We have no idea what will be included in Vegas Pro 9 so worrying about what is included in VMS 9 is a bit premature. Cinescore had just come out prior to Vegas Pro 8 and Sony was looking to sell it. They are now including a Studio version in VMS 9 which actually makes a lot of sense because the real money to be made is in selling the Theme packs. (i.e., give away the razor and make your money selling blades)

VMS Pro Pack is not free. It's $30 more than VMS Platinum so it is not "free stuff". You are paying for it. Granted you get Audio Studio ($54) and some NewBlueFX and Cinescore themes so it's definitely worth the price but you have to look at the competition. At that price point, Pinnacle is stuffing everything you can imagine into their Studio offering so Sony has to stay competitive. That is a target market that is very price sensitive.

~jr

compare to the other software. I'd say we're getting a much better deal. I'd rather have unlimited tracks vs software I'll never use, and if I wanted to I could get it cheap.

Shafted??? Are you serious???

We just upgraded from DVDa 4.5 for.... let me see.... ah yes... I remember.... FREE

Vegas 64 bit (if the dam thing ever comes out) will be a FREE upgrade

I know.... you're upset because they're not supplying free disk blanks for us to use.... shame on them.

Blink, how do you know the 64bit upgrade will be free?

CorTed:

They said it would be a free upgrade to anyone using Vegas Pro 8 when they were at NAB.

Dave

While I would not say Pro users get shafted, I do see why it is easy to appear so. Honestly, Pro users should have everything that the lesser products offer. I get that pro users have features available to them that lesser products have but to see other users getting other FX or programs while Pro users are expected to shell out more cash to get the same basic usage as the other customers.

I understand Sony is trying to compete with the Pinnacles. But this would be one more reason Pro would be encouraged. Right now, Pro users have the best features of the NLE but dont have the extras VMS offers. So even if users are paying $30 more for these extras, then why not make the same extras available for $30 for the pro users?

> So even if users are paying $30 more for these extras, then why not make the same extras available for $30 for the pro users?

Well... Vegas Pro 9 is not available yet... Who knows what Sony will offer with Vegas Pro 9. In the past, Vegas pro users got Boris FX, Boris Graffiti, and Magic Bullet Looks, and Magic Bullet HD lite editions for free. These are tools that pros can use. The last thing I need are more 3D transitions yet the first thing every newbie posts is "where can I buy more transitions?".

So it's more about supplying the most "appropriate" tools to the target audience, not just the number of tools.

~jr

The only thing I wish Sony would include is a lot more presets for the effects. I love being able to tweak the settings the way I like but sometimes, its just easier to run and gun and the current presets are nice but have become a bit worn out. At least give us more presets for color grading, same thing for exports. Give us a ton of export presets that serve as a better guideline.

Avid Media Composer leads the pack for 3rd party goodies:

* Sonic DVD - DVD and Blu-ray authoring ($299.99)
* Boris Continuum - filters and transitions ($895.00)
* Sorenson Squeeze - encoder for MPEG-2, H.264, etc. ($495.00)
* SmartSound SonicFire Pro - Music track creation ($149.00)
* Boris Red - mega package for 2D/3D compositing and effects ($995.00)

Total value of the "extras": $2,833.99, i.e. more than the sticker on the NLE package ($2,495).

Pretty amazing.

I disagree, I just make my own, and then I don't have a bunch of pre-set settings that I make me have to shoot down some unbelievably long list. I just save em, and you can save different color grading presets as well, though I can see a reason to have those, as a person would possibly like to have a better selection just to inspire more creativity, at the same time though, I get plenty creative when I drop on some grading and start moving things around on my own.

Dave

Some of the pricing does seem a bit, well, unfair though...

Not sure what the prices are in the US, as I'm in the UK so I see the prices in UKP, but it does seem rather unfair that buying Vegas Pro outright costs £415.95, yet I can purchase exactly the same thing (well More really) by buying Movie Studio for £28.95 and then immediately upgrading it to Pro for only £229.45. Total cost then is only £258.40, saving £157.55, and getting a free copy of Movie Studio for my trouble.

Doesn't that seem a little, well, unfair on those paying £416 for it?

[Avid Media Composer] "Total value of the "extras": $2,833.99, i.e. more than the sticker on the NLE package ($2,495)."

Actually less than that for Liquid users. Avid Liquid is being discontinued so they have offered $1000 off to upgrade from Liquid.

I haven't decided if I'll take their offer... $1500 is still quite a few bucks, but more to the point.... MC's work flow really sucks when you compare it to Vegas. Its timeline isn't even really a timeline.... I'll take vegas's time line any day.

"I understand Sony is trying to compete with the Pinnacles. But this would be one more reason Pro would be encouraged."

Hey.... what ever sells the product. Any Movie Studio customer is a potential future Vegas Pro customer. It's good for them.... and good for us.

Most people just don't start editing at the $500 level. They start at the $100 level..... and if you get used to Movie studio and want more (and most do), then the next logical move is Vegas Pro.

...or $2,000 off when upgrading from Express Pro.

I don't understand why you say Avid's timeline isn't really a timeline?

Avid feels very restrictive when you come from any other NLE.

However, I have to agree with all those who have found that as long as you use it "the Avid way" it is a great NLE that protects the operator from many common mistakes, including some mentioned in this forum recently.

Avid isn't for everyone, but as a "cutting tool" it is second to none.

"Avid isn't for everyone, but as a "cutting tool" it is second to none."

I disagree.
MC was about the first NLE out which is why it's considered top-of-the-line. Don't get me wrong... I don't say it's a bad NLE because it certainly is not..... but it is outdated and certainly not very universal. For the money you can do better.

In fact quite a few will argue that Avid Liquid at least as good if not better. That BTW is one of the reasons (it's being rumored that Liquid is being moth-balled. Avid doesn't need 2 of its own products competing with each other.... especially one that costs a fraction of the other.

I'm in negotiations with a group looking to revamp their image for the 21st century - it's within the University Greek System. They are looking to make use of Web 2.0 apps like Picasa (images), YouTube (video) and Wordpress for blogging.

I'll be involved in initially getting the program off the ground and then will be training house members in the process of working with these various apps. VMS will be a critical app for doing video and slide shows with audio. For those who work with a MAC - they'll need to run a virtual environment to run Windows.

VMS Platinum will fit everything these workshop attendee's will need for working with video content online.

Vegas Pro - yeah - it may seem sparse - but from my POV - less is more ;)

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

MC was about the first NLE out which is why it's considered top-of-the-line. Don't get me wrong... I don't say it's a bad NLE because it certainly is not..... but it is outdated and certainly not very universal. For the money you can do better.

Oh, that's why they insisted on using 8 Media composers for Dark Knight.

They even had the audacity to say they couldn't have done it with any other NLE. Something about 1 million feet of film accessible to all 8 editors at the same time through Avid Unity [shared storage.]

I'll tell them to call you to get their heads straightened out.

blink,

Obviously I should never have started this QUESTION of a thread. My entire thread was a question, NOT a statement that we indeed ARE getting shafted. I just wanted to see what people thought (which is what I thought a forum was for). I love Vegas and couldn't be happier. That's why I ended my thread with "Just wondering". I did not start a question thread to get blasted as if I'm some chump that hates this software or SCE.

I guess from now on I'll never post except for technical questions. At least then my blood pressure will stay intact.

In fact quite a few will argue that Avid Liquid at least as good if not better. That BTW is one of the reasons (it's being rumored that Liquid is being moth-balled. Avid doesn't need 2 of its own products competing with each other.... especially one that costs a fraction of the other.
It's NO rumor - Liquid is EOL (End of Life). The last thing they will likely ever do with it is the DX10 patch. To tell you the truth, it's been dead for years. They simply stopped developing it. My belief is that Avid couldn't stand the stiff competition from their own product over their less competent and vastly more expensive product. They wanted to ensure the success of MC so they ripped out what they liked and essentially killed Liquid. Then they pushed it back to Pinnacle. Why would the Pinnacle division want to be stuck with this Albatross again? The new version, affectionately named NextGen, seems more like a vague promise that may never see the light of day. It likely will not be released until late 2009 and who knows what it will include. I'm expecting a lot of the features Liquid currently enjoys to be removed and that they will make it like Studio on steroids. That's just a guess based on many, many years of defending them and that product.

"In fact quite a few will argue that Avid Liquid at least as good if not better"

Holy cow blink! Are you serious? Have you ever worked on a professional project? Heard of a medium called film? A thing called timecode? Keycode? Matchback? Compatibility with 3rd party products? Try Googling 'Liquid vs Media Composer' to see just how misguided your comment is; there is simply no other NLE product that agrees with more 3rd party apps, plugins, and workflows, Vegas included. For example; edit picture in Media Composer, export audio for sweetening in Vegas and some sequences for VFX in Adobe After Effects, while adding lens flares with Knoll Light Factory or Sapphire plugins from the timeline.

"Avid doesn't need 2 of its own products competing with each other.... especially one that costs a fraction of the other"

Actually, that product was Xpress Pro, which had full project file compatibility with Media Composer, and close to all the exact same features like hardware acceleration and film-matchback (minus some of the higher-end features like Boris Continuum Complete coming bundled with the software) not Liquid. Liquid is nowhere near as robust a cutting tool as either of these lower-end Avid products. Have you ever even used any Avid product for real work? No? Your opinion is not helpful.

TO ANSWER THE ORIGINAL QUESTION:
SCS is going really far out of their way to ensure that Vegas users don't feel shafted, too far in my opinion. When I asked their new project supervisor about the direction of Vegas he said, very aggressively, "Well we're not going to alienate our current user base." So don't worry, they're constantly trying to meet your needs with Vegas Pro, without going too far out on a limb by supporting timecode, 3D object import, better integration with 3rd party apps, plugins, and hardware; they'll give you bug-fixes and .x updates for free, and you'll always have most of the functionality of Sound Forge and Acid Pro available from the Vegas timeline. It may never be the pro app that major studios use, but it will always good enough for us...

I can't see anywhere that CineScore Studio Plug-in can be purchased separately.

But, surely, those wishing to get Cinescore Studio plus the other extras with the 'Movie Studio Pro Pack' could just purchase the download version. Probably still a lot cheaper than getting the extras separately?

"Try Googling 'Liquid vs Media Composer' to see just how misguided your comment is"

Ahhh.... but you see.... it's not MY comment. Look at the post just above yours. Simply put, those who have tried both programs, walk away feeling that liquid is just as competent a program and in some cases... even more so.

If I'm not mistaken, I seem to remember Spot mumbling the same sentiment quite some time ago. (too lazy to search though)

And Avis Express.... well.... let's put it this way.... Liquid was the first NLE to be able to edit hi definition footage natively. Avid express along with MC simply can't do what Liquid can with HD.... couldn't before.... and can't now. Those who own both products (MC and Liquid) like Mark Harmon on the Avid board, still use Liquid because MC can't do things that Liquid can.

"Have you ever even used any Avid product for real work? No? Your opinion is not helpful."
In fact I own Avid Liquid and yes... I have done REAL work. And BTW..... the post above yours... Video777.... he owns Avid Liquid as well. It seems to me.... Idiot Savant, that your comment is the odd one out.


And yes... I did google. Here's a typical statement:

"....if you want headaches, no support, each version release breaking things but industry recognition by all means get Avid Xpress Pro HD.