MAGIX, my mistake.

VEGAS doesn't require studio to computer levels filters after version 18.

It also has settings to interpret V-log (either LUTs in the color grading panel or IDTs as part of ACES in 32-bit full mode).

It shouldn't crash but it sounds like it does a lot for you. Glad you found a tool that works for you, I use both myself (though mainly VEGAS).

VEGAS doesn't require studio to computer levels filters after version 18.

It also has settings to interpret V-log (either LUTs in the color grading panel or IDTs as part of ACES in 32-bit full mode).

It shouldn't crash but it sounds like it does a lot for you. Glad you found a tool that works for you, I use both myself (though mainly VEGAS).

Vegas shouldn't crash, we can all agree about that. However it's always crashed at random for me, doesn't matter what PC I had at the time, what operating system or graphics card I had, or where the files were coming from, it would crash at some point during an edit, maybe once, maybe a few times, or just plain refuses to start without an update as it did recently! I've sent hundreds of crash reports from the crash dialogue, nothing improved over time or from version to version. So to get through a whole project with Resolve and not a single crash, that stands out.

Like several other Vegas users here, I too own Resolve Studio. I've had it for a few years now along with the never used, Speed Editor.

Oh, there have been some bumps along the DR way. Just read the forum. Nothing is bug/crash free. But I myself didn't find learning Resolve easy at all. Vegas is a natural for me. I can edit faster on the timeline with it than Resolve. But yes, Resolve does have some really great features, and performance. But when I had to Google how to render, to find out that the little "rocket" was the way, yeah...

But I look at the video software as tools. Some work better doing different things than others. Pliers work, but a box wrench might be better. So I use what makes my life easier.

I'm failing to see the point here other than to blow off steam, which goes against the community standards. You aren't asking for help, which is the purpose of this forum. I'll leave the thread open for now unless another mod agrees with me, but don't be surprised if it gets closed.

It sounds more to me like you don't know what you are doing, I shoot VLOG exclusively and VEGAS works just fine for it. You just have to know how to set up view transforms. Set the project settings to 32 bit full range, right click on the media in your project media pool and select properties, then set the color space to VLOG/VGamut. Then your VLOG will be transformed to look correct and you can color grade it from there to your liking. To edit VLOG into HDR, do the above but then enable HDR10 or HLG mode in project settings.

32 bit floating point requires a ton of processing power (it's even more accurate than what Resolve uses, IIRC), so you'll want to use proxies when editing in that mode. To make those, right click on your media in the project media pool and select "create video proxy", then when the proxy is done being generated, set the preview quality to "preview" or "draft".

Had you bothered to ask instead of just coming in here complaining and preaching about how much you like competing software, you might have gotten somewhere with it.

As for performance, it has improved by leaps and bounds since Sony owned it. You're looking back with rose-tinted glasses. Sony didn't have GPU encoding or decoding for AVC/HEVC, it didn't support NVENC/VCE/QSV, it didn't support HDR, it didn't have proper color grading or even LUT support, it didn't have AI tools for everything from automatic masking to colorization, style transfer, upscaling, etc., the VST support sucked... I could fill a page with all the new features and performance improvements that have been added since Sony owned it.

Stability is definitely a weak point for it, and a lot of that can be traced back to the Sony days and even before then back in the Sonic Foundry days, old bugs in 20+ year old code that isn't adaptable well to adding new features have created a ton of headaches for the team over the past several years. The amount of progress a handful of people have made since 2016 is amazing.

Also, up until now, there was as few as 6 people working on VEGAS total... however, Magix recently devoted a much, much larger team to the VEGAS project, and that team is currently working on rewriting the VEGAS video engine from the ground up. There are entire teams now devoted to fixing bugs and adding new features. As part of the beta testing crew, I'm part of the folks bug testing these features, and I can promise you the performance gains are very real... and even we have only seen part of the full upgrade they are rolling out.

I'm not here to try to get you to reconsider leaving for Resolve... use whatever works for you... but I'm also not going to sit here and let you spread inaccuracies about the state of VEGAS. Go back and use VEGAS 13 with modern media, then try it again on the latest build of VEGAS 21. It's a night and day difference. Everything from stability to speed has dramatically improved.

Hmmm, and there are performance problems. Recently, I have always seen Vegas users complain that their 4K footages can be playbacked & edited smoothly in Capcut (free) without any proxy, but it is very lagging in Vegas.

I know, from the developer's point of view, it is very difficult to update Vegas because its code base is very old and difficult to maintain.

However, the truth of this world is that we should look at problems from the user's point of view. Most users don't care about the difficulty of developers' development, they only choose or eliminate a tool according to the actual performance of the program.

So, basically, I think that Magix/Vegas' decision makers should have a sense of crisis early and try all kinds of reform and innovation measures, which will be better than now anyway. The competitive situation in NLE has long been far more severe than they know.

Of course, this is just a personal opinion, and it is not necessarily correct.

I find it a miracle that anything works well in Windows.

JJK

I'm failing to see the point here other than to blow off steam, which goes against the community standards. You aren't asking for help, which is the purpose of this forum. I'll leave the thread open for now unless another mod agrees with me, but don't be surprised if it gets closed.

It sounds more to me like you don't know what you are doing, I shoot VLOG exclusively and VEGAS works just fine for it. You just have to know how to set up view transforms. Set the project settings to 32 bit full range, right click on the media in your project media pool and select properties, then set the color space to VLOG/VGamut. Then your VLOG will be transformed to look correct and you can color grade it from there to your liking. To edit VLOG into HDR, do the above but then enable HDR10 or HLG mode in project settings.

32 bit floating point requires a ton of processing power (it's even more accurate than what Resolve uses, IIRC), so you'll want to use proxies when editing in that mode. To make those, right click on your media in the project media pool and select "create video proxy", then when the proxy is done being generated, set the preview quality to "preview" or "draft".

Had you bothered to ask instead of just coming in here complaining and preaching about how much you like competing software, you might have gotten somewhere with it.

 

I have asked for help and been active in this forum over the years. I am annoyed with myself because I've stuck with Vegas due to not wanting to learn a different program, and upgraded and paid for several versions over the years.

I didn't know what I was doing with V-Log, that much is true, I wanted to learn, we all start from somewhere. I Googled Vegas and V-Log and got a dozen different answers. The properties dialog is confusing, there are changes needed for inputs and outputs and view transforms, often spread across different dialog's as rendering needs other settings checked. The main properties dialog and preferences settings hasn't ever changed since Sony days, its just got added to, the UI is dated and simply is too complicated without any obvious best setting defaults to start from. I change one thing and what I see on my preview completely changes (colour and contrast). Trying to mix different footage was confusing. I thought if I have to relearn in order to know how to deal with V-Log, I might as well try a different editor altogether.

Resolve was easy to get set up using their automatic colour space option, I did have to Google and watch some YouTube videos but it was a lot easier and mixed footage worked perfectly. The YouTube videos on Resolve all seem to be done by professionals who use it for actual TV or film work, Google help with Vegas and you get someone who calls their viewers 'bro' showing you something from their back bedroom. I then started to use other aspects of colour grading and it was so much easier and more intuitive. Adding various filters (nodes) was less clicks than adding filters in Vegas which is a pain with the filters UI that opens over the top and having to remember to click 'Add' before OK!

Yes 32 bit float operations are CPU intensive, but I've gone from using a single core Pentium processor with clock rate measure in the hundreds of MHz in the early days of Sony Vegas up to an Intel processor with 12 physical cores, 20 logical cores and running >4GHz, yet Vegas performance hasn't improved. Okay granted we are working with bigger resolutions now, but we don't actually work with those resolutions in Vegas, we have to dial everything to the lowest resolution on the timeline and preview to make it work, plus use low quality low bit-rate proxies. To be fair Resolve also struggles unless the timeline resolution is turned down, but still outperforms Vegas considerably and the timeline can run at real time speeds without resulting to really poor quality proxies or preview.

The fact I've gone hours and not had a single crash from Resolve, I couldn't say the same for Vegas, where after every change I'm doing a Control+S to save the change just in case.

I have supported Vegas with hard cash, but they haven't supported me or given me a better product, and they just keep asking me for more money (nag screens!) to upgrade to the next version whilst the version I'm on is abandoned. Sorry, no more easy money from me.

Hmmm, and there are performance problems. Recently, I have always seen Vegas users complain that their 4K footages can be playbacked smoothly in Capcut (free) without any proxy, but it is very lagging in Vegas.

Indeed. My 4K footage from my camera plays back on my PC perfectly, I can watch it at 4K in media player full size and it doesn't skip a frame, playing 4K media on even a modest PCs is easy, we do it all the time from YouTube and streaming services, so there should be no issue playing it in Vegas unless a lot of effects or filters need processing. Yet drag a 4K clip into Vegas and try and preview it having done nothing to it, and does it play okay, no it doesn't, why not? If the PC can play it fine otherwise, why not Vegas in its tiny preview window? Vegas and people here blame the poor performance on the demands of 4K resolutions, but that isn't the problem when you can't even play the clip having done nothing to it in Vegas, its the software.

@Reyfox nails it completely for me, I feel just the same.

I'll just add this: every time I start a new project, I ask myself start in Vegas or Resolve studio?

Nah, I just fire up Vegas and have fun. I do not know why, but Vegas is more organic and fun to use, Resolve just feels too dry, has a too rigid layout and too professional (in the negative sense) to my taste (I am not talking about a learning curve, nor complexity, just the fun factor).

If I miss something in Vegas or I need some efficiency boost, I just use, add, or write a script to help with the editing, the advanced support of scripting is one of Vegas gems which is often forgotten and not highlighted enough (looking at you - the Magix marketing machine).

Crashes to the desktop I would say none, but 'hangs' for sure, they happen sometimes, I just save often, so what do you lose, 5 or 10 minutes of work?...

Basically my only gripe with Vegas is they should have a more frequent/periodic update delivery, even when that would mean fewer bug fixes and fewer new features. Or deliver public beta's. The more you wait for a delivery, the more bugs are fixed (OK good), but the chance to have regression bugs also increases, and if you have to wait for a few months to have the regression bugs fixed, that is not a good thing.

I'm failing to see the point here other than to blow off steam, which goes against the community standards. You aren't asking for help, which is the purpose of this forum. I'll leave the thread open for now unless another mod agrees with me, but don't be surprised if it gets closed.

It sounds more to me like you don't know what you are doing, I shoot VLOG exclusively and VEGAS works just fine for it. You just have to know how to set up view transforms. Set the project settings to 32 bit full range, right click on the media in your project media pool and select properties, then set the color space to VLOG/VGamut. Then your VLOG will be transformed to look correct and you can color grade it from there to your liking. To edit VLOG into HDR, do the above but then enable HDR10 or HLG mode in project settings.

32 bit floating point requires a ton of processing power (it's even more accurate than what Resolve uses, IIRC), so you'll want to use proxies when editing in that mode. To make those, right click on your media in the project media pool and select "create video proxy", then when the proxy is done being generated, set the preview quality to "preview" or "draft".

Had you bothered to ask instead of just coming in here complaining and preaching about how much you like competing software, you might have gotten somewhere with it.

 

I have asked for help and been active in this forum over the years. I am annoyed with myself because I've stuck with Vegas due to not wanting to learn a different program, and upgraded and paid for several versions over the years.

I didn't know what I was doing with V-Log, that much is true, I wanted to learn, we all start from somewhere. I Googled Vegas and V-Log and got a dozen different answers. The properties dialog is confusing, there are changes needed for inputs and outputs and view transforms, often spread across different dialog's as rendering needs other settings checked. The main properties dialog and preferences settings hasn't ever changed since Sony days, its just got added to, the UI is dated and simply is too complicated without any obvious best setting defaults to start from. I change one thing and what I see on my preview completely changes (colour and contrast). Trying to mix different footage was confusing. I thought if I have to relearn in order to know how to deal with V-Log, I might as well try a different editor altogether.

Resolve was easy to get set up using their automatic colour space option, I did have to Google and watch some YouTube videos but it was a lot easier and mixed footage worked perfectly. The YouTube videos on Resolve all seem to be done by professionals who use it for actual TV or film work, Google help with Vegas and you get someone who calls their viewers 'bro' showing you something from their back bedroom. I then started to use other aspects of colour grading and it was so much easier and more intuitive. Adding various filters (nodes) was less clicks than adding filters in Vegas which is a pain with the filters UI that opens over the top and having to remember to click 'Add' before OK!

Yes 32 bit float operations are CPU intensive, but I've gone from using a single core Pentium processor with clock rate measure in the hundreds of MHz in the early days of Sony Vegas up to an Intel processor with 12 physical cores, 20 logical cores and running >4GHz, yet Vegas performance hasn't improved. Okay granted we are working with bigger resolutions now, but we don't actually work with those resolutions in Vegas, we have to dial everything to the lowest resolution on the timeline and preview to make it work, plus use low quality low bit-rate proxies. To be fair Resolve also struggles unless the timeline resolution is turned down, but still outperforms Vegas considerably and the timeline can run at real time speeds without resulting to really poor quality proxies or preview.

The fact I've gone hours and not had a single crash from Resolve, I couldn't say the same for Vegas, where after every change I'm doing a Control+S to save the change just in case.

I have supported Vegas with hard cash, but they haven't supported me or given me a better product, and they just keep asking me for more money (nag screens!) to upgrade to the next version whilst the version I'm on is abandoned. Sorry, no more easy money from me.

@phil-d

Probably a stupid question, of course you did, but purely out of curiosity: did you read the manual?

(...)I have supported Vegas with hard cash(...)

What, you were giving money for nothing in return? Don't believe that...

Hmmm, and there are performance problems. Recently, I have always seen Vegas users complain that their 4K footages can be playbacked smoothly in Capcut (free) without any proxy, but it is very lagging in Vegas.

I know, from the developer's point of view, it is very difficult to update Vegas because its code base is very old and difficult to maintain.

However, the truth of this world is that we should look at problems from the user's point of view. Most users don't care about the difficulty of developers' development, they only choose or eliminate a tool according to the actual performance of the program.

So, basically, I think that Magix/Vegas' decision makers should have a sense of crisis early and try all kinds of reform and innovation measures, which will be better than now anyway. The competitive situation in NLE has long been far more severe than they know.

Of course, this is just a personal opinion, and it is not necessarily correct.

@lan-mLMC

You don't need Vegas or Capcut for smooth playback.. Use MPC instead.

You don't need Vegas or Capcut for smooth playback.. Use MPC instead.

If you are editing and want to check how those edits flow, see if the transitions are of a suitable type, is the cut in the right place and is it making sense or is that B roll footage shown for far too long or not long enough, and so on, you absolutely need smooth playback in the editor, I can't be alone in thinking that!

You don't need Vegas or Capcut for smooth playback.. Use MPC instead.

If you are editing and want to check how those edits flow, see if the transitions are of a suitable type, is the cut in the right place and is it making sense or is that B roll footage shown for far too long or not long enough, and so on, you absolutely need smooth playback in the editor, I can't be alone in thinking that!

Who's talking about editing etc.? Guy wants smotoh playback.

Btw, did you read the manual? Also, would you be able to export me some DPX image sequence for DCDM out of Cupcut?

Thanks!

I will share my opinion about Vegas and Resolve. I don't have any complain about Vegas stability. VP20 is my latest version. I now only use Vegas for custom slideshow project. Everything else is edit in Resolve. With all the die hard Vegas fan boys will continue argues about how great Vegas performance are. But in contrast, there is no comparison when its come to TL performance in Vegas/Resolve. Vegas Pro needs a complete re-write to be able to complete with modern NLE.

Yeah... This thread needs to be closed now. These rantings are pointless and going nowhere. This is not what this user forum is for nor abides by.

Yeah sure. Close this thread and this forum ALL together because there is no point of keeping it open to allow only positive comments. Negative comments or thread not allowed.

Ok...please...let's all cool off a bit here. I am sorry to hear about phil-d's issues. VP20 was created before Magix changed course and appropriately provided the badly needed engineering resources to the VEGAS team. Significant rewrites are now in progress and significant progress has been made on stability. We do realize for many people, it is too late and they have decided to leave, which is unfortunate. I can tell you that we are now in a much stronger position as development team and have not had this many engineers working on VEGAS since VEGAS Pro 12 released in 2012. We have some extremely talented people working now to solve these long standing issues.

@VEGASDerek The vast improvements and added features you guys have made to Vegas from 2013 till now is truly commendable.... Can just imagine what's around the corner with this new development engineering phase you guys are currently undergoing.

Keep going @VEGASDerek 💪. Even though it is more challenging, you keep going.

I'm currently using multiple editors now, and I also amazed with the Vegas' recent developments.

I didn't know what I was doing with V-Log, that much is true, I wanted to learn, we all start from somewhere. I Googled Vegas and V-Log and got a dozen different answers. The properties dialog is confusing, there are changes needed for inputs and outputs and view transforms, often spread across different dialog's as rendering needs other settings checked. The main properties dialog and preferences settings hasn't ever changed since Sony days, its just got added to, the UI is dated and simply is too complicated without any obvious best setting defaults to start from. I change one thing and what I see on my preview completely changes (colour and contrast). Trying to mix different footage was confusing. I thought if I have to relearn in order to know how to deal with V-Log, I might as well try a different editor altogether.

You never asked here, or you would have had your question answered within a day.

I detailed exactly what you have to do in my post... it's literally a 3 step process... There's actually 2 ways you can go about it (another great thing about VEGAS, many paths to the same solution).

Path 1 (you will notice better playback performance using this method. I find you can color grade better with method 2, but you'll have to do less configuring when using mixed media this way):

In a default 8 bit (legacy) project:

1. Import VLOG footage. Add to timeline.

2. Get a VLOG to Rec709 LUT, panasonic has some on their website (link here: https://na.panasonic.com/us/resource-center/v-log-v-709-3d-lut).

If using the Micro 4/3 versions of Panasonic's VLOG cameras, you may need to get a VLOG-L to Rec709 LUT.

3. Open the Color Grading Panel, and in the "input" tab, apply that LUT.

Done... that's it.

Or, if you want to utilize the full dynamic range and 10 bit goodness of that file:

Path 2

1. Import VLOG footage. Add to timeline.

2. Set project settings to 32 bit (full range)

3. Right click on the file in project media, select properties. Set color space to VLOG/VGamut.

Here's another useful tip... you can still enjoy the benefits of 32 bit mode, but the performance of 8 bit mode... do all your editing in 8 bit mode, then when you are done cutting, change the project settings to 32 bit mode. Then do the steps I outline in Path 2 above, and color the footage to your liking from there.

A 3 step process, and you're off. It isn't rocket science. There are lots of pro tutorials out there for VEGAS, but youtube is also flooded with the gamers (most of who pirate the software) posting tutorials about how to do different things... and yes, the quality of these tutorials is lacking, and often full of misinformation (like "record your gameplay video at 200fps! It'll make it look smoother when you render it out of VEGAS at 60fps!"), but there isn't much that can be done about that. VEGAS now comes with VEGAS Hub, which has a bunch of tutorials built right into it.

I would like to see better automatic detection of color space in VEGAS, but it's by far not a deal breaker for me. The workflow speed at which I can edit on a VEGAS timeline vs. the workflow found in competing apps, is unrivaled. Once the new video engine rewrite is complete, the performance issues will be a thing of the past as well... But for now I proxy. The good thing about VEGAS' proxy engine, they can be switched on and off in an instant, all you have to do is change the preview window quality from "preview" to "good" or "best" and you're now looking at the original media, not the proxy. I do this when coloring. I cut in "preview" quality, then go to "best" to color, since I don't need smooth playback in order to do my coloring in 32 bit mode. I just skip around the timeline scene by scene as needed and color it while paused.

As Derek said, their team has grown significantly recently, and the fruits of that extra labor will start to become much more apparent as future updates start rolling out.

Ok...please...let's all cool off a bit here. I am sorry to hear about phil-d's issues. VP20 was created before Magix changed course and appropriately provided the badly needed engineering resources to the VEGAS team. Significant rewrites are now in progress and significant progress has been made on stability. We do realize for many people, it is too late and they have decided to leave, which is unfortunate. I can tell you that we are now in a much stronger position as development team and have not had this many engineers working on VEGAS since VEGAS Pro 12 released in 2012. We have some extremely talented people working now to solve these long standing issues.

Thank you for the update and this is the first I've heard of it, it would have been good to have received some information by email or via the "ad service" within Vegas and perhaps I might have stuck with it, although it might have needed in my case a heavily discounted or free upgrade to these better versions. I would also add not wishing to be negative but just stating the facts, we've heard the same things before. The sale of Vegas from Sony to yourselves was met with the same PR of extra investment and all the issues will be resolved and stick with us we will fix it all, and here we are with another announcement saying the same thing again some years later.

Good luck, perhaps one day I will retest the waters.