I agree:
In many NLE's you can add a transition in any cut by simply dragging the transition.
¿What's the difference?, Simply.
When you're editing a sequence and you want to have all the transitions the same duration, it's easier to specify the durantion rater to move "visually" a clip over another. ¿If you have to replace an event in the middle of a sequence? In others NLE's you delete the in/out transitions, insert a clip in the timeline and then, drag transitions again.
I think yes, vegas is easier, but only if you don't need precision.

One thing I really like about this forum is that everyone gets along so well and the fact that there's not a lot of chit-chat (not to say there isn't humor)...just valuable information.
Randy (I'm from the US by the way)

Does anybody used Avid or Final Cut Pro?
Both are VIDEO editors. Vegas have an intuitive interface, but, lacks of some good "pro" editing features.
It is difficult to explain that if you never used NLEs like Avid or FCP. It's true, Premiere is a toy.
Im not saying that Vegas is not a very (very) good NLE, but it still needs some Pro NLEs tools, like the classic mark in / mark out and the insert/overwrite commands. ¿Why? Vegas way is realy usefull for compositing, but for editing, is not the fastest way. Even the trimming tool is not as usefful than FCP or AVID trimming tool.
I think that Vegas developers doesn't have to change the way Vegas work, they need to provide both ways to work, because for some tasks one way is better than other, but for many task don't.
By now, Im thinking in Vegas as a replacement of After Effects than to FCP or AVID.
Vegas fans, don't worry. It's just an opinion...

Simple answer: Create a cuts-only project, put a marker on each cut (via Excalibur), and then run the multi-cam wizard (yes, it can be used on a single track) to add dissolves. They will ALL be exactly the same length (user specified).

Yes, we can allways invent something to achieve what we look for, but... that's isn't practical!.
¿Is really necessary to reinvent the weel?

"You are logged onto a software forum in the WORLDWIDEweb. This forum is nationless. People of all nationalities are welcome here. You do not have the right to make Canadians or people of any nationality feel unwelcome at this forum."

Oh relax....won't ya!!!

People from any nation (even Canada) shouldn't feel unwelcomed at this forum - it was a JOKE!

You must be from France.....right?

LeoHans:
I have used many, many systems including Quantel Henry, Avid Symphony, Final Cut Pro (3), Avid DVXpress, Discrete Logic Smoke....and I use Vegas!

Final Cut Pro sits on a shelf collecting dust-nothing pro about this product!

DVExpress was a huge dissapointment- that to is collecting dust unless I want to use the Illusion FX in a project- then I do the effect and back to Vegas to finish.

The Henry V8 is (was) a completely different, high dollar, system ($700K) and Vegas can do most of what I could do in a Henry-Except for rotoscoping utilizing bezier splines or roto-splines----> but with the price difference, I would not hold it against SOFO- and we have a great memeber of this forum-SATISH who is working on a version for Vegas.

The Avid Symphony is also a high dollar system... and Vegas can still do almost everything the Symphony can do---> especially if you now all the tips and tricks of Vegas

Vegas has never disappointed me with any project and really, the biggest difference to the Symphony and Henry is onboard hardware acceleration and breakout configurations..along with tons of third party plugin support from 5D Monster, Sapphire, Tinder and Ultamatte.... but I think the price difference and the editor's / artist's creativity and conceptualization can go along way to make Vegas hang with the best of them....just my opinion and 2.5 cents worth!

I suppose your next question is what is my race or religion. Forget the national stereotypes. They are just silly on this forum.

Dave T2

Well, I've seen how it's done in Media 100 and it suggests a couple of ideas.

--Have a duration setting when there is a dialog involved. You have to include toggles to calculate the transition from the beginning or from the end of the current transition.

--After rightclicking on a transition and selecting "transition properties" you get the fade type and duration in the dialog-even if it's a crossfade

--what media100 does is to keep creating transitions of the same length as the last one. You use a key command to insert a transition. You can also drag the transitions around.

--rather than (or in addition to) inserting a transition just like the last one, Vegas could have a snap mode. When you drag a clip into place it snaps at the same offset as the last transition. Or perhaps there's a transition snap dialog where you can set it.

--this one is real simple. When you drag clips on top of each other a tooltip could be displayed showing the amount of overlap. Would work just like adjusting the opacity handles on an event. This would be in keeping with the way vegas works now.

--you could have a zoom toggle button to go from zoom A to zoom B. Put it down near the time displays. For that matter, display the zoom level somewhere in absolute terms. One of the things that can be a little disconcerting is to not have a real quick gauge of how far you've magnifed the timeline. Having clearly defined zoom levels would help to visually judge the length of a transition. (learning to read the ruler at a glance would work too)

The way that Vegas handles transitions is that where they overlap-that's a transition. If you want to change the duration you drag the ends of the clips to do so. This makes lots of sense-especially when you don't normally show A and B tracks. Some NLEs don't do this. For instance, in M100 you could completely overlap two clips and place a 2 second crossfade in the middle. It works just as it should but you also get to see that there is more unseen media available in the clip. Fine, whatever.

As I understand it, Premiere Pro won't use A/B track at all. This will probably lend more to just dragging out transitions.

If there were two things that would be useful in Vegas (for transitions) it would be the tooltip to show overlap and some feedback on the timeline magnification level. And maybe a transition duration snap. Okay, that's three.

As for the controls on the various effects and filters-yes, they could be much more visual and provide more feedback. Next version.

Rob Mack

>>
Here’s a tip for setting accurate transition lengths: Double click on a transition. This will create a looped region of just the transition.
>>

Dang. I missed that double-click before.

Got any other easy ways to select regions that I missed? I've always suspected that there are easier ways to make selections than I had found yet.

Guess this should be a seperate thread. Should I repost?

-Rex

A few related tips that might be useful:

1) click on a cut, press the NumPad / key to automatically overlap the media by the cut-to-overlap amount in preferences. This method trims the events instead of moving the second event.

or,

2) manually overlap the events -- there is a snap point when they are overlapped by that same amount.

or,

3) Click on the cut to set the cursor. Hit Ctrl+G. Type "-30" or however many frames you want to overlap (make sure your time format is SMPTE Drop or something frame-based). Drag the second event until it snaps to the new cursor location.

///d@