9 Yes
50 No


Logan 5

Well, people who are responding to this question are, in the majority, those who don't use MM. The known big users, such as DSE & jonnyroy, haven't bothered. Mostly responses have been "I haven't spent the time to learn, it looks a bit complicated, anyway I have another way that works for me, so I don't use it". This isn't a useful evaluation of MM. You could choose another function of Vegas and ask how many use this and get similar responses. If people responding had actually learned how to use MM and then decided that it didn't suit, then these responses would be of interest. Even those who have provided detailed inputs have not done so from knowledge of MM.

Serena, this was the question:
Survey - How many use Media Manager?

That's what people are answering.

And some folks are adding a few comments about why or why not.

>>How many use?

True, that is the question, and a reasonable one. However when you read all the responses, very few are from people who know how to use it. So what do the numbers mean? You might ask "how many use chroma-key?", or "how many use scripting?" Should many respond that they don't use such things, or only most infrequently, this doesn't mean that those facilities aren't valuable and need to be available, unless of course the respondents found that those functions in Vegas are unreliable.

Even those who have provided detailed inputs have not done so from knowledge of MM.

Not entirely true in that an awful lot of people responded with something like, "tried it but it crashed," or "tried it but Vegas took too long to start up," or "tried it, but was too complicated," etc. Also, many mentioned the large number of negative reports from users after the features was initially introduced, mostly having to do with instability and long startup times.

I think the most useful analysis would be from a user that has used MM extensively, but also has used one or more similar features in other programs, especially those at the upper end. Leaving aside the obvious bloat issues, how much more (or less) work can you get done with Vegas MM, compared to what you can do with the other implementations? That would be a useful insight.

My educated hunch is that MM would not do too well in that comparison, but that's based simply on my observations of how poorly MM is programmed. The only opinion that really matters would be from someone that has used the feature on at least one other program.

"an awful lot of people responded with something like, "tried it but it crashed," or "tried it but Vegas took too long to start up," or "tried it, but was too complicated," etc."

These comments in themselves are knowledgeable reviews. it shows that the feature is inaccessible to some users. It's completely inaccessible to me since moving to a new computer and it's not worth spending even a moment to try to get it operational.

I'm reminded of the old story about the young playwrite who asked his drama critic uncle to give an opinion of his new play. Halfway through the first act the uncle fell sound asleep and snored through the rest of the play. The nephew berated him the next day, saying, "how could you sleep through my play? you were supposed to give me your opinion." The wise old uncle replied, "my boy, sleep is an opinion."

That being said, i do agree with Serena's point. As i mentioned earlier, most likely very few with positive experiences have felt compelled to post here. I'm sure we're seeing a disproportionally large number of negative responses.

10 Yes
50 No

I had no problems with installing or using MM. It is easy to learn and only took about 20 minutes of experimenting and exploring without reading a manual. It never crashes and it only delays launching Vegas by about 5 seconds.

I definitely used it to cut a full length movie with 26 hours of scene captured clips (1000's). The time it takes other people to make Explorer folders is just as easy as making MM Tags, which are like folders, only you get to make more tags. Right click, add a tag and name it. Too easy. Make a new Library, scan your hard drive folders you want, view the thumnails and select/group the thumnails and drag and drop a tag or multiple tags to the thumbnails. You're going to always take the time to capture, screen, log and organize on each project. Might as well make a library with tags and enjoy the extra benefits and save time during the edit. Short projects like ads may not need MM, but long TV shows, docs, movies and stock libraries need it. Back up your libraries and thumbnails on a CD for future needs.

Why use it? To see thumbnails and selecting what groups you want to use. I made tags for 50 movie scenes, main characters, b-roll, camera shots, etc. When I wanted to work on scene 43 ( I made separate veg files for each scene and then nested all of them into a main master project for final render) I then saw all the clips that pertained to scene 43. If I wanted just b-roll for scene 43, no problem with the tag selection.

If I needed a montage, I can easily select tags that pertain to what I need. If I just used explorer and folders, then I would have to constantly preview every clip again and again. MM is the only way to efficiently work with large volumes of video clips, pics, audio...

I know some have had problems of getting it to work. You have to ask Sony techs why because there are many of us that have no problems with it.

GG

Yes 11
No 50

How else am I supposed to easily sift through my stock footage?

Dave

BTW - since the update, it is EXTREMELY easy to use - very intuitive and doesn't impact my performance much if at all and even then on startup only. I LOVE MM and M&M's For that matter :).

also - the actual count is Yes 12 / No 50 because when Nat said it should be yes 3 it was actually supposed to be Yes 4, and from there on everything was corrected as far as I could follow.


SO....


YES 12
NO 50

Making it a 25% usage of those who have responded so far.

> The known big users, such as DSE & jonnyroy, haven't bothered.

I didn’t see the point in the thread. The Media Manager is solving a problem that doesn’t affect all Vegas users. IMHO, it is overkill for anyone doing home videos, or anyone who doesn’t own stock footage, or have complicated multi-tape projects to keep track of. So asking how many people use it without balancing that with how many people could benefit from using it will lead to skewed results.

> So what do the numbers mean? You might ask "how many use chroma-key?", or "how many use scripting?" Should many respond that they don't use such things, or only most infrequently, this doesn't mean that those facilities aren't valuable and need to be available, unless of course the respondents found that those functions in Vegas are unreliable.

Exactly! I agree with Serena 100%. “How many people use Chroma Key?”. I would expect those numbers to be small as well. I also expect to hear, “I tried it and couldn’t pull a good key so I never used it again”. Should Vegas remove the chroma keyer?

I just don’t see the point in asking how many people use a particular feature. What will the data tell you? Nothing! If you want to start a post on what’s wrong with the Media Manager then perhaps the outcome will be a better Media Manager.

My first request would be to somehow integrate the Media Manager with the Media Pool. That sort of integration would make managing media a lot easier. Then I’d like to see the option to save the media manager database name with the project file. Now I would have the option of using a separate database per project. Finally, (and I’ve asked for this several times) I want the ability for the Media Manager to create tags from my directory names on import. That is key to improving the setup workflow.

So if the question was: “How can Sony improve the Media Manager?” I could see great benefit in asking it. (and some people’s feedback here have been along those lines). But I don’t see the answer to Who uses the Media Manager doing any good at all.

As long as Serena got me to post, I might as well register my vote. ;-)

I’m obviously a yes so its:

Yes: 13
No: 50

That’s 26% for a feature that not everyone needs. That’s not bad. For those of you who haven’t tried it lately, it has gotten a lot leaner and meaner in 6.0d and is worth another look. For those who can’t figure out how to use it there is training available from Sony and VASST. Sometimes you have to see something work to really grasp how it could be useful.

~jr

I didn’t see the point in the thread.

I think there are two very important points:

1. If a relatively small percentage of us use a single feature, and yet that feature consumes over 50% of the total size of the download and an even bigger percentage of the installed space on the disk, can Sony provide an easy option to NOT install the program in the first place?

2. Since this one feature was the object of MANY threads when it was first introduced, and since most of those threads described, at length, the bugs, crashes, slowness (especially at startup) etc., many people never wanted to get near the feature again, and didn't want to re-enable it. Thus, I think the second reason for the thread is to answer the question: "Is it safe to go back into the water?"

At risk of being a bit anal here, don't you mean 13 out of 63 total responses, or 21% in favor?

"feature consumes over 50% of the total size of the download and an even bigger percentage of the installed space on the disk"

Exactly. There is no other feature that is such a huge external "bolt-on". Other external features are downloaded and installed at the user's choice. Most of them are tiny in comparison. Media Manager is huge and it's more or less forced.

> don't you mean 13 out of 63 total responses, or 21% in favor?

Oops. My bad. You are correct that’s 21%. (must be that new math)

> I think the second reason for the thread is to answer the question: "Is it safe to go back into the water?"

Yes, the water is fine.

> Media Manager is huge and it's more or less forced.

Since Sony doesn’t package the .Net Framework, they merely pre-req it, perhaps they can pre-req the SQL Engine and just ship the Media Manager that uses it. That would cut the download in half (although you would be downloading the other half from Microsoft). The CD version could still ship the whole thing. I’m not sure why Sony pre-req’s one and ships the other but there must be a reason.

~jr

these numbers do not mean anything unless you count all the people (many thousands) using Vegas worldwide. 50 or so people here is not the answer. Our drives are huge GB and loading an app at 100 MB is no problem. Try loading Adobe Production Studio for an hour.

GG

GG is spot-on. This forum represents an infinitessimally small percentage of Vegas users. I know of one broadcaster with 25 licenses that uses the MM religiously. I've never seen one of their operators in this forum tho.
I didn't respond, because I don't see it as an important point, and moreover, because the MM experience seems to be varied on hardware. Never had problems with it here, other than some beta stuff when working with older versions of one software and beta versions of other software, and one learns to "get around" those problems.
Anyway, if my vote counts I use it on several machines.

GG is spot-on....

Pun intended or not?

:)

I'd just like to clarify something here. In asking the question I was never intending to suggest the demise of Media Manager! As I wrote earlier, I can easily see its usefulness to people who use stock footage a lot, and if I became such a person I'm sure I'd find it very valuable.

It was purely in the context of a few recent posts, plus lots of posts when it was introduced, that I was wondering how many of us have got to grips with it and were using it regularly.

Hopefully some may now, in johnmeyer's words, be ready to go ".. back into the water?"

I'm a real supporter of MM. I was they 2nd YES vote in this thread.

What maybe needs to be done is not a tutorial as to HOW this thing works, but what possible BENEFITS it brings to what is a creative craft - editing on the NLE.

OK, example of what I'm talking about. I'm just so impressed with the Cinescore, and my word here "benefits", how-to tutorial videos, that maybe Sony could produce, in conjunction with a bunch of pro MM users, just how MM can ADD value. It's all about benefits. What I've read between the lines here is a wish for the "benefits".

And as one who DOESN'T use it just for stock media, I have to say I do use it for present projects where I have many and varied items.

My last biggie - well for me anyway - was some 23 miniDV tapes consisting of some 1,300 captured events videoed over 4 months. The project had the "lightest" whiff or hint of a storyboard. Mostly the client relied on my abilities. The result was I shot loadsa stuff. Id did this because I KNEW I had Media Manager back at base to assist me make sense and mould and shape the final 20 minute video. MM makes such a task a breeze AND a delight AND it keeps me interested ion my work AND it allows me to search and group images that go on to make something I had no IDEA I could do.

Now with MM and its urgent and direct approach and in conjunction with Trimmer gives me, I was able to drive through a "keep-the-story-live" approach.

Bottom line? Client loved the finished piece, it was screened at the British Library, in London, in mid-June. And this week I'm visiting a client who saw the work and wants "other" work as a result from seeing this.

I could not have had the approach I had applied to this biggie without Media Manager - without Media Manager's flexibility and immense searching/grouping and auditioning capabilities. Look, I'm a messy editor - Media Manager doesn't even worry! More to the point ( I'm not THAT a messy editor )my ideas jump about all over the place. Media Manager supports, allows and almost encourages, yes encourages, me to being even more outrageous and push the envelope.

( Pheeeww. . . . . )

It is all about the benefits and keeping it real and lively. Media Manager did this for me. Maybe it needs a helping hand to convince users that it has some amazing virtues. I KNOW I make better edit decisions as a result of using Media Manager - Media Bins aren't flexible enough.

If only people were invited to get an understanding of the benefits, then then mostly all other concerns would fall away. Yes it takes Vegas a bit longer to load. But for what I can now do with it, I forgive it.

Do you guys remember when I was having that awful trouble with the upgrade thru' V6c and thence onto V6d? Remember? Remember it was also that I wanted my MM back? This was because I had an incling what MM finally could deliver for me. I did. It has . . and will continue to do so.

So, Peter, correct me if I'm wrong, but you not only want to do a straw poll - users and non-users - fine, ok but where/what is the benefit of that? However, maybe just maybe, what you have inadvently done is make people also consider what the benefits of it are. Maybe if you had asked for a benefits list, that would have got you further along? Further along to a place which would assist you in attempting to further experiment with MM.

Bottom line here is that maybe MM is NOT for everybody. Maybe posters here serioulsy don't require its abilities. However, there maybe others who COULD make use of it but on reading this thread will shy away from it? Now that would be sad.

IT history is littered and cluttered with s/w that could DO "stuff" but it would often fall from grace because it didn't get across the "benefits" it could bring to a user. And yes, part of the benefit is a shallower learning curve. And again if people aren't engaged enough by being drip fed "benefits", then why shouldn't they dismiss it? Learning and Benefits - Benefits and Learning. When coupled together they become a major motivating force for adoption/adaption to a new software platform.

GRAZIE-LAW #1267GB/88e : All new/updating/upgrading software should ONLY be released IF it is also accompanied by a PODcast of what benefits it can bring and the happy smiling faces of PROS using it.

Nice post Grazie - full of thought provokements!

Look, the "straw poll" ballooned much more than I expected - it was purely a point of interest, to get a sort of picture - I guess if everyone else had said "yes - I use it all the time" I may well have re-evaluated my attitude towards it, as I have again with your comments about using it for other than stock footage.

In fact, I think I have a tutorial on MM - I'm pretty sure it was on Gary Kleiner's last Vegas DVD set, but I haven't sat down and watched that section, simply because I have always happily worked straight from folders in Explorer, and don't even use Media Bins.

The one thing I do know is that anything that spreads the use of Vegas is ok with me.

Interestingly, the other day I demoed Vegas to a Producer - the one who is going to produce the local golf series for TV I mentioned a while back. He is used to working with FCP editors, but he was more than happy with Vegas's multi cam capabilities, and the colour correction, and the looped preview etc etc. Now you've got me thinking - if I'm going to edit a 13 part TV series, I may well have to get my grey cells around Media Manager!! Where's that DVD ......

Hopefully this will lead Vegas developers to think of a more integrated and low-overhead approach to accomplish the original goal with MM. I laughed out load the first time I played with MM when installing the Vegas 6 trial. After all the marketing hype, I just found it funny. But I still upgraded to vegas 6 and refused to use MM again.

With a September release of Vegas 7, there is still time (almost) to improve MM. Just that part + meeting or beating every single Adobe Premiere and AA feature. Really, it\s just a little pressure on Sony to make the current technology bar, or fade away forever... I will be watching closely!

The case put by Grazie is very sound. I use MM also on a project basis in exactly the same way. The time needed to understand MM is about 30 minutes (including the time to watch the MM segment on the VASST Vegas 6 DVD). MM isn't perfect, but some of us find it aids creativity. I can think of no "technical" reasons for avoiding its use; nothing is perfect. Once you've explored it, then your decision to drop it is a judgement rather than an assumption. But if Grazie hasn't convinced you, then probably that's it!