Suggestions for VEGAS Pro 23 - Addressing Performance and Stability.

Abdali wrote on 6/19/2025, 10:18 PM

Dear VEGAS Pro Development Team,

I'm writing to offer some detailed suggestions for the upcoming VEGAS Pro 23 which is probably in development, and based on my extensive experience with VEGAS Pro 21 and 22. My aim is to help make the next iteration of VEGAS Pro even more robust and reliable.

Context and My Experience:

VEGAS Pro has been my go-to editing software for a long time; I have been using it since 2010 and appreciate the continuous development. However, my feedback will focus specifically on my journey through versions 21 and 22, as their recent development and shared characteristics highlight persistent issues that significantly impact workflow and productivity. I will now detail those experiences.

Feedback on VEGAS Pro 21 (and its Video Engine Development):

VEGAS Pro 21, with its new video engine under development, showed steady improvement with each build, culminating in what seemed to be a stable build 315. However, it had several critical shortcomings:

Adjustment Events and Memory Issues: A major problem was the unreliability of adjustment events, especially on longer video projects. Rendering projects with adjustment events frequently resulted in "low memory" error reports, even when system resources were clearly not exhausted. This forced workarounds and significantly hindered efficiency.

Third-Party VST3 Plugin Performance: The application of third-party VST3 audio plugins made the program incredibly slow to open and save projects, rendering it almost unusable. Furthermore, basic audio clip operations like cutting or dragging with third party VST3 plugins applied would get stuck for few seconds then became laggy it was excessively time-consuming.

Codec and Project Compatibility: There was a noticeable inconsistency with codec handling. While some codecs worked better with the Legacy Decoder, others with the new video engine. Opening older projects (from previous VEGAS versions) in VEGAS Pro 21 with the new video engine often led to clips being out of sync and cuts being misaligned by several frames.

VEGAS Effects Integration: As the last version to support VEGAS Effects, which I found very useful, especially for short films and documentaries that i made, it's unfortunate that VEGAS Pro 21's ease of all-in-one project editing was undermined by these unresolved bugs.

Color Grading Panel Lag: The color grading panel, whether applied to video clips or adjustment events, suffered from significant loading and adjustment lag. When applied across numerous clips, it became almost unusable, with even simple opening and adjustments taking an inordinate amount of time.

Feedback on VEGAS Pro 22 (Improvements and Remaining Issues):

VEGAS Pro 22 successfully addressed many of the issues present in version 21, and I've experienced the fewest crashes to date with this version, making it arguably the best version of VEGAS Pro so far.

Improvements:

Most of the initial problems from VEGAS Pro 21 were resolved, indicating a strong focus on stability.

Third-Party VST3 Audio Plugin Performance (Ongoing Concerns): While showing some improvement in project opening/saving times and overall reliability compared to VEGAS Pro 21, Third party VST3 plugins still present significant performance issues. They perform exceptionally slow when using the Legacy Decoder. Furthermore, applying any third-party VST3 plugin takes a noticeable amount of time to load and become usable. A persistent issue, and almost all Waves Audio plugins, causes the master volume audio meter to behave erratically—it becomes laggy and inconsistent. Moreover, while Waves' stereo plugins generally function, applying mono Waves plugins inexplicably boosts the audio signal of that track, leading to unexpected volume increases.

Crucially, the adjustment events issue was largely fixed, allowing for their reliable use even on longer videos.

Remaining Issues:

Adjustment Event Compatibility with Older Projects: A notable issue persists when opening older VEGAS Pro 21 projects containing adjustment events in VEGAS Pro 22. These adjustment events often exhibit cropping problems and lead to rendering anomalies on certain clips.

Color Grading Panel Lag (Continued): The color grading panel issue, while perhaps less pervasive than in VP21, still manifests in certain projects, indicating that further optimization is needed.

Memory Leak with LUT FILTER and other Video FX Plugins: A significant and still unresolved problem since its release is a memory leak specifically observed when using the LUT FILTER plugin. This critical flaw has made many of my VEGAS Pro 21 projects (which heavily utilized LUT FILTER) unworkable in VEGAS Pro 22. I've also seen reports from other users experiencing similar memory leaks with various other video FX plugins. This is a critical stability concern.

Overall Summary and Suggestion for VEGAS Pro 23:

My experience has been a cycle of moving from one VEGAS Pro version to another to escape specific bugs. While VEGAS Pro 22 is a commendable step forward, the lingering memory leak issues, especially concerning common LUT FILTER, and the backward compatibility problems with adjustment events and the inconsistent behavior when using either the Legacy Decoder or New Video Engine on certain projects, are major pain points that impede long-term project management and efficiency.

My primary suggestion for VEGAS Pro 23 is to prioritize absolute stability and backward compatibility with project files and essential features (like adjustment events and widely used VIDEO FX FILTERS). Specifically, please focus on:

Eliminating all known memory leaks, particularly with common video FX plugins like LUT FILTER. This is paramount for professional workflow and long-term project viability.

Ensuring seamless and bug-free backward compatibility for older projects, especially those using adjustment events. Cropping and synchronization issues when upgrading projects must be resolved.

Significantly optimizing the performance of third-party VST3 audio plugins, aiming for near-instantaneous project loading and saving times, and fluid manipulation of audio clips. This is crucial given that VEGAS originated as an audio editor, and robust audio performance remains a cornerstone of the user experience.

Achieving consistently fluid performance for the color grading panel, even when applied to numerous clips or adjustment events.

Fundamental Performance and Stability: While new AI filters and features are exciting, the absolute priority for VEGAS Pro 23 should be achieving a fast, snappy, and nearly crash-free experience, particularly with demanding media like longer projects with large 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 videos, and even raw footage. Core performance and reliability must be paramount.

Consideration for Future VEGAS Effects Integration: While the immediate focus must be on core stability of VEGAS PRO, the possibility of a future, robust, and stable integration of VEGAS Effects (or a similar powerful compositing/VFX application) into the VEGAS Pro ecosystem would be highly beneficial for a comprehensive post-production workflow.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I believe addressing these core stability and compatibility concerns will significantly enhance the user experience and solidify VEGAS Pro's position as a leading NLE :)

Comments

RogerS wrote on 6/20/2025, 1:13 AM

Thank you for your careful testing and well considered feedback. I am looking forward to bug fixes and improvements in 23 as well.

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 6/20/2025, 9:59 PM

@Abdali I can confidently tell you that most of those issues you have raised are already being heavily worked on by the development team. While some are in the future pipeline to tackle.

Abdali wrote on 6/21/2025, 10:20 PM

Thank you for your careful testing and well considered feedback. I am looking forward to bug fixes and improvements in 23 as well.

It's truly my pleasure. No matter what other video editing software I try, VEGAS Pro always stands out as the easiest and most intuitive. If my suggestions can help the developers in any way, that would be incredibly rewarding.

Abdali wrote on 6/21/2025, 10:25 PM

@Abdali I can confidently tell you that most of those issues you have raised are already being heavily worked on by the development team. While some are in the future pipeline to tackle.

That's excellent news, thank you! I'm genuinely reassured to hear these issues are a high priority for the development team. Looking forward.

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 6/22/2025, 11:22 AM

@Abdali Just bare in mind, Although the team is currently working on most of these features, i am not saying you will see them all fixed and improved in the upcoming Vegas Pro 23.... It takes time.

andreas-georgiou wrote on 10/2/2025, 6:18 AM

Thanks for flagging these issues, I have been using Vegas and Vegas pro for over a decade (Sony days!) and for myself the biggest bugs that need addressing are Rendering,1- the freezing on rendering-waiting for 2-3 hours to render without having access to the machine only to find out that Vegas freezes at random points from 30% but worst 90-99% on the same project same codec and having to use task manager to close the app. surely if we click cancel it should cancel not just hang!, 3- Some codecs especially Nvidia ones (yes all latest studio drivers rtx2070 super stock clocks not overclocked) come up with the good old "Vegas pro 22, An error occurred while creating the media file xxxx, Error 0x80660008 (message missing) " we are not software engineers and messages like those I used to get 50 years ago when i was coding on punched cards in FORTRAN! (goes to show my age), 3-depricating 3D support is madness to remove functionality that was working well in previous versions, majority of my equipment and footage is in 3D so VP23 not of use to me! it is of paramount importance to address these three issues, provide proper messages as to what the issue is, ensure the app is stable and doesn't freeze on the slightest error, continue to allow 3D editing (great advantage over competing software) and gray out not supported rendering codecs for the current project.

LdM_Edit wrote on 10/2/2025, 7:04 AM

Consideration for Future VEGAS Effects Integration: While the immediate focus must be on core stability of VEGAS PRO, the possibility of a future, robust, and stable integration of VEGAS Effects (or a similar powerful compositing/VFX application) into the VEGAS Pro ecosystem would be highly beneficial for a comprehensive post-production workflow.

I've been wondering if this is possible. I don't know the legal status of VEGAS Effects, or the technical difficulties that it would imply, but it would be wonderful if we could work with it integrated with the new versions of VEGAS Pro.

Reyfox wrote on 10/2/2025, 7:15 AM

I can get by for the most part, compositing in Vegas alone. But I do see a need for "more". But I am wondering if there has been any real advancements in Hitfilm to justify using it, and it is subscription based.

But if they get all the core essentials working as they should, that would go a long way in gaining good "word of mouth". Nothing like using a part of a program and it doesn't work as advertised.

@andreas-georgiou as for 3D support (are you referring to 360 support?), while I personally have no need for it, it is alive and well with Insta, GoPro and DJI all have cameras that do 360, and I am sure that there is a market for good editing software for it. But then, I also don't know how these cameras work with their own software.

andreas-georgiou wrote on 10/2/2025, 11:22 AM

@Rayfox,thanks for the reply, I don't mean 360 - good that they are proactive and are providing support for 360. I am referring to good old 3D (two cameras placed at eye distance providing two streams lef+right respectively) most previous versions provided great support so the code was there!. why remove the code that was great for editing those videos? they automatically exclude all of us customers who do need to edit and render 3D videos, so I am out on vp 23 as it no longer supports most of my videos, great work in loosing customers. IMHO they need to ensure their software is rock stable and outputs (rendering) finest quality, as fast as pos. and very reliable without freezing

Reyfox wrote on 10/2/2025, 12:10 PM

@andreas-georgiou I've been in this forum for 8 years now. And I've rarely read anything from someone wanting to work in 3D. I don't know if telemetry is sent from the program to the developers to see what core parts of the software are being used, but honestly, I'll have to say, I don't know of anyone shooting 3D anymore.

Maybe start a thread with the public chiming in on this to see if it is still something that is actively being worked with?

I beta tested a consumer editing software for 12 years. They had 3D. One of the beta testers shot that way. But in the user forum of this once, extremely popular consumer editing software, again, rarely if anyone commented on using 3D. Supply and demand? Hence making a post to see what the response is here.

VEGASDerek wrote on 10/2/2025, 12:28 PM

@andreas-georgiou
The topic of S3D and the explanation for its removal were discussed here: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/where-can-i-find-stereoscopic-3d-mode-in-vegas-pro-23--149640/#ca941277

andreas-georgiou wrote on 10/2/2025, 6:23 PM

Thanks VegasDerek, I left my comment in the thread you provided, sorry to say you just lost another faithful customer, I dread the learning curve of another new application but as I explained along with others new technologies including VR is 3D in new form! Very short sided of Magix in this issue.

majority of my equipment and thousands of clips to be edited and rendered are in 3D, so have to stay with VP 22 for now whilst I research alternatives who fully support 3D. SAD day for me just I was ready to upgrade to VP23

andreas-georgiou wrote on 10/3/2025, 3:25 AM

@RayFox thanks for the comment, I disable all telemetry from my apps as they slow down processes. They might have some telemetry I don’t know, a number of 3D and 360 products are appearing again on the market it’s the nature of the beast from the coloured glasses decades ago, to polarised glasses to active alternating shutter glasses a decade or so ago to new immersive VR/3D…with Google, Apple et all trying again to bring 3D out, some with limited success others failing. But it’s the future human beings and most animals see in 3D and most companies will continue to strive to provide content in 3D/VR, as hunger for more revenue will be there.

Yes u r right that demand may not be here at the moment as we can no longer get 3D TV’s, and most cinematographers find it very difficult to get to grips with filming in 3D. Cinemas though still have 3D as well as 4D!.

I film in that format because that’s how us humans perceive the world and there would be another technical innovation in the next few years to enable us to view content in a more realistic way, as such I want my videos to be able to be viewed as I saw the world when I filmed it.

with the range of new smart phones some able to film in ProRes raw with good resolutions it’s obvious that as you so rightly say supply and demand, editing software that supports smart phone footage would have millions of potential customers….

but why throw away functionality that works?