If davinci or Premiere took over the way of editing from Vegas, would you leave Vegas and go to them?

The million dollar question, right?

@pierre-k I do have Resolve 18 Studio. Yes, the paid version. But I still use Vegas to edit. I also have other editors. I have one that does multicam editing (up to 6 cameras and 2 audio sources) that is much easier and faster to use than Vegas or Resolve. And Split screen editing is easier to create in it too. Heck, their title editor far out strips Vegas. But for sheer editing, I just enjoy using Vegas more. I'll use the others for specific tasks that they excel out, but that's it.

If davinci or Premiere took over the way of editing from Vegas, would you leave Vegas and go to them?

From my point-of-view:

Premiere - I tried it years ago and found it clunky and user unfriendly - maybe it's changed and is better now. And now it's subscription only so active only while subscription payments are current - so no, I wouldn't go for Premiere even if it became more Vegas-like.

DaVinci Resolve - I can't see that Resolve will ever (though never say never) become Vegas-like because it has always been aimed at another segment of the market, specifically collaborative editing where different teams process different aspects of the editing process: i.e media selection, basic editing, color grading/FX, audio and rendering. This is a huge marketing USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that BMD promotes for Resolve - and now it has collaboration via the cloud. Does the cloud interest me - no. Vegas Pro is not process partitioned in the way that Resolve is. This is not say that Resolve is not good. In fact, it's great - but it's different, just aimed at another market.

So, how much resources are going to battle dubious "climate change?" (this sounds more like a PR ploy and curtsy to the climate "wokies" than some sort of real action

These days, almost every company and organisation must have a positive declared attitude towards climate change as well as the increasingly wide range of politically correct issues.
I disagree with the "must have" and btw "climate change" (mean anthropocentric climate change) is not accepted "science" across the board, but that is another subject. It's mostly an unsubtantiated claim repeated enough so that people just blithely accept such as "settled science." All the research grants are towards finding "evidence" as to the existence of ACC and thus, institutions produce the required "data" but this is all money driven. I mean completely.

I've tried a bunch of editors as well, Final Cut Pro crashed so much on me that I gave up on it and I absolutely loathe Premiere Pro. Resolve is great though and I have the full paid version that I used for specific things, however I still do also use Vegas (been using it since version 4) and I just ordered the Vegas 20 upgrade. It is nice having options so I keep both Vegas and Resolve installed.

We should say out loud that if it weren't for the Magix company, we would have nothing to discuss here today. Magix was perhaps the only one who had an interest in Vegas and other products and raised it.

We don't have to like it, but a little humility and respect please.

100% Agree. Magix is my favorite software company mostly because of their outstanding and super responsive customer service, their politeness in dealing with customers and their outstanding and cutting edge (at least initially) audio applications. I am THRILLED that Magix took Vegas on. I'm just not sure about their commitment level to actually making Vegas the Adobe killer that it SHOULD really be,as Vegas is built on that solid and forward thinking a concept. Probably key to that is it's foundation as a audio editor. And Vegas' history should be taken into account here as to perhaps providing some CLUES as to WHY this (Push to revamp from the ground up) has not been the case. My comments (I can only speak for myself) are not, as such, criticizing Magix as much as "the deal" struck. Some here would pretend that Magix and Sony strike a deal based on a purchase price and that is it. NO....Software development NEEDS the developers who KNOW the program's ins and outs, quirkiness, intricacies of the code and where the bodies are buried, and so any such DEAL struck, almost by necessity, would include input (at the very least) from the dev team - and a negotiation with them on compensation, working conditions, etc. and on what "moving forward" looks like.The smallish Vegas dev team are mostly contented middle aged guys who've had a steady, probably well paying gig, but aren't, at all, (reading their quotes) interested in anything but just kicking the sluggishly performing can down the road, adding a few bells and whistles to keep - let's suppose - customers "happy." I think "placated" is really the better word. Well, I for one am not thrilled with the status quo, and so to Magix I say: if this IS your baby, FIX IT!!

They seem to segment markets by geography even if that means overlapping/competing products globally.

I agree that seems to be their MO.

OTOH, Look at what Blackmagic has done with Davinci Resolve in such a short time.

Resolve has been on the market since 2004... not exactly a new player in the scene. It is almost as old as VEGAS. Not to mention, DaVinci uses Resolve to help sell their hardware (you can't even get proper HDR video preview out of it without buying their hardware, at least that's how it was last time I used it), so they have an entirely different income stream funding its development. I wish Sony had caught on to this concept with VEGAS when they owned it.

@fr0sty @Reyfox @RealityStudio @RogerS

Well, well, well (and this should not be news, but I guess it is....) Just as I suggested earlier (and was contested)

Gary Rebholz

What is your background in working on VEGAS and other video tools and what is your current role on the VEGAS team?
I’m the VEGAS Product Owner.

https://vegas-magazine.com/vegas-creative-software-team/

So, do correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like GARY R. OWNS VEGAS, and Magix bought the rights to distribute from SONY...(of course I'm describing what could be a more complex deal structure in simple terms).

I will ad that - while there are certainly other laudable aspects and features - Vegas' real strength - and why it's even worth the time and money invested -what separates Vegas from the crowd - is:

it's usefullness as a "mostly realtime" WYSIWYG compositor on the timeline itself - married to a solid audio base.

Vegas could be the Number 1 GO TO for music vids, for example. I guess the problem then becomes the "mostly realtime" aspect because that is where you see its power potential, and that is where it dissapoints, i.e., jerky, laggy playback.

I ALMOST NEVER see the developers nor marketing, speak of this "compositor" aspect - as a Vegas "distinguishing" feature. IOW, I don't think that THEY (or maybe I'd say MOST of them) even realize, or fully appreciate, ITs POWER. I said "fully" appreciate, they do appreciate.

(to be fair, Gary sort of gets that, "But the ability to set the project tempo and then edit to measures and beats is probably the most unique and cool feature for me because I tend to edit musically even if I’m not working on a musical project specifically. It makes it so easy to cut video to the music that it almost feels like cheating!" ~GR

Also, developer Neal Granroth:
"Pan/Crop is my favorite. It is so flexible and is essential for creative visual alterations for many projects."

Pan/Crop is where a lot of compositing takes place. But that aspect still is not really touted as much as as could/should be, IMHO)

Also, these DEV teams almost NEVER include a REAL WORLD PAID TESTER (I guess that is you and I). IOW, they don't opperate as if they are up against deadlines and there is no one "on the team" that seems to have the real world of video production as part of their background, except Neal. The other thing is lacking is not enough "outside the box" thinking, though the program itself is really THAT. So, kudos to people like

DeLosse Fussell, Senior Staff Software Engineer on the VEGAS team, working on this product since its audio origins with Vegas Pro 1.0, released in 1999. "Actually, my nineteen (+ 5 now) year history with this code base goes back further to 1997 ....."

I'd like to say: DeLosse, and Gary, thank you, for your seminal contributions. sincerely, UBER RESPECT!! BUT garsh darnit, guys, and MAGIX, the code is LONG IN THE TOOTH.

OTOH, Look at what Blackmagic has done with Davinci Resolve in such a short time.

Resolve has been on the market since 2004... not exactly a new player in the scene. It is almost as old as VEGAS. Not to mention, DaVinci uses Resolve to help sell their hardware (you can't even get proper HDR video preview out of it without buying their hardware, at least that's how it was last time I used it), so they have an entirely different income stream funding its development. I wish Sony had caught on to this concept with VEGAS when they owned it.

Hello @fr0sty Sure they have, but they where aquired by Blackmagic a few years ago, and THEY kicked that program into HIGH GEAR< and YES,YES, YES, SONY could have done that. Precisely my point, my man. Perhaps the "separator" here is that Davinci was a Colorist application ONLY that achieved a high level of professional application in Hollywood post productions studios. The same could not really be said for Vegas, not on any sort of broad scale pro acceptance. The editor on Davinci was MINIMAL, almost non existent, and BM said, AHAH, we'll go for a "best of both worlds" application, and if the code base is really that old, (it may or may not be, above my paygrade on that question) it still is uber quick on timeline playback compared to Vegas, again, don't ask me why/how, above my paygrade.

The separator is poor business decisions by Sony... They had a golden opportunity and squandered it. This is coming from a fan of Sony products, especially in the gaming space.

Well, well, well (and this should not be news, but I guess it is....) Just as I suggested earlier (and was contested)

Gary Rebholz

What is your background in working on VEGAS and other video tools and what is your current role on the VEGAS team?
I’m the VEGAS Product Owner.

https://vegas-magazine.com/vegas-creative-software-team/

So, do correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like GARY R. OWNS VEGAS, and Magix bought the rights to distribute from SONY...(of course I'm describing what could be a more complex deal structure in simple terms).

I will correct you in this case: "product owner" is a term used in Agile software development to describe who ultimately is the top of the hierarchy as far as making decisions for the software development, managing the team, etc. This does not refer to a financial ownership of the product, but rather he is the one in charge of the continued development of VEGAS, its direction, etc.

https://www.atlassian.com/agile/scrum/roles

^He hit the nail on the head. Gary's job is to guide VEGAS' development, he does not own it. He listens to us, and to the needs of his team, and uses that info to chart a course for development. He's been doing a great job with the resources he has.

As for the rest, VEGAS is the best music video editor on the market for those reasons, and with VST3 support and an all new VST bridge, VEGAS 20 will expand on that even further.

I hope I'm not revealing too much by saying this, but you all can take comfort in the fact that the team has told me they are shifting priority towards performance and stability moving forward, less on trying to cram in new features on an aging foundation. That does not mean that when V20 launches, we'll see revolutionary performance improvements, these things take some time to complete, but as V20 ages, we will probably see the first bits of this appear in the various updates that launch for it, and moving forward into new versions, we'll see the process continuing. Rome wasn't built in a day... and they gotta rebuild Rome.

Well, well, well (and this should not be news, but I guess it is....) Just as I suggested earlier (and was contested)

Gary Rebholz

What is your background in working on VEGAS and other video tools and what is your current role on the VEGAS team?
I’m the VEGAS Product Owner.

https://vegas-magazine.com/vegas-creative-software-team/

So, do correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like GARY R. OWNS VEGAS, and Magix bought the rights to distribute from SONY...(of course I'm describing what could be a more complex deal structure in simple terms).

I will correct you in this case: "product owner" is a term used in Agile software development to describe who ultimately is the top of the hierarchy as far as making decisions for the software development, managing the team, etc. This does not refer to a financial ownership of the product, but rather he is the one in charge of the continued development of VEGAS, its direction, etc.

https://www.atlassian.com/agile/scrum/roles

Ok, I stand corrected, thanks for the citation, @Tim L though I'm never gonna rule out a partnership arrangement that we'd not be privvy to, because the behavior through the years somewhat suggests that, either that or a development team mostly left to "call the shots" and maintain a MO that becomes a sort of unassailable (by ownership) status quo of its own choosing.

I hope I'm not revealing too much by saying this, but you all can take comfort in the fact that the team has told me they are shifting priority towards performance and stability moving forward, less on trying to cram in new features on an aging foundation. That does not mean that when V20 launches, we'll see revolutionary performance improvements, these things take some time to complete, but as V20 ages, we will probably see the first bits of this appear in the various updates that launch for it, and moving forward into new versions, we'll see the process continuing. Rome wasn't built in a day... and they gotta rebuild Rome.

"Cram new features" on an aging foundation is and has been the problem for a while. Above my paygrade, @fr0sty but to me, if you already have an architecture and a precise and PROVEN way of doing things, it should not be all that difficult to just reconstruct that code using the tools of the day on a foundation built for todays hardware/OS software/coding/support platforms. Otherwise, it is just lipstick on the proverbial pig. Come on MAGIX, write that check!!

Writing a program as complex as VEGAS takes years. The folks working on it now are very familiar with its code base, bringing in a new team, it would take time to get them up to speed on things... not to mention how long it will take to find that talent to begin with. No matter how they go about it, it's going to take some time to update VEGAS' engine. Magix just got a new CEO, so let's see how that turns out.

Magix just got a new CEO, so let's see how that turns out.

That's interesting news. 

But even more interesting is to see the rest of the Magix' management team (https://www.magix.com/int/businesses/management), and especially who is in charge for companys pro video products! 😃 My faith in Magix is restored 👍

The separator is poor business decisions by Sony... They had a golden opportunity and squandered it. This is coming from a fan of Sony products, especially in the gaming space.

@fr0sty I really don't think that is the whole story. Vegas has probably LACKED an evangelist/salesman type (or maybe outside the box thinking, or flexibility, or vision, or combination) who would convince a SONY that the whole enterprise would be worth whatever they would be spending towards development/marketing/promotion. Gary is good, certainly relatable to the existing customer base, but maybe a bit too low key for what I'm suggesting. I don't know how far back you go with this, but do you remember Douglass Spotted Eagle, John Rofrano?
They WERE like that, you would have thought they were the face/spokespersons for SF/Sony Vegas, but they were third party producers of ancillary products (VASST)that perhaps COULD HAVE/SHOULD HAVE been tapped for that larger, more insider role.

Probably the best Non-Linear Editor for the money bar-none is Sony’s Vegas Pro. Many users of other NLE’s have come to find that Vegas Pro has a more productive workflow and allows some very complex compositing to be done right in the editor without needing expensive add-on programs. It is also the most rock-solid running software I have ever used. Vegas lets you concentrate on your creativity and not waste time fighting the software to get it to do what you want.

This direct manipulation technique sometimes confuses new users who are use to searching for menu items to do everything but once you realize its just one click away instead of 3 or 4 menu clicks, you see how your workflow becomes much more streamlined using Sonic Foundry products. I highly recommend their entire catalog.

~John Rofrano, aka Johnny Roy.

So, IOW -HE (John) EXPRESSES MY IDEAS almost directly, about what constitutes the VEGAS EDGE, but VEGAS MARKETING??? NO SIR.

Then:
I moved to the Mac several years ago and I only edit with Final Cut Pro X now. I haven’t touched Vegas Pro in over 4 years (since VP12) but learning Final Cut Pro X after using Vegas Pro was a very easy transition for me. They both gave the same organic way of working. I have found Final Cut Pro X to be an extremely productive editing experience and, IMHO, is light years ahead of everything else on the market. But that’s just my opinion… your mileage may vary. ~JR

So while he doesn't disparage Vegas, he's done. And were talking about the virtual (non official but most prominent, along with Douglass Spotted Eagle) "evangelist" of S. Vegas for a time anyway.

INTERSTING, (isn't it?) that they found themselves having to abandon the platform because it was NOT KEEPING UP with THEIR demands for a robust viable platform. Again, someone who had a business developing/promoting Vegas 3rd party tools. This is all quite sad, but I'm not going to say this is all the fault of SONY decision makers, that might be just too simplistic.

Anyway, MAGIX, if you're looking in on this, dig down on some of this, perhaps, and apply some 'lessons learned.'

And that was while VEGAS was under Sony, he mentions V12 was the last one he bothered with... as I mentioned, Sony left it to die, it wasn't because VEGAS didn't have a good enough "cheerleader". It was probably because Sony lost interest in NLE software as a whole. Even today, Catalyst is an afterthought to them... on the burner behind the back burner. As I said before, Sony has a long history with scrapping good software.

Magix just got a new CEO, so let's see how that turns out.

That's interesting news. 

But even more interesting is to see the rest of the Magix' management team (https://www.magix.com/int/businesses/management), and especially who is in charge for companys pro video products! 😃 My faith in Magix is restored 👍

Well, as much as I do like Gary, Gary represents, more than anyone, for me anyway, the status quo for Vegas. NOW - a caveat, if he can use the "power" of his position (vs. Magix default: "Hey, we need someone; let's get Gary, he's not so busy with Vegas, and he won't cost us a lot." ) to get Magix to get off the dime and hire a team to do a from-the-ground-up rewrite of the code, (YES, DO STOP THE FOOLING AROUND) well, I'll gladly stand for a correction. Gladly, only too happy to be wrong. (Gary, PLEASE, please, prove me WRONG!!) Anything short of that, big meh, and maybe the death-knell wrung for any sort of change in the too long existing status quo. Did I mention, 'prove me wrong?'

Considering how far VEGAS has come since VEGAS 13, and that only a handful of people made it happen, I'd say he's done a great job with what he's been given (gotta give big props to Derek and the rest of the team as well, they put in the work to make it all happen, Gary charted the course). You have no idea what has been going on behind the scenes, what he's been up against this entire time, which is why I say you are way off the mark with your speculation. Way off... but I'm not at liberty to detail all the inner-workings going on behind the scenes beyond that point. What I can say is, with the recent restructuring of the top brass at Magix, things likely will be changing soon. However, we must keep our expectations realistic.

Magix just got a new CEO, so let's see how that turns out.

That's interesting news. 

But even more interesting is to see the rest of the Magix' management team (https://www.magix.com/int/businesses/management), and especially who is in charge for companys pro video products! 😃 My faith in Magix is restored 👍

Leave it to Musk to provide perpective and sift the truly impactful from 'window dressing.' https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/elon-musk-says-ceo-is-a-made-up-title-he-kind-of-has-a-point.html