There's also a Save Markers / Regions button. Where are they saved to, what are they saved as and how are they recalled?

These should be saved within the file. Later on, if you place such a file with saved regions and markers on the timeline, those will appear as fine lines and can be converted back to markers and regions, I use Vegasaur for that.

My only concern is since it doesn't seem to be considered a Pro package a lot of other software people don't support it. I recently started using fusion because I can sent shapes and tracking straight from Mocha Pro. I really like Vegas for basic video editing, but you have to purchase massively expensive Boris to communicate with other packages.

> "... what I've found is that many view Vegas as a Prosumer editing app even with all of it's advance features. What's the stigma behind that perception?"

The stigma largely comes from ignorance but what does "prosumer" even mean when the iPhone 6 in my pocket can shoot HD video that rivals the $5,000 professional Sony camera that's in my gig bag? As others have pointed out, media management and collaboration are two short-falls of Vegas Pro. In particular:

Media management
Media management is a big missing piece for large projects. When you've got hundreds of shots to select from, you need to be able to log and tag and annotate every piece of media so that you can quickly find it later. In fact, you need your assistant editor to do this while you're busy cutting so that it's all ready when you move on to cut this section of the project but Vegas Pro has no notion of collaboration which I'll get to in my next point. Other NLE's have a great system for tagging media and skimming hours of media quickly. I also like the whole Library concept from Final Cut Pro X. It makes it very easy to manage your media and move it across workstations or archive it. They have the ability to combine video shot without sound (e.g. a DSLR) and audio recorded separately and sync them into a single clip that behaves as a single piece of media. Vegas Pro 13.0 has introduced tagging but I wonder how many customers actually use this feature? Tagging is a powerful concept that should be taken advantage of.

The sad story here is that Sony created the Media Manager several versions ago to solve this shortfall and Vegas Pro customers demanded that it be taken out of the installer and be a separate download because they didn't want to install Microsoft SQL that it required so they wouldn't install it! The Media Manager had tagging and powerful search capabilities years before other NLE's. But Vegas Pro customers didn't want the media management that most professionals wouldn't work without. It's sad because the editors that use packages like Resolve don't whine about it installing Postgress SQL under the covers; they just use it because works in their pipeline. That's the first time I've ever seen customers reject a feature not because of it's lack of capabilities, but simply because of the technology it was implemented with. Those of us who used the Media Manager know how powerful it was. It's now an abandoned feature of Vegas Pro while it's the centerpiece of other NLE's.

Collaboration
There is no notion of multiple editors working on a project with Vegas Pro. Especially in a LAN environment with the assets on a shared drive. Vegas Pro is primarily targeted at the lone editor. The fact that Vegas Pro requires write access to a drive to create it's .slk files and other metadata files that it scatters all over the place prevents using it on a read-only drive on a LAN. Other NLE's are quite capable of keeping their metadata on local drives separate and distinct from assets that remain on shared drives. Vegas Pro editors have asked for this but Sony doesn't seem to think it's important.

ProRes Support
Like it or not, ProRes is the industry standard that post houses request the most for transferring assets. The top three NLE's (Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, & Media Composer) all run on the Mac and generate optimized ProRes files. Vegas Pro use to ship with CineForm as their digital intermediary but somehow that relationship ended and so now Vegas Pro editors keep wasting their time asking on forums what's the best format to use to transfer their files. Everyone else is busy using ProRes and not wasting time on this topic.

Having said that, I don't think there is a single Vegas Pro editor here that cares if Sony adds these features because we are mostly lone editors. I don't work with anyone else. I go out and shoot my footage, or someone hands me footage they have shot, and I edit it on my own. I think most of us are like that. That's why we selected Vegas Pro. It's really fast for a single editor to do everything including compositing, audio mixing, everything all in one application.

Does that make Vegas Pro "prosumer"? Of course not! It's as professional a tool as any other. It's just not a "team" tool or one that plays well in a production pipeline where ingesting is done by another person, and compositing is done in another app, and audio mixing is done in a DAW, and color grading is done in Resolve... and.. and.. and... Unless your definition of prosumer is all-in-one... then Vegas is guilty as charged and that's why we love it. ;-)

The Good News is that Sony appears to actually be doing something about all this! They have introduced Catalyst Browse and Catalyst Prepare which is the first step in a professional production pipeline. Both of them run on the Mac and support logging clips and creating ProRes files. You can now have your assistant editor ingest and prepare all of your footage getting ready for you to cut it. That kind of addresses the collaboration, media management, and ProRes shortfalls and starts Sony on the road to being taken seriously as providing the tools that professional "teams" need. I can't wait to see where they take this next.

The real question is where does Vegas Pro fit in all this? I'm sure most of us don't know why we would use Catalyst Prepare. We just ingest all of our footage into Vegas Pro and start editing. So I don't think people are referring to "prosumer vs professional" as much as they are referring to "lone vs team" workflows. It takes a lot of people to make a hollywood movie. If your software doesn't play well with others, you'e in big trouble. Vegas Pro is not targeted at these workflows. That doesn't make it prosumer. That just makes it optimized for a different workflow.

~jr

Well said, JR. Thanks.

JackW

a few thoughts of JR's excellent post. about individuals and roles: Many people may get confused about the metaphor of one-man shops versus collaboration projects. Sometimes we simplify this metaphor - but it is truly mis-leading. It's not really about who owns the shop, or how many fingers touch the ultimate project- but truly more about roles. I own and manage a large shop with networked systems - but I myself am a video editor, I don't do graphics, I don't do audio, sometimes I don't even do the location shooting.

What separates the pro workflow is the number of roles that may be called upon. You may have a collaboration project with several video editors, a director, and a producer, a location audio man, and a post production sound composer. There are many roles to fill in as the collaboration project takes form.

Part of the real management of the workflow for a collaboration team is adding value by the shared assets like timecode, or a media management system - both of which VegasPro severely lack at this stage of the game. The past media manager was a good start for VegasPro, but it never reached the stage where it would be useful over a network or thru the web. It could have, but as time passes on, it's database underpinning seems quaint and will probably never come to this superior stage.

@JohnnyRoy - Your breakdown showcases why I've struggled in considering Vegas Pro even though I don't collaborate (yet) with others in Post. But having the ability to do so if needed is an essential feature, and the fact that Vegas Pro doesn't allow that is a huge black eye IMO.

True, I'm a one man shop currently but I'm already in discussions with collaborating on a couple of narrative short films that will require collaborating with others in post - and given the current state of Vegas Pro as it stands now regarding a lack of collaboration features, I cannot even consider using it for such a project. Between this, my short bread and butter work and my own self funded documentary project, as much as I love the paradigm of Vegas Pro, it's still not up to the task. Others may state otherwise and I appreciate their reasons why they feel the way they do. I for one would like to settle on Vegas Pro as my primary post tool. Sadly, the number of hoops I'm still having to jump through to get things done in my post workflow is not conducive to efficient post work. PPro may not be the fastest way to edit, but the ability to use Bins, hand off project files, and it's tight integration with Photoshop and Audition for me has not been equaled so far. And it gets things done without ever having crashed on me once. Something I can't say regarding Vegas Pro.

sigh.... :-/

A follow up regarding collaboration from client: The lack of features in this area has become the deal breaker. I inquired with the client stating that I prefer using Vegas PRo and could deliver a PPro project file as well as FCP XML file.

His response: "I NEED all Adobe because that’s what we have here. So AE and PPro only please. I don’t need the project files until we’re done so I don’t have multiple instances and have to manage which one if the final. I will need to be able to quickly open and make edits if changes need to made for any reason in a month, year, etc."

I have a feeling this is going to become the mitigating factor in having to stay with Adobe's products for all my post work - as much as I would prefer otherwise.

sigh... :-/

some jobs require specific software, when sharing files....just the way it is...AVID or FCP or whatever...if you are sharing it is best to have exactly what they have, not avid to fcp or to premiere....just the way it is, IMHO

Never ever in my entire career with TV, private production studio, cablecast, fortune 500 in-house media - have I ever seen a professional situation of sharing video projects - did we ever ask to share project files. That just doesn't happen between production entities that I have witnessed.
On the other hand, we do share resources like timecode, raw source files, and mostly digital intermediates. Where do people get the idea that they must pry into someone else's project file?

Please don't give videoidiotguy, the chance to name drop anymore. We might go blind.

in MY experience of running a production house / studio whenever a 3rd party was required to produce material, be it music, graphics, animation, etc., we simply supplied them with a tc'ed intermediary and were returned the material as appropriate files matched to our 'master'. on NO occasion were master tapes (when we used tape) or project files given to a 3rd party.

Cliff, please just go and use Premiere Pro or FCP on a Mac. Almost every post you make on this forum makes it more obvious that Vegas Pro isn't for you, nor the wrangling and tinkering that's required to get a PC to run NLEs optimally. Your whole mindset screams "APPLE!".

JR wrote: "Those of us who used the Media Manager know how powerful it was. It's now an abandoned feature of Vegas Pro while it's the centerpiece of other NLE's."

Despite its shortcomings I'm still using it every day in VP12 and VP13. It's absolutely essential to my workflow.

"Having said that, I don't think there is a single Vegas Pro editor here that cares if Sony adds these features because we are mostly lone editors."

Me! I would love it if I could render ProRes out of Vegas. That's the format my stock footage distributor wants. Not being able to deliver it to them is a huge pain. I've even considered getting a Mac just to do that.

[I]"That does sound suspect that a client would want the actual project file."[/I]

Many editors are salaried, their employer owns the timeline.

Bob.

> "I would love it if I could render ProRes out of Vegas. That's the format my stock footage distributor wants. Not being able to deliver it to them is a huge pain. I've even considered getting a Mac just to do that."

Getting a Mac is not a bad solution to this problem. Vegas Pro costs $599. If I told you I had a PreRes encoding solution for $548 would you buy it?

A Mac Mini costs $499 and Apple Compressor (which gives you ProRes encoding) is only $49 so for $548 you could have a Mac listening on a watch folder on your LAN waiting to encode any file you drop into it to ProRes without tying up your Vegas Pro workstation. It's not a bad solution when you think about it.

My son is using my Mac mini for all of his graphics design work at college. He has Adobe CS6 on it and it's performing beautifully. They are impressive little machines. You can probably get a used one on eBay for $200 - $250. You'd probably be willing to pay that much for a software ProRes encoder on the PC.

~jr

@Nick Hope - Yeah, I've been complaining quite a bit about the issues I've been facing with Vegas Pro. I understand that many are tired of it and I'm kind of a control freak when it comes to my post production process - I'd like to try and start with a clean slate.

Here's what I need most: Since SCS no longer offers the certification for Vegas Pro which I'm guessing would have taught much of what I need to work in a way that I need, I'd like to find & learn a repeatable and proper workflow process for Vegas Pro. I have an established workflow for Premiere Pro that has been exactly what I need in my day to day work but I'd like to move that over to working with Vegas and I just can't seem to find ANYTHING on the net that discusses a workflow that would allow a structured process when in post.

It appears the traditional way of working in apps like PPro and Media Composer dont' apply when working in Vegas (Traditional Bins, subclips can't be tagged, etc) and I"m getting the sense I'm trying to make Vegas work in a way it wasn't' designed for, hence my frustration and the ensuing complaining about it.

I REALLY want to properly learn Vegas Pro. It's the only NLE on Windows now not constrained by having to subscribe month to month. The fact it can export out both FCP XML's and Premiere Pro Project files is appealing - especially the latter.

Does anyone have advice on where I can find/learn to properly use Vegas Pro for these specific features/techniques I've mentioned?

For those who have had to endure my rantings, please accept my apologies.. Hindsight is 20/20 as I look back at what I've posted - I'm annoyed at what I've posted of late...

I can honestly tell you Cliff Etzel, that your client is taking you for a ride!
You "do not" deliver your project files to a client for them to make changes when
they want to further down the road as they feel like! They "should" contact you when they want to make changes down the road and "pay" you accordingly.

You are being forced into a workflow environment that you are not comfortable in,
because you want to stay on your client's good side, i know how it is to make ones bread and butter, but that is not a good practice to start nor to follow. Vegas is a
professional tool, stick to what you are accustomed to, comfortable with, and great working with! The grass is not greener on the other side!...

I collaborate with many a clients who uses all Adobe tools, some FCPX and
some Avid and never had an issue, i simply relate to them what format i need the
raw files to be delivered in.

....My too cents... (But that's just me).

Steve Rhoden +1 - very practical advice given here.
I watched you churn in this forum something terrible, Cliff - and I really have little understanding of why that is. You cover really the same ground endlessly without appearing to make any progress.
I have never seen any two NLE's where the workflow actually mimics the other. But I have seen editors at work who are pro at two or more NLE's at the same time and are not stymied the least little bit.

There are times when a client will want your project files...you don't have to take the gig but it can and does happen ,...specifically the US government.. Work on a government contract and you do not own your timeline...maybe not all government contracts......but I know for a fact it happens.

I sometimes think the freedom of editing techniques allowed in Vegas causes problems for many who move to it from another NLE. I've seen it with editors I've trained who started in Avid or FCP.

There are few "conventions", so most of us have gravitated to personal workflows that are unique to each of us. I've learned a few things from this post I didn't know. When you're not forced to learn a strict workflow when training on an NLE, you usually don't learn all the capabilities of the program either. I'm guilty of that with Vegas.

"Getting a Mac is not a bad solution to this problem."

Thanks for the tip JR. I may well do that.

"It appears the traditional way of working in apps like PPro and Media Composer dont' apply when working in Vegas (Traditional Bins, subclips can't be tagged, etc) and I"m getting the sense I'm trying to make Vegas work in a way it wasn't' designed for, hence my frustration and the ensuing complaining about it."

Try just dumping all your clips for a project on the timeline and getting on with it, which is what I do. Keep it simple. I don't use the trimmer, bins, subclips, project media tags, nested projects etc.. None of that. I just crack on with ripple editing, re-ordering, deleting etc. on a long stream of events right there on the timeline. If I'm working out what to keep and what to get rid of, I might set up some tracks labelled "definitely", "probably", "maybe" and "probably not" and move clips to those as I go along.

Get into Vegas' nice little features like <CTRL>+F for a post-edit ripple, right-click > "Shuffle Events" for re-ordering clips on the timeline, MOUSEWHEEL TIMELINE ZOOM, <SHIFT>+mousewheel for timeline scroll. You'll soon be flying.

"Does anyone have advice on where I can find/learn to properly use Vegas Pro for these specific features/techniques I've mentioned?"

I think a lot of us here just taught ourselves as we went along. When I realised I needed to learn more (many years ago) I literally went through the manual. So maybe try that.

+1 Nick Hope. I did almost similar way on working.

Adding suggestion:

Don't forget that you can run several Sony Vegas at the same time, with different projects.
You can copy-pasting between them. You can think one project as a bin.
You are also not limited with FCPX's always auto-ripple, which something I'm not able to get used to it.

Also, Audio Track and Video Track can be upside down, so, depends on your workflow, you are not limited view within all video on upper track and all audio on lower tracks.

Cliff, Vegas was originally multitrack audio editor, so if you ever using Adobe Audition, at least you will be able to follow the workflow.

Set