Not yet mentioned:

A new 8 bit full level project mode which recognizes the full/limited color range meta data of Y'CbCr video and automatically exports Y'CbCr video to limited range, including the proper meta data.

I caught that just a minute ago and updated my post.

@fr0sty Hey, some direct links of Vegas 18 are still not available? Something like :

http://dl-nl04.magix.net//2020/VEGASPro18/Update/VEGAS_Pro_18.0.0.284_DE-EN-FR-ES.exe

http://dl-de01.magix.net//2020/FXHome/VEGAS_Effects_2.0_200519_08-49.msi

http://dl-nl04.magix.net//2020/FXHome/VEGAS_Image_2.0_200519_08-49.exe

I'm sure that will post soon, unless they're not the right links.

Yet another $250 for an update of Pro? ... no.

This new version sounds decent. I’m still not expecting I’ll be able to use it though. When I bought my Z-Cam E2 early last year I had to switch to Resolve, as Vegas would crash when loading a bunch of .h265 footage from the E2. Which was tough, having been a Vegas user since before the program even did video way back in the late 90s. Even after building a new PC (Ryzen 3950 with RTX 2070), loading a bunch of E2 clips still caused it to crash, even in a demo of Vegas 17.

Anyway, I’ll try the demo of 18 and see how it goes. Although the upgrades are so expensive now! The $249 upgrade is $349 here in Australia. In comparison, Resolve Studio only cost me $420 Australian for the whole program. They don’t charge for upgrades, they don’t put Spyware on my computer asking me to upgrade all the time, and unlike Vegas, the program rarely ever crashes.

I think Magix should cut the price of their upgrades by not bundling all the [mostly useless] 3rd party software.

Trial is crashing at startup.. (i bought V18 but as it's an EDU version, i wanted to try it while waiting for the autorisation).. I had the same issue with the trial of Video Studio 17 few days ago. My V16 work fine.

Edit : issue found. it's "again" my hitfilm plugins which make crashing vegas. it was working ok in Vegas 16 after several weeks of crash, and now the issue is back in Vegas 18 :( ... Waiting the Activiation to arrive, and i think it will be again a Long mail exchange with the support. So far, it's pretty cool, as i skipped V17. Don't regret for now :-) the upgrade (expect for my whole hitfilm package :( Ignite, etc..).

@Glenn Thomas

"The $249 upgrade is $349 here in Australia."

Why not considering to upgrade to the Edit version of Vegas Pro.

So we finally get:

 

Thanks for the release note.

Yet another $250 for an update of Pro? ... no.

Same price it's always been...

Not yet mentioned:

A new 8 bit full level project mode which recognizes the full/limited color range meta data of Y'CbCr video and automatically exports Y'CbCr video to limited range, including the proper meta data.

The new 8 bit full level pixel format in project setting resolved VEGAS Pro preview's being too grey problem.  Whether it is video or imega. ( in old 8 bit pixel format, video is 16-235, image is 0-255 )

All looks interesting BUT, having just paid the same on 28th April it feels like a bit of a con (at this rate Adobe looks like good value - and it was their "value" gap that had me abandoning Adobe to return to Vegas)

I am finding very little improvement over 17 (edit). The GPU (1080Ti) still runs at 20-30% usage on decode on both 17 & 18. The deflicker filter does almost remove it BUT has a big detrimental effect on any movement - significant blur. Cant see any difference in the while balance plugin. Likely to move to 18 when they offer the upgrade for £109 rather than £149 as last time.

Not seeing 100% usage doesn't mean that there is power going unused... that isn't how it works. Any number of bottlenecks in your system could be preventing that from hitting 100% usage. As for flicker removal, did you run the motion tracking and then enable the motion compensation option?

All looks interesting BUT, having just paid the same on 28th April it feels like a bit of a con (at this rate Adobe looks like good value - and it was their "value" gap that had me abandoning Adobe to return to Vegas)

The fact that you waited until near the end of 17's life cycle to buy it doesn't mean adobe charging $600 per year is any more attractive... 17 has been on the market a full year.

BUT has a big detrimental effect on any movement - significant blur.

I haven't tried VP18 yet - just DL'd it - but Flicker Fixer in BorisFX BCC also invokes blur on movement with trying to get rid of flicker with fluro lighting. It probably works best with a static shot.

A new 8 bit full level project mode which recognizes the full/limited color range meta data of Y'CbCr video and automatically exports Y'CbCr video to limited range, including the proper meta data.

I was looking forward to this. I thought final no more "levels" global video output FX that I keep forgetting to turn off before rendering. For me this is absolutely annoying and one reason I walked away from Vegas Pro.

Unfortunately 8 bit full level simply clips shadows/highlights and makes them unrecoverable.

All I want is

1. a preview window that shows the same levels as the exported video (without workarounds)
2. no unnecessary clipped shadows/highlights

I can't believe it's so hard to implement this. Complains about this has been ignored again and again by the Vegas team because it's a "pro" feature. The irony is that software most pros are using doesn't have that issue.

I personally like having the choice to make my video full range or not, rather than having my NLE force me to throw away thousands of possible shades of color because it wants my video to be compatible with analog TVs that nobody uses anymore.
 

A new 8 bit full level project mode which recognizes the full/limited color range meta data of Y'CbCr video and automatically exports Y'CbCr video to limited range, including the proper meta data.

I was looking forward to this. I thought final no more "levels" global video output FX that I keep forgetting to turn off before rendering. For me this is absolutely annoying and one reason I walked away from Vegas Pro.

Unfortunately 8 bit full level simply clips shadows/highlights and makes them unrecoverable.

All I want is

1. a preview window that shows the same levels as the exported video (without workarounds)
2. no unnecessary clipped shadows/highlights

I can't believe it's so hard to implement this. Complains about this has been ignored again and again by the Vegas team because it's a "pro" feature. The irony is that software most pros are using doesn't have that issue.

You sure you didn't set this wrong:

Not seeing 100% usage doesn't mean that there is power going unused... that isn't how it works. Any number of bottlenecks in your system could be preventing that from hitting 100% usage. As for flicker removal, did you run the motion tracking and then enable the motion compensation option?

All looks interesting BUT, having just paid the same on 28th April it feels like a bit of a con (at this rate Adobe looks like good value - and it was their "value" gap that had me abandoning Adobe to return to Vegas)

The fact that you waited until near the end of 17's life cycle to buy it doesn't mean adobe charging $600 per year is any more attractive... 17 has been on the market a full year.

Adobe = £16.24 / month (£196 per year) and this includes after effects so pretty equivalent to having hit film too, and photoshop. I upgraded my Vegas in April £169, now another £199 so definitely more. Had I known I was upgrading "near the end of 17's life cycle" - they didn't see fit to tell me that - I would have held off.

So if you are suggesting that Vegas gets an annual renewal at £199 a year that makes it more expensive than Adobe Creative cloud for me if I choose to upgrade each time.

I really like Vegas but I upgraded based on features that didn't really work for me - stabilization, noise reduction, tracking. And ended up "investing" in other tools to fill these gaps. Thank God I didn't also upgrade my copy of Sound Forge since this now appears to be bundled!

The pricing model does not favour loyal customers, since upgrading now would cost me another £199 but if I hadn't upgraded in April it would still only cost me £199 so I would have been better off not taking the last upgrade - this is why companies have sliding scales to their upgrades - to encourage people to stay up-to-date.

To be honest I'm downloading the demo because if it is more reliable (not crashing every other render I do) I might upgrade just to be able to use the software, since I've invested so much in it however it does feel like throwing good money after bad. v17 was a poor upgrade for me - I got very poor value for money. Once bitten twice shy so the demo really does have to answer a lot of issues with the beta version (v17) that I paid for just 3 months ago.

The biggest difference being, if you ever stop paying that money monthly to Adobe, your software stops working. VEGAS licenses are perpetual, and therefore worth far more.

I don't see any NLEs that tell you how far along in the life cycle of the app you are in at any given point in time. Usually when I buy new software, I will check when the last version released to see how long it's been. Better communication would be helpful here, I can agree.

VEGAS 17 didn't have noise reduction... But 18 does, along with flicker reduction.

"Unfortunately 8 bit full level simply clips shadows/highlights"

If this happens it means the source clip meta data is not set correctly. Then the levels of the souce Y'CbCr video exceeds the limited levels range without having the full range meta data and same clipping would occur in other NLE with automated limited/full level reading.

The 1st bug:

No sound for *.M2TS files.

The last correct MVC-FileIO was version 17 build 284.

That means they didn't squint even one eye for such "small" things and these small things shall be carried...?