 bit doesn't imply 32 bit being better or worse than 64 bit or one OS being better than another. It simply means that if only one platform need be developed more resources will be available to further refine that version. If you are going to support either 32 bit or 64 bit I think it logical to go with 64 bit as that does seem like where we are heading.

I would also go out on a limb and say that many of the users around here, myself included, are just looking for ways that Sony might be able to better debug Vegas.

We're all on the same team here. We just have different ideas about getting to a winning version of Vegas.

- Mark

'I just received and completed a Sony Vegas Pro Product improvement survey. One of the questions was "What other feature enhancements would you like to see in Sony Vegas Pro?" Here were my four responses:
1) Before anything else is done, make Sony Vegas Pro rock solid (i.e. reduce or eliminate the crashes).'

Funny about that, this was my response in all 4 boxes :o)

I guess the big question is 'Will it have any impact any time soon?'

Also, it would be interesting to have the results published on this forum!

~Wayne

Am I the only one who would like smart rendering of AVCHD?

I am stuck on 9c because of this and put up with the bugs (crashes, doesn't like images mixed with AVCHD) nevertheless. Yes I do colour correction and stabilize from time to time but I also have many clips that only need trimming.

Cliff's point was that it takes some extra effort on SCS's part to maintain the 32 bit version of Vegas Pro and backward compatibility with Windows XP. I agree, although that wasn't one of my answers to the survey.

I guess I am the only one here who has been around long enough to recall a similar survey from Sony a few years ago.

Yes, they did incorporate some of the serious responses in the next few releases. One of those was GPU support. Be careful what you ask for.

Like many of you my number one response was to improve stability. Unlike any of you so far as I can tell, I also asked that they continue to develop and improve Media Manager. I find it useful but unfortunately stuck at 1.0 feature wise.

Regarding gpu support and be careful what you ask for... the teething pains are tough but it was a transition that was required given our modern highly compressed codecs. I am confident it will get better and is essential for the continued evolution of Vegas.

/jerry

1 = edl and collaborative tools.

2 > 4 = STABILITY!!!!