I believe writing Vegas Video off as simply a “hobbyist” NLE is short sighted and not in alignment with Sonic Foundry’s own marketing approach.

Examine for a moment, Vegas Video being sold as the central application on Boxx Technologies DV Boxx line. Boxx is not a mainstream computing integrator, but rather a systems integrator catering to professional content creators.

Sonic Foundry regularly positions its products as innovative new solutions to professionals(Sound Forge, Acid, CD architect). They also do maintain a “hobbyist” line of products such as Video Factory.

While you are correct in assuming that many of the features I noted would not serve the home video editor, they would serve the video professional. They are features that other “Pro” applications have or are features that could cement Vegas Video as an even more inventive alternative.

In the PC market there is a need for an innovative and flexible professional NLE. Adobe seems comfortable to let Premiere stutter step along only adding features when forced to (dv’s inception as mainstream). Adobe has become fat and far too complacent in the market as a force bringing about innovation.

Avid represents the ridiculous end of the spectrum. That leaves Vegas Video with an opportunity to eat Adobe and Avid’s market share.

As far as I am concerned, Vegas is almost there. The inclusion of the features I have requested along with many others in the forum (along with whatever other brilliant ideas the SF team has) would make Vegas Video the tool it needs to be.

Bins are a basic staple of any NLE system and an easy addition. Series frame exporting is also a no brainier, especially since it can export one frame at a time at the moment.

Vegas Video is SF’s flagship NLE. Video factory is their consumer editor. Save the fluffy features like the “burn to DVD” button for video factory. Professionals need a comprehensive stand alone DVD authoring solution. Add the pro features to Vegas Video. It would certainly be worth SF’s time.

Even though the market for professional lines of software is smaller, it’s an important market to dominate. Professinal tools build a powerful brand, as well as repuatation for a given software line. This in turn translates into more sales of a “consumer” line that is sold on the heritage of a company’s flagship products. SF could certainly charge more for Vegas Video if they so chose to. They should also market it more fiercely against Adobe and Avid’s DV line. Focus should be their pro line using professional application platforms to seed their consumer lines.

"I believe writing Vegas Video off as simply a “hobbyist” NLE is short sighted and not in alignment with Sonic Foundry’s own marketing approach."

Didn't say that! I said it seems so far that's mostly the customer base they captured. As far as I've seen SoFo has made ZERO effort to market Vegas Video to anybody except for the mini-catalog which goes mostly to customers via bulk mail. That's just preaching to the choir.

One reason "professionals" don't use Vegas more is most never heard of it. If no effort is made to market Vegas, then few will hear of it except if they stumble on to it which seems to be the norm for "professionals" discovering Vegas. Once they do, they like it it would seem.

I'm certainly not to going to try to tell SoFo how to market their products, but it seems that cash flow is a big part of the problem. They don't have the money necessary to mount a serious and effective advertising campaign. Without it, then any pentration into Adobe's market share will be painfully slow.

As far as the bins issue which you and a few others seem to obsess over that's hardly a "feature" that will bring professionals to Vegas. In fact it is a none issue and mostly fluff. While a nice hand-holding feature, it is not needed if you know how to organize files on your computer. Apparently some do not have that basic skill. Adding bins won't really help in that regard which is what I'm saying. If I understand the issue all bins would do is further sub divide the contents of the media bin into a series of sub folders or "bins", something that can be easily accomplished OUTSIDE Vegas and something that has been a part of Windows since the beginning.

As far as adding support for DVD authoring that seems to be the next logic step. I think Vegas is going to have competition from packages like Pinnacle's Edition which offers a "complete" package, most importantly a means to add DVD chapters.

I think a lot of people including me were/are disappointed that once you spend hours editing in Vegas and have a compliant MPEG-2 file suitable for DVD you can't finish and need to use yet another application if you want to burn a DVD with chapters. That in my opinion is a oversight that should be addressed either as a new feature of Vegas 4 or as a stand alone product.

Again, SoFo could fill a gap that's out there. Right now there are several budget prices DVD authoring packages and several ultra high end ones that in my opinion are way over priced for the limited function they provide. A medium priced DVD authoring package written as well as Vegas is could fly off the shelves, assuming again, SoFo makes some effort to MARKET their products. If I were to criticize SoFo, it for sure would be its near total lack of any advertising effort. No matter how good your products are, if nearly nobody knows you have such a product, nearly nobody is going to buy them.

"No matter how good your products are, if nearly nobody knows you have such a product, nearly nobody is going to buy them. "

I couldn't aggree more. I get the blankest looks from people I meet that are "in the scene" when I mention Vegas. mostly because they've never heard of it before. The few people that I have convinced to try it have, within a month, purchased it and I'd be willing to bet that they will end up using it more than their current copies of Premiere. I mean, DV magazine gave Vegas an outstanding review but if you scour their issues you will not see even one Vegas add. Strange

=/

@BillyBoy
*big sigh*... I don't know anything about your level of technical expertise, but I think it would be in everyone's best interests for you to actually know what you're talking about before you start making inane assertions.

The issue of bins (sub-folders) in the Media Pool is not to bring professionals to Vegas. You may see bins as "hand-holding" fluff for organizationally challenged individuals, but this can only be attributed to your lack of forethought. 1) The Explorer (in Windows) does not generate thumbnail previews of video media -- 2) The Explorer allows for browsing of your entire hard drive, other drives, network mounted drives and removable drives... and while this may seem like a convenient way to access stock footage and new footage, it is also extremely inefficient to access two organizational structures at once. -- 3) Every other major / competing NLE (Pro and Consumer grade) has bins. There is simply no reason to break this paradigm.

You seem to be exercising a considerable amount of hypocrisy. In Surge's original post, he made a request for "more SSE2 optimizations to the application"... to "help out Pentium 4 users and the upcoming Athlon / Opteron line as those chips will be getting SSE2 registers". In a recent post, you say "...the biggest improvement would be in reducing rendering times". How can you dare to say we're asking for features that we want for our own limited purposes? You must have no idea what SSE2 optimizations would do.

"Save the fluffy features like the “burn to DVD” button for video factory" (Surge)... AMEN! "DVD Authoring" in Vegas would be a horrible addition. Just as CD Architect is a stand-alone application, any type of DVD Authoring software should be as well. The process of creating a DVD is much more complex than should be stuffed into Vegas. Building menus (animated menus too?), programming interactions of the menus to the footage (setting language preferences, activating audio tracks, etc... ), subtitles, ...should I go on? Defining chapters on a DVD is completely secondary and should be done after the edit is final.

Surge brought up SoFo's marketing along the lines of the product's perception as a pro level tool that logically should have pro level features. Assuming you receive SoFo's product catalog, you would see SoFo referring to Vegas as the "professional's new choice for video editing, compositing, audio mastering, and advanced encoding tools." You, however, bring up SoFo's marketing in a version 4 wish-list thread to criticize them... asserting that Vegas's flawed design or miscalculated direction has captured the serious hobbyist or what you call the tweener (what EVERYONE else calls the prosumer).

I, for one, think this discussion (which you so rudely tainted with your mediocre expectations of Vegas) should end. It should be replaced by a dialog of competent Vegas users with previous NLE experience and technical understanding... perhaps not necessarily to the extent as Surge (he's rare).

-CDog

Mostly about marketing:

BB says >>That may be changing slowly, but mostly by word of mouth and by accident, certainly not due to any marketing blitz on SoFo's part to go after the "professional" market.<<

An aside: I was amazed two weeks ago to count seven repeat offenders on eBay selling Sonic Foundry product blatant copies and getting lots of bids. I gathered up more than twenty offenders to report -- which was not easy to figure out how to do by the way -- and got back the message that basically if the "rights owner" doesn't complain there's nothing they can do. Oh -- and I could go to the software anti-piracy organization myself. So it's not just one thing is the point. (On the up-side I noted no SF copy offenders a few days ago.)

SoFo of course does have high-end products and has and is building a professional suite at the independent guy level that if you put it all together is really thorough. In other words people will grow into at least two of the three main products as they learn more about the work and the parts of each. Then of course this trickles down to the basic products. All of this is really smart marketing these days. If the option (just to go to the extreme) is to spend a million bucks a minute on network TV. In other words I am sure they are doing what they can.

One thing to keep in mind is CROSSOVER of audio and video with this line. We think it's obvious, but we are the pre-screened audience. The dealers grew up in separate audio & video camps. Storefront retail dealers tend not to be knowledgeable about software in the first place and obviously prefer to sell hardware that is a lot easier to "demo." Blah blah.

I tend to agree that VV is probably key to getting "pro" involvement. But it's not just an issue of Premiere versus FinalCut, versus VV in that case, because if you're "an independent video pro" you're going to be considering packages that are going to make your life easier in the sense that you are not an audio expert. You've got a budget for "equipment" but not for time, so you're going to prefer one of the "industrial" or "broadcast lite" packages that includes all the places to plug your cables into (that's generalizing but it seems very true.) Otherwise you risk "wasting" a year or two becoming expert in audio -- and that's not producing video. You see my point? Considering that THEN what would you say?

Lastly, you could also look at this from the audio side alone, which probably SUFFERS from the "video stain." I won't elaborate.

That leaves I think, a growing happy camp of learned monks with one foot in both boats, and no time to think of anything else. (Only kidding.)

Surge says: >>Examine for a moment, Vegas Video being sold as the central application on Boxx Technologies DV Boxx line. Boxx is not a mainstream computing integrator, but rather a systems integrator catering to professional content creators.<<

The independent system integrator is IMO a powerhouse channel for the entire SoFo "suite" -- and that designation of "professional content creator" I think is very relevant to SoFo -- and it takes a long time to develop those. It's also a very narrow market path that would define the effort, ad points, etc. It doesn't sound like a mass-market channel, except that there will be spillover, so focusing on editorial mentions in audio OR video media seems to make sense. The rest is growing -- and there's us. The forum is the best advertising for this class -- we're all here.

John

I agree with that wish list, Surge.

The Bins thing however, I want to stress that this could also be better off as in independent ap. I haven't "gotten" the issue yet, but I am a long-time designer of information systems and am working on a multi-million dollar development for a "configuration template" for general information management, which (once I understand it thoroughly enough) must have a "best of breed" solution for all aspects of clip & audio file management. So I am very interested in the universalistic aspect of this, rather than JUST what editing applications include.

John

CDog, I wish you would edit this to reflect a technical arts forum. The tone seems better suited to a political forum. I hope BB doesn't waste time & space defending, but just add anything new. Right right, BB?

John

Cdog just gave me a good laugh. Thanks. Everyone has opinions. I'm entitled to mine, he/she/it is entitled to one also, but no need to get bent out of shape because mine differs. LOL!

As far as "it is also extremely inefficient to access two organizational structures at once" well duh, that's why they call it WINDOWS... you do know that you can have more than one window open at a time, didn't you? Well now you do Cdog. Your welcome.

XGENEI: just curious ... but how do you determine which listings on eBay are "blatant copies"? I just did a search and found over 50 listings for SonicFoundry products. At a quick glance, the ones i looked at all seemed legit.

The copies will have to state something like "CD only -- no registration" or similar so that people don't feel ripped off. Remember that this is a "cooperative" theft, not fraud. Occasionally there is some confusion, but sellers out of Tobago selling multiple identical ads at 10% of retail is probably a good clue. I followed up with a couple of "winners" to see what they received but got no reply. Follow ups should get a room.

Reminds me of a story...

Years ago a bowling league teamate came into the lanes with a big smile on his face carrying this box that was the original carton for some expensive VCR model. He tells us, hey guys, I just got a real bargin, someone came running up to my car at a stoplight and he was selling this cool VCR. He showed me the unit in his truck, I like it and he was selling them for only $50 bucks and they retail for $250. So I bought one. We asked him did he open the box he bought? Well no, he said, so we teased him none stop until he opened his box.

Sure enough, inside were several bricks.

Buying claimed to be "original" software on Ebay or places like it is risky. More so if they price seems low.

There are quite a few reputable businesses that sell SoFo and other software on eBay. I have delt with them, after assuring myself that they WERE reputable, and been quite happy. It is up to the buyer to keep him/herself honest, or be cheated. Several of the big chains, and especially the academic chains, sell on eBay. They will sell OFF eBay for the same price or just a bit higher, if you go to their own website.

I'm not sure I'd agree that integrated DVD authoring is a silly or half-baked idea. I've tried several specialized DVD authoring apps, and I've yet to come up with one that does a good job of precisely setting chapter points. It's also annoying to have to send everything off to another app to do the authoring when I have an NLE timeline right in front of me that is accurate to the frame level.

The first NLE system that allows me to set DVD chapter points on the edit timeline with markers and then dump out to a DVD-standard compliant disk is the one I'm buying.

I hope SoFo is listening...

Not including DVD authoring capability is a glaring oversight for any NLE package that doesn't have it. It is like Photoshop requiring a seperate application to print out images. It makes little sense from the consumer's point of view to require another application to do some minor housekeeping tasks instead of being able to finish with the application you sweat hours editing and rendering with.

Since we know SoFo is very responsive to end user suggestions, perhaps adding a simple poll taking area (all kinds of Perl Scripts under $100 that handle it) to their web site to allow us to express what features we would like to see and also see how other feel would be useful, so there is kind of a top ten list. Would provide useful feedback to SoFo and customers in a graphical way, without needing the wade though every post in the forums.

...Back to the wishes.
For me 5.1 and ASIO support would be great.
There has been discussion about should SoFO go
for pro or semipro scene, but I thing 5.1 is becoming
so popular that it doesn´t matter what you are doing you´ll
still need it.

ASIO support please

The tyranny of the polls on SoFo? Oh no!

This subject has been hacked to death. Rather than repeat the arguments for or against, let me summarize what I think are the most likely options we will see from SoFo.

1) A really basic built-in capability comparable with VideoStudio 6

OR

1) A plug-in capability, plus,

2) A better DVD burner plug-in priced at $99 (another free 'bonus' at mid-year)

Either way I know I'm going to be spending over $500 on something like "Reel DVD." However it may be later than sooner.

John

What I mean is...audio control of the faders with a mackie hui, motomix, etc. If you're only making one production with a few audio tracks you can easily mix with a mouse on screen. But for those of us who do many complicated multitrack soundtracks (16 tracks) in a day, --remember Vegas is also wonderful because it retained the strength of the old Vegas AUDIO program-- for us, mixing with a mouse is slow. Again, if you have all week to do your project you don't mind. But if you do ten projects a day multitrack you greatly increase your speed with hardware faders. All the other multitrack AUDIO programs like NUENDO provide hardware fader support. I can use Pro Tools for my guys here, but VEGAS is incredible for audio at 1/20th the price. I also know video folks who export from Premiere to do all the audio in Vegas! If
Disclaimer: this forum is getting testy, you can't post without someone getting offended. Please, nothing in my message is meant to offend of disrespect anyone. Support for hardware faders like the Mackie HUI for mising ocmplicated audio would be helpful for MY crew. Thanks.

I found this comment in Sound Forge RE: CD Architect, which is after all, the same subject only older. There is resounding unanimity that users are better off with it as a separate ap. (Course you'll argue it all over again but I WILL NOT BE THERE TO READ IT! HA HA HA!)

Here's the source: http://www.soundforge.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=139961&Page=1

>>I agree. Keep 'em separate. Some of us like the simplicity of Forge and wouldn't want to see it compromised just to integrate two apps and save a hundred bucks or so. As I see it, it's all about picking the right tool for the job. If your audio is not destined for CD, why would you want all the disc burning bells getting in the way of your workspace?<<

I wish they would call it Vegas Pro instead of Vegas 4. But I guess I am getting ahead of myself.

John

Crafty devil you.

Rob Mack