Been meaning to post about this before, but have been too busy. Anyway, Tim Duncan (the Vegas guy, not the basketball guy) came to town with Sony, the Z1, and Vegas 6 a couple weeks ago to do a demo. It was at a meeting for the local film festival and hence has mostly filmmakers (as opposed to industrial) present. It's a pretty Mac centric crowd, but even the hard core Macabytes were impressed. Tim puts on a great show and really did Vegas justice with the amount of time he had.
I haven't played around with it yet, but my impression of Vegas 6 is very positive. The enhancements are not flashy, but will lead to more respect for Vegas. Decklink, AAF support, these are things that we needed to get some recognition. Also, DVI external monitoring will be a great solution for those of us looking to do some form of HD anytime soon. Then Tim mentioned VST support. An audio friend of mine nudged me at that point and said that feature alone was worth the price of the software. I said Vegas and soundforge did all I needed with audio already, so it wouldn't matter to me. He said "Wait and see. We're talking pro tools!" So I will wait and see.
After the presentation I introduced myself to Tim and asked him a few questions, especially about the crash reports I've been reading about (didn't want to mention this in front of the whole audience, it would be just enough of a reason for people to dismiss Vegas). He said the root of the problem was the new media manager and this only occurred on some systems. His computers were unaffected.
Anyway, I was very impressed with Tim Duncan and Vegas 6. Although I've never been a big fan of Sony, I do have to commend them for coming down and for their promise to be at the film festival with HDV cameras and Vegas stations for people to try out. That's what Vegas needs to win over more people.
I've also never been a big fan of HDV. But, I have to admit the Z1 footage projected on the new Sony projectors was very nice. It had been deinterlaced to 24p and didn't have the jaggies that drive me nuts. The big complaint was that the depth of field was not shallow enough, but for a 1/3" ccd camera that's always going to be a problem. Still, I don't think I'd ever buy HDV. Looking good in a basically raw state is one thing and looking good after some serious compositing is quite another. For that reason if not any other, I think I'll wait for a more robust format like DVC Pro HD.
Still, I was very impressed by Vegas 6 and its possibilities. Hopefully all the bugs will be worked out soon, but at least it seems Sony is paying attention to Vegas and trying to market it. That can only be good for us I would think.
I haven't played around with it yet, but my impression of Vegas 6 is very positive. The enhancements are not flashy, but will lead to more respect for Vegas. Decklink, AAF support, these are things that we needed to get some recognition. Also, DVI external monitoring will be a great solution for those of us looking to do some form of HD anytime soon. Then Tim mentioned VST support. An audio friend of mine nudged me at that point and said that feature alone was worth the price of the software. I said Vegas and soundforge did all I needed with audio already, so it wouldn't matter to me. He said "Wait and see. We're talking pro tools!" So I will wait and see.
After the presentation I introduced myself to Tim and asked him a few questions, especially about the crash reports I've been reading about (didn't want to mention this in front of the whole audience, it would be just enough of a reason for people to dismiss Vegas). He said the root of the problem was the new media manager and this only occurred on some systems. His computers were unaffected.
Anyway, I was very impressed with Tim Duncan and Vegas 6. Although I've never been a big fan of Sony, I do have to commend them for coming down and for their promise to be at the film festival with HDV cameras and Vegas stations for people to try out. That's what Vegas needs to win over more people.
I've also never been a big fan of HDV. But, I have to admit the Z1 footage projected on the new Sony projectors was very nice. It had been deinterlaced to 24p and didn't have the jaggies that drive me nuts. The big complaint was that the depth of field was not shallow enough, but for a 1/3" ccd camera that's always going to be a problem. Still, I don't think I'd ever buy HDV. Looking good in a basically raw state is one thing and looking good after some serious compositing is quite another. For that reason if not any other, I think I'll wait for a more robust format like DVC Pro HD.
Still, I was very impressed by Vegas 6 and its possibilities. Hopefully all the bugs will be worked out soon, but at least it seems Sony is paying attention to Vegas and trying to market it. That can only be good for us I would think.