9 took an update or two before it was stable. 11 came along before 10 was fixed. I really hope that I don't have to use 9 after 12 comes.

I can actually use 10 or 11 with HDV footage. It's the stuff from my DSLR that is giving me fits. I can't work with it directly. I can't convert it to an intermediate in Vegas 10 or 11. Cineform is a mess in 11 and not totally reliable in 10 either.

With HDV footage, I can pop it on V10 or V11 timeline and losslessly rerender it to XDCam mp4 (mpeg2 compression) and get right to work.

With my DSLR footage, I have to use HD LInk to convert the footage to Cineform, then Vegas 9 to convert it with a second generation to XDCam .mp4. At that point I can move to V10 or V11. As much as I have tried every which way, I can't do it without these extra steps. It is amazingly time consuming. If I hadn't been using Vegas for long enough that I still have two generations back, I would simply be dead in the water. I wouldn't be able to turn out a product with the DSLR camera. That is just unforgivable. I have been such an advocate of Vegas for so many years, but now I find that when people ask me, I simply can't recommend it anymore. It's not the features or the workflow. Vegas still rocks there. It is the stability. It is the simple fact that try as I might, I simply can't make it work without doing my intermediate renders with the old version.

I find it curious that I have used every version of Vegas since v2 and I've just never had a problem with any of them except for the initial release of some version years ago that had a major bug that was fixed in a update that was released within days. I don't even remember what it was. I produce 75-100 projects a year and have already finished two using v11 without a problem (and much quicker with GPU acceleration.) I use Cineform NEO extensively and it works fine for me in v11.

I have no idea why Vegas seems to always work for me and for other people, it is a total nightmare. I have to wonder what the ratio is between people who are getting work done on a daily basis vs. people having problems. Of course, one can't fairly judge Vegas' stability based on a relatively small number of people (considering the entire Vegas user base) reporting problems here on the forum.

L, we've been here B4, VV5; we'll be here again...

There is just so much GOOD with VP11. Do I have current client work in VP9? Yes. Will it stay there? Hard call....

Grazie

i found 10e exceptionally reliable, so much so i even took 9 off.

somewhat like grazie, i still have some projects sitting in 10, but intend finishing them in 11.

however, what requires finishing isn't difficult, and i'm certainly going to start my next project straight off in 11.

Me too.

I think V10.0e so stable to be used on complex production projects. No serious bug, no serious trouble, nothing so severe to stop my work. I've used it for days and days without a single failure.

Laurence, please could you tell us why V10.0e is not so stable for you ? Which trouble did you face ?

Thanks, bye.

The VP9 Project, is a year long project. It started with one Quad Pc and has now migrated over to my new Pc with all the new nVidia and speed needed for VP11. The recent circle as oval experience has made me a wee bit cautious.

Grazie

Well one thing that happens with both V10 and V11 on my system is that it crashes regularly with Cineform. Load a hundred or so Cineform clips on a timeline and it's gone...poof!... do I want to send the company a message on why it crashed? ... no I just want to get some work done. Mpeg2 in various container types (m2t, mxf, XDCam .mp4) works just fine however. When I was using mostly my HDV camera I had no real problem since it shot mpeg2 clips. AVCHD or stock footage in photo jpeg .mov format is a whole 'nuther story though. Once I go outside of the mpeg2 realm, V9 is the one that I have to use. Once I go to .mxf or the even better EDCam .mp4 format intermediates, I can than switch over to V10 or V11.

With a number of formats, I run into the random black frame problem however. This is a problem for me in V9 through V11. To get around this I convert the footage to Cineform, but I can only use the Cineform without crashing in V9, so what I do is rerender it again to XDCam .mp4. At this point (12 hour or so later) I can begin to work. Just crazy that I have to do this.

Vegas 9 / 32 has been very kind to me, it took a while for SCS to get it sorted but I've been doing a lot of porjects in it. Last two were "interesting", footage from EX1. HC5, Z5 and believe it or not the Crocolis. No dramas at all.
V10 /32 has always been just too wobbly for me, done a few projects in it but no fun walking on egg shells and with V9 getting the job done why suffer the pain.
V10 / 64 even on the office PC running Win7 / 64 did seem more stable, I know time to say goodbye to a 32 bit OS but no need to hurry, enough other projects to work on over the last 12 months. The only thing I really used V10 for was the Yadif OFX plugin to render for the web.
V11, too early to really say, no real compelling features in it to attract me, the one I had high hopes for, Sync Link, turned out to be a dud.Perhaps in my view the worst thing about V11 apart from the bugs which will get fixed is the change in the GUI. For some reason I'm finding from time to time adding an FX also opens the Event Pan / Crop window. On top of that the plugin interface is not harmonised. Some plugins (NB) make me think I'm working in Ppro or AE, if I want that experience I'll darn well use Adobe's products thank you SCS. Adobe seem capable of getting everything consistent, even NB's plugs conform.

The real elephant in the room I have to think about is what Adobe have been up to. Our tech colleges have switched to Adobe big time and Adobe are putting a major effort into this. Already had a client turn up with a project she'd started at TAFE in Ppro, if that lady can muddle her way through CS5.5 it cannot be that hard. The incredible thing is Adobe are touching everything the colleges are teaching with video conferencing and remote learning software.

Bob.

Sadly I do have some alignment with your view Bob. I've been a loyal Vegas user since 4. While I remain a committed and enthusiastic supporter, I also think Sony SCS would do well to work hard to keep the GUI/ user interface as "integrated" as possible. I think that there is a risk of Vegas becoming a centralised repository of plugins, which may work really well, but lack polish and consistency of integration. I do hope that there is an awareness of the importance (aesthetically and for user satisfaction) of dedicating time and effort to deliver a professional , pleasing and consistent user interface. I think other editing packages pay these aesthetics more attention than Vegas currently.
Duncan

<<I have no idea why Vegas seems to always work for me and for other people, it is a total nightmare.>>

I am inclined to agree with John in that I simply do not have anywhere near the level of problems that some others seem to with Vegas Pro.

I do a weekly 1 hour shoot with 2 HDV and 1 AVCHD cameras, external audio recording on Saturday night, edit on Sunday and deliver a finished product with titles, a proshow slide show on Monday morning! I use PluralEyes, sometimes the stabilizer, etc.
This worked fine in 10e and is now working in 11. No problems. This is on a (obsolete) Dell XPS720 Q6600 stock (no overclocking) W7/64, Vegas11/64 bit, 8GB RAM.

I do not use Cineform (though I own it!)... I do not normally need intermediates but if I do it is Sony MXF. I do not use odd ball formats from non-video cameras, (MOV, etc) and I am not surprised that Vegas and all other NLEs have trouble with these.

If Vegas works OK for most of us then those of you having problems need to look at your own side... your hardware, your setup, your working habits, and what you are trying to edit! The answer to your problems lies there, not with Vegas.

The answer to your problems lies there, not with Vegas

If you don't have the exact same mixed workflow, how do you know? Because something isn't on your RADAR don't mean it isn't a failure of Vegas? Or, put it another way, are you lobbying against one of SCSs key result areas, Vegas can deal with many formats? Now, if you are doing that, then inform SCS to change their marketing pitch? See, you can't have it both ways. And this IS the other way. Just thought I'd add some balance to you comments.

Cheers,

Grazie

Laurence, what camera is your DSLR footage from? What format is it in? Why can't you use it directly in V10 or V11?

My DSLR is a Nikon D5100. The AVCHD footage from this camera is much better on a V10 or V11 timeline than it was in V9. No question about that. The problem is that my laptop is an Intel Core2Duo system with nVidia graphics, and while it is almost fast enough, the previews aren't sooth enough for me to feel comfortable editing. If I convert to XDCam .mp4 (mpeg2 in an mp4 container), the previews on this same system are very smooth and the renders (including smart-rendering sections) are surprisingly quick. It really is just a matter of an overnight intermediate render before I start working. I apply any color correction before I render the intermediates which means that smart-rendering really comes into play during final renders. Unlike .mxf, Handbrake has no problem with the stereo audio on XDCam .mp4 renders.

The camera that really gives me fits with V10 and 11 is my Canon SX1-IS. It shoots progressive footage at exactly 30p. JR made a really nice script to slow it down to 29.97, but if I use that script in V10 or V11 it adds some really strange interlace artifacts. I believe that this is because the clips are progressive but flagged as interlaced. Even if I go into all the individual clip properties and set them to progressive, and even if I disable the deinterlace method, when I render out the slowed down clips, there are interlace artifacts added. I can get rid of this by converting to Cineform with the slowdown option, but then V10 or 11 will crash with the Cineform clips. Aahh!

I can work from start to finish with the Nikon footage. It was just hard to think straight the other day as I made this post at 4:30 in the morning as I was working through the night trying make a next day deadline which took hours longer because of Vegas's foibles.

Re the Nikon footage, I'm wondering if using proxies might be appropriate for your laptop, but I suppose that wouldn't save you much time on using XDCam .mp4 intermediates. Could you get away with editing at preview(half) or something, or would that just be too clunky?

What's your destination (Blu-ray/DVD/YouTube etc.)?

Re the Canon footage, does the script just change the playback rate of each clip to 0.999, so it's 29.97 and not 30.00? It sounds to me like there may be still some mismatch between your project properties and the frame rate of the file. Do you still get the artefacts if you manually change the playback rates to 0.999? How about if you render to 30.00fps in a 30.00fps project, to match the source fps? I'm wondering if there may be some workaround such as setting your project to 59.94 or 60fps progressive and letting Vegas simply drop the duplicate alternate frames when it renders.