"When Apple could not find a buyer in turn, it continued development work, focusing on adding FireWire/DV support and at NAB 1999 Apple introduced Final Cut Pro."

Well I must say... you do have to give it to them. That's a fairly quick rise to power, fame, fortune and all that other good stuff. I wonder though, how much that has to do with FCP and how much has to do with the fact that it just simply runs on a different system.

Because of reasons beyond my control, I use both Vegas and Premiere, even though I would rather use Vegas full time. There's no question that Vegas' interface is more intuitive and at least for me, easier to use. But I also feel that the differences between Premiere and Vegas are marginal, because Premiere has other advantages (part of a suite, more third-party add ons, more online support from a larger user base , multiple platforms etc.).

Just be thankful that you don't have to use both Vegas and Premiere, because half the time, I find myself lost, because of the interface differences. Working with an NLE, should be an automatic thought process. It shouldn't require that you sit there and ponder about how to do what you you have to overcome the software interface, in order to do something creative.

For what it's worth, I've seen at least three Craigslist job listings asking for Sony Vegas in the last six months or so. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Rob

I don't think the Wikipedia article mentions it but the Macromedia effort also involved Media100 folks. At the time, Media100 was very competitive with Avid and was ankles, knees, hips, head and shoulders above Premiere. I suspect that a lot of what's good in FCP has it's roots in Media100.

Rob Mack

I have no doubt I'll upgrade... I'm still deciding whether to take advantage of the introductory "deal", or wait to see if there's a better offer at some point in the near future. The new features look pretty good, and I'll probably pick up the production assistant for the additional functionalities and plug-ins it has.

I really hope Sony has improved our rendering options, though... in particular I've never been happy with the ancient Mainconcept AVC encoder in VP8.

I'm sure I'll upgrade but I've got to moderate my burn rate a bit and I just renewed my Lynda.com subscription. (Vegas is cheaper, btw).

I don't see a need to shell out the money until June 29th but I'm sure SCS would like to take orders while the NAB buzz is still hot.

Rob Mack

Aje, Nick and Ulf (and whoever else might be interested):

How do some of you have to pay vat on downloaded items bought from the US? I usually live in Norway and have bought a lot of software (and upgrades) from US over the years and have never paid vat on anything (maybe I shouldn't write this in a public forum). If I buy DVDs from UK they are sent via mail, and if the value of one shipment exceeds £20 I have to pay vat. Norway has implemented a lot of EU's legislation although we are a member state. Our banks have an obligation to report international money transfers over a certain amount. But no one in Norway has ever seemed to notice my relatively small donations to the US economy. Except of course my bank. So how is it that you have to pay the vat in UK and Denmark? Do they survey your accounts THAT close? (Perhaps yet another reason for Norway to stay outside of the EU.) Certainly they can not monitor what you download.
Tor

Tor, the answer is: there are different tax rules in the EU and Norway,.

Jøran Toresen
(Norway)

Well yes, different tax rules, okay. I know that different EU countries have different levels of vat on books, while in Norway books are exempt from vat. Possibly software, too. But what I don't understand is, how do authorities in my country know what I am buying? They see (possibly) that I pay a certain amount to a US company. Then how do they determine that this item is vat free and this is not? When all they have to go by is the bank's report that so and so money has been paid to so and so company?
Tor

So how is it that you have to pay the vat in UK and Denmark? Do they survey your accounts THAT close?

No, "they" are not surveying your accounts.

"They" are surveying SONY's accounts - and anybody reading newspapers know what brain-dead-extreme fines EU imposes on sinners that do not follow their rules.

I saw somebody here recently complaining about that he had to pay VAT buying from SONY - as if it were a SONY problem...

That is quite a misunderstanding: he has to pay VAT because HIS country requires it.

It is 110 percent sure that if HIS country did not crave VAT - then SONY would also not go through all the trouble collecting it and paying their international auditors huge sums to confirm that they do it right.

There is a petty turnover limit however - as far as I remember - when a companys EU export turnover is below approx. 40.000 US then they must not collect the EU VAT.

Tor, I found this (http://www.foto.no/cgi-bin/diskusjon/lesTraadHier.cgi?id=335235&kat=1):

Norwegian:

Mva ved innførsel av programvare over nett.
Ikke avgiftspliktig, jfr. Tollvesenets veileder for innførselsmva.

Det vises også til uttalelsene om dette på side 49 i ovennevnte proposisjon. Tidligere har
tollvesenet krevd opp merverdiavgift ved innførsel av standard programvare over nett eller linje
til Norge. Det vises bl.a. til brev herfra til tolldistriktssjefene av 22. mars 1996.
Siden ”digital” innførsel av programvare til EDB ikke lenger skal regnes som vare i relasjon til
merverdiavgiftsloven § 62, skal det ikke lenger oppkreves merverdiavgift ved innførselen.

Jøran Toresen

Tor, just an example. If you want to purchase Adobe Lightroom and go to the Norwegian regional store, you get these options:

Ship the box to me: NOK 2450
Download: NOK 1960 ex WAT

Jøran Toresen

Well that's all right then, no vat on software imports in Norway.

ritsmer (you're in Holland, aren't you? I seem to remember your handle from way back on this forum).
I knew EU has a rule about vat being collected in the country of sale, but had no idea it had imposed such a sceme on shops outside of EU.
It is of course a nightmare for the sellers, because (in EU) they have to collect vat based on the rules of the country the goods are being shipped to - which for books are not only different for different countries, but different for different kinds of books. Imagine the paperwork.

To steer back to the topic at hand, I will no doubt be upgrading to Vegas 9 eventually. But I am not back in Norway until mid-June. Here in Madagascar broadband is rather narrow. It takes forever to download a beast like that, let alone the "freee gifts".
Tor

I think I added a bit to that Wikipedia entry at one time.

"It's sad that Vegas has let FCP get ahead of them in terms of industry recognition."

As the Wikipedia entry helps point out. FCP had a very big head start in terms of industry recognition. Also Final Cut was released by Apple in 1999, a brand that is a household name and has a intense core of fans, whereas Vegas Video (remember that name?) was released by a Sonic Foundry a company known only to audio folks, not video folks. Vegas Video 3.0 was when it first really started to gain wider recognition in the video world. If you remember those days of 1999,2000, 2001; people were still saying things like "you can't edit video on a PC, we have to buy a Mac." I remember trying to convince my boss at corporation who main business is not video, that they should buy Sonic Foundry Vegas over Adobe Premiere with (FX hardware!). Considering they never heard of Sonic Foundry, but did know Premiere, that was a huge part of the decision process.

Even after Sony bought Sonic Foundry's media software group, there were still way, way, way behind Final Cut in industry recognition. Sony is household name, but the software group is still a small company and Sony is not known for software development.

So the real story is how a despite the obstacles of being a small company and starting out later than the big names Vegas has kept plugging and plugging and forced itself to be a serious decision for video editors today.

I cut regularly with Vegas, FCP and even some Premier. I am most familiar (and probably significantly faster) with Vegas but have the feeling if FCP or Premier was my primary tool I'd be faster on that. Interface schminterface - what's the best NLE? The one you know! --- I'm always wishing one app had the features of another. F'rinstance, I'm constantly scrolling the mouse wheel to zoom in on the FCP timeline (ala Vegas) and I'm always disappointed when I have to resort to a series of mouse clicks. (Lotsa mouse clicks in FCP!) Bottom line is, if you have to play well with others, Vegas is not the app of choice. Will I upgrade? I must sadly admit, I'm waffling.

The best way to sell more would be to allow one like me doing business with others to edit on my app of choice (Vegas), be it at home or at the office, and be able to pass the project to the others (let's call'em "the industry") without hiccups.
All the bells and whistles won't replace THAT. I don't give a funk about putting clouds or chrome in my titles... I'll get a title app for that.
So : solid AAF,OMF and BWF for chrissakes, isn't that CLEAR ?!!!!!!!!!!

Nope, not upgrading so far...

Long time (since vegas video 3) user and the lack of GPU hardware acceleration for preview made my decision for me. I'm going full speed ahead with AVID media composer.

With the addition of RED and 4K support Vegas definitely seems like it's aiming for the big leagues, but as you point, Vegas is way more popular with one-man-band media creators and folks who have to transfer projects and files to folks on FCP and Avid might be better suited on FCP and Avid.

I hoping with Sony stepping up to 4K. There are also thinking about a 9.0a/b release that includes better playing with others.

" With the addition of RED and 4K support Vegas definitely seems like it's aiming for the big leagues,"

Interesting you say that. Every so often out of curiosity I peruse the the Avid Liquid board ( i used to use it) and they NEVER have A single nice thing to say about Vegas. Well.... there is a small thread mentioning Vegas 9 coming out and one of the members states:
"Interesting, with support for Red, Vegas Pro just got a lot more pro."

http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/302316.aspx

We're slowly gaining respect!

Yes I have to say, that ater reading about the various additions and hopefully improvements V9P seems to start looking more Pro !!
At this point it is going to be a waiting game to see how well all this plays out. Will RED support be as cumbersome as editing AVCHD?
Does the gigapixel (larger pictures), addition help with the current memory issues?
There seems to be a lot of positive buzz regarding the new Production Assistant. I already have Ultimate S, and sure would like to know how the 2 compare.
At any rate I've put my money down for the next upgrade.
Can't wait for the release!

Ted

I decided to bite the bullet and preorder the upgrade, the price can't be beat for what you get. The additional effects alone would cost as much as the upgrade price (if not more) if you were to buy them separately. I'm also getting the New Blue Sampler Pack, as I love New Blue, but can't afford to buy all their add ons.

I do have high expectations that AVCHD will work better in Vegas Pro 9 just by virtue of the fact that it worked better in Vegas Movie Studio Plat. 9. I was regretting unninstalling Movie Studio when I found that my playback rates were lower and coppier in Vegas Pro 8 than the newest consumer version. I really don't want to transcode as the uncompressed files take up so much disk space on my computer I'd be running out of hard drive real estate in a few months.

I also will be able to run Vegas Pro 9 on my Vista 64 bit laptop without having to switch between 8.1 and 8.0c to use my plugins and stuff; that made it worth the price in and of itself.

I expect bugs, but I'm sure that they will eventually be resolved. It's just the calculated risk of early adoption of a new software.

> There seems to be a lot of positive buzz regarding the new Production Assistant. I already have Ultimate S, and sure would like to know how the 2 compare.

I give an explanation in this thread. It should tell you if Production Assistant can help your workflow.

The short answer is that Ultimate S is an interactive editor's toolbox while Production Assistant is a "hands-off" process automation tool. There is some overlap but they are fundamentally solving different problems.

~jr