Sony R&D offices?

But I guess you knew that too . .. Nah, you're gonna have to wait, just like us mere mortals . . not long now though, eh?

Grazie

:P``` ` ` ` ` <-- drool

Hate to be a wet blanket here BUT so far we've only had a press release that says nothing and been offered a chance to play with it and see demos of it at NAB. From all that I've read Istill haven't seen an official release date, i.e. a date at which we can actually maybe buy the thing.
Lots of other goodies will be given similar outings at NAB and we know for a fact it'll be months if not years before we can exchange our money for one of them.
Pardon my cynicism here but until we have a firm release date and a defined feature set it all amounts to nothing. Maybe I'm being a bit hard nosed but that's the reality for anyone who uses Vegas to derive an income. I've heard all manner of excuses for why Sony have decided upon this marketing stratergy. I'm sorry but I cannot for the life of me see how it enhance's their position in the marketplace. On the other side of the coin I can see many ways it harms their sales. I'm certain there's many users who've jumped ship because of this and no matter how earth shattering Version 5 is I don't think they'll be coming back.
I know we've heard a few encouraging words from several who are in the know and I'm not for a minute questioning their integrity, but the reality is it amounts to nought until we know for sure the what and when of this thing.

farrs,

Here is the text from thecurrent Sony rebate offer:

"In addition [to a $50 rebate] any users who purchased version 4.0 of Vegas or Vegas + DVD software between March 1, 2004 and April 30, 2004 will be entitled to a free upgrade to version 5.0!"

What does that tell you about the release date of Vegas 5.0?

Gary

Sony is old hat when it comes to marketing strategies such as this. You cannnot help but applaud their efforts. Whats it doing - its creating conflict... just like any good movie you have introduction, conflict climax, ending.
The email teaser is the introduction. Now we are at that conflict stage... its going to rock - no its going to be stupid... bleh bleh bleh. BUT what this does for their market position is creates anticipation, excitement... a lot more people will go buy on impulse because of it!
just my $.02

Good work detective Kleiner :-)

"What does that tell you about the release date of Vegas 5.0?"

Absolutely nothing, Vegas 4 will still be for sale in many places long after Vegas 5 comes out. All that applies to is a rebate, doesn't say anything about when Vegas 5 will be released.

So you think that if someone buys Vegas 4 after April 30th... they won't get the free upgrade? I think the point is that one would expect that Vegas 5 will at least be available by April 30th.

>>> I'm certain there's many users who've jumped ship because of this and no matter how earth shattering Version 5 is I don't think they'll be coming back.

What because they're being hush hush about their unreleased product? Hard to imagine someone "jumping ship" over that. It's marketing 101. Create some buzz. It's also about competition. What did Intel do when AMD was poised to release the FX-51 chip - which would have been the fastest desktop chip on the market? They took a XEON chip, bumped up the FSB speed, and released it as a "P4 Extreme Edition" - essentially at the same time AMD released their FX-51 chip. Smart move. Intel pre-empted whatever media buzz AMD would have gotten for being ahead of Intel (even if it was going to be a short lived victory).

One would expect that, but all I'm saying is that statement about the upgrade really has nothing to do with the release date of Vegas 5. It's still all speculation untill the official announcement.

Sorry but I don't understand the frustration. Those who make a living with Vegas are making a living with Vegas, I'd say that's a testimony right there that its already great as is and I don't see how the new release would take away from that in any capacity. I'm just grateful to have an editing program that I not only use, but I friggin LOVE. Seriously, its a rare thing for me to be a fan of software ... its SOFTWARE ! Ya use it to do what ya need it to do and that's it. Vegas is more than a piece of software, least for me, it's a passion and that in and of itself speaks volumes. If it was a year till their next release I wouldn't complain ( though DVDA is another story !!! ). Vegas does everything I need it to do and so much more. Anything they add at this point is just more icing on the cake.

- Ray

www.undergroundplanet.com

> though DVDA is another story !!!

Yea, and the sad part of that story is that Sony won’t sell DVDA2 alone so even if there is nothing in Vegas 5 that I need. I have to buy it anyway just to get a version of DVDA that has end-actions! I’m hoping Sony takes this into account in the upgrade price because, like you, I can’t imagine what else I need in Vegas. I just want a complete version of DVDA.

~jr

so far we've only had a press release that says nothing...

The press release was vague, but I wouldn't call this information nothing:

"The latest version of the Vegas software increases its functionality with even more sophisticated features, including 3D planar motion, film-style 5.1 surround panning, external control surface support, Loops for ACID ™ 'loop property' recognition, customizable keyboard mapping, real-time event reverse, network rendering, Sony DSR-DU1 and DSR-DR1000 disc recorder support, J-H3 HDCAM player support and much more."

Some of it is suspiciously already available in Vegas 4.0 (though perhaps they've been improved) but some features are brand new. It's enough to keep me content until the official announcement.

Some companies DO provide "guidance" to their user community. This is similar to the "guidance" the corporate CFO provides the financial community to help steer them to a consensus estimate for quarterly earnings. In the case of Sony and Vegas, they could provide general statements of direction well in advance of a new release. Microsoft does this all the time, for instance. While some of the reason that MS does this is to stop customers from buying competitors' products (a practice decried by many in the industry, most notably their competitors), it does have the positive effect of helping IT managers and others plan their hardware and software purchases.

For instance, suppose Vegas was going to support hardware-assisted rendering using the video card in your computer, but only for certain cards. Suppose further that you went out today and purchased a computer that didn't have one of these cards (or ten such computers, if you are a big outfit). If the new release is announced in the next month, I think you would be more than a little "miffed" at Sony for not giving you a "heads up" that such features were in the works. If you had known -- even if the specific feature wasn't revealed, or if the specific hardware wasn't described -- you would have either postponed your purchase, or else gotten the computer with the cheapest generic card you could, and then populated it later with the one that worked with Vegas. The same scenario goes for specific processor support (including multi-processor).

You might also like to know whether Sony intended to do something about the lousy title generation capability before you went out and spent a few hundred bucks on a decent title generator.

From Sony's perspective, providing guidance has many benefits as well. They can gauge reaction from a wider audience than just their beta users before the whole thing is set in stone. They can also keep people from switching to competitive products, possibly never to come back. For instance, take a look at the number of posts over at the DVDA forum. It is down to just a few a day (there weren't ANY yesterday). People have abandoned that product in droves, not only because it is a marginal product, but because Sony went out of its way to withhold all guidance. As a result, many people assumed -- most likely incorrectly -- that Sony was not committed to the product.

There are a lot of ex-DVDA users using Adobe Encore right now that probably would not have switched if Sony had been more forthcoming.

There is a difference between "guidance" and a marketing announcement. Guidance is simply the act of stating a direction, such as: "we intend to make Vegas a completely integrated platform and as part of this will continue to add functions that, with other competing products, are often found only through plug-ins and add-ons." They could make a few other slightly more specific statements after that one. By contrast, a marketing announcement is a specific list of features, a stated pricing schedule, and a committed delivery date. Those three things should rightly be held close to the vest and not disclosed until the company is ready to "pull the trigger" on the release.

The important point in all this is that customers -- especially the core customer base generally represented in these forums -- should be regarded as allies, not adversaries. I have occasionally gotten the impression since the Sony acquisition that a few in Sony management may believe that old adage that "business would be really great if it wasn't for those damn customers."

John,
you've pretty much said what I was driving at, thanks for taking the time to elaborate. Your example of uStuff is exactly the one that was in my head at the time I was writing my initital post.
For me personally my biggest issues are with DVDA but you've certainly highlighted areas within Vegas where there are concerns as well.
Its as simple as this: My client is offering me a serious amount of work creating multiple language DVDs. Without jumping ship the best I can honestly tell him is that at some point in the future Sony MAY release a new version of the software I'm using which MAY contain the features I need to do the job.
Having even a buggy version that crashed every minute would put me in a better position than I'm in now. That at least shows what WILL be in the working version.
As to the creating a 'buzz', that's fine if we're talking about a new model camera or car. What we've already got still gets the job done, the marketing gurus want to create anticipation to fuel desire and envy. That's fine in its place. Let's say I owned a VX2000, well I'd be great if the low light performance was even better and hey I've heard a rumour that there'll be a VX2100 out soon that is better in that area. I can still get the job done with what I've got but the rumour gets me thinking about buying the new one. But if what I needed was 24p, it's a whole different story. Unless I had a pretty definative statement that the VX2100 would shoot 24p I'm going to take my money elsewhere.

I disagree. If a person needs a certain feature "now" and not "later" then who cares how long it is till dvda 2 is released.

Noone in the DVDA forums accepted any guidance that peter gave them when he said that the development of dvda was "alive". There was a thread a long time ago that stated that sony had a "very aggressive" list of features to do for dvda 2. Is that not enough? What do you need to see peter come out everyday and say the same thing just to make people happy? I'd rather him coding than responding.

Dvda was at v1.0. Look at how far vegas has come since its v1.0. What makes you think the development of dvda would be different?[especially now with sony money backing the r&d]

So a whole lot of people bought encore for the lack of features in dvda. Guess what? I bought Sonar 3.0 professional for all the audio features missing in vegas and acid combined! Guess which programs I use most? [wink]

Ed.

[relax...all is well]

Whole lot of whinin' goin' on here.

If Vegas and DVDA are so bad, if Sony has let you down so much, buy a new Mac and Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio. Or Avid or Canopus or Premiere or Media 100 or SoftImage or whatever.

What I know is that in one weekend, after spending only $431.35 on Vegas 4.0+DVD (less than DVD Studio alone and way less than FCP, which I struggled with and hate as much as Premiere), from a cold install I edited my first two videos complete with cool effects, made a 5.1 surround track, rendered to MPEG-2 and AC3, authored a DVD which had animated buttons and chapters, animated menu with audio under and two titles.

I can do more, faster, in my home office than I can do with $30,000 systems. Yes, I have a need for multiple language capability, too. But that's later.

IT'S A $431.35 PACKAGE for goodness' sake! It's a blast to work with. It has capability I may never take advantage of. It can get better. It will get better.

I will be one of those guys at NAB fiddling with 5.0 on the laptops they provide, if there's one open. I will be listening to the new features. I will finish reading Spot's book. I will keep editing on Vegas. It's too good.

Jump ship if you want. It's a free country. If you want hardware accelleration, realtime layering/compositing, 4:2:2 color space and real time NTSC video, buy a Media 100 844X. For $35,000. Oh, yeah, Media 100 is bankrupt.

I am doing in my home office what I couldn't do in a quarter million dollar Betacam SP editing suite just ten years ago. I am happy. I will only get happier.

Good post Sidecar.

.... as long as Version 5 includes something for getting stones out of horses' hooves.

I'd be the last person to complain about what Vegas 4.0 and DVDA 1.0 IS, since I bought it I've made my money back many times over AND I've convinced at least one production house to buy it. I've sung its praises long and loud. That isn't the issue in any way shape or form. If I didn't think it was a GREAT product do you think I'd devote hours to helping out people here or even writing this and my previous posts?
The product isn't the issue, that the next release will be breathtaking isn't an issue, I'm 110% certain it will BUT I have to sell my capabilites and hences Vegas and DVDA to my clients as well. All I can show them and promise them is what Ver 4 can do. Without a release date and feature list, to all intents and purposes I could be using a 5 year old product from a long defunct company
The issue, the sole issue, is knowing what the next release will contain and when it'll be available and how that impacts on its potential sales.
Someone suggested I buy a Mac and FCP, well one simple reason why I'd never contemplate that is because Apple engage in exactly the same smoke and mirrors game with their products. That alone is enough reason for me to look elsewhere.
And yes I don't think software developers should be wasting their time telling us what they're upto, I appreciate their effort, don't get me wrong. But any software effort that's going to succeed has a well defined set of goals, these are nailed down months if not years before release and progress monitored daily or weekly. Software projects that I've worked on had a contractual requirement that progress reports were available to the customer at least weekly.
Now that's a very different environment but in this case it wouldn't take much work and would end pointless speculation if some of that information was officially released to the marketplace.
I hate using them as an example but I guess credit where credits due, uStuff manages to do this, pretty well every know bug in their code is documented along with workarounds, possible fix dates or release versions that fixed the issue. They release alpha and beta builds at times years before the product hits the shelves and from what I can see none of this is hurting their market share.
I've read just about every post on this topic and I've yet to find a compelling argument as to how this approach to new releases helps anyone.

Yes, there is something odd about the way it has unfolded, but, Bob, I would take it as read that you'll be able to offer mutiple language tracks & subtitles in DVDA from the end of April.

It must be very frustrating to not be able to actually promise this, though.