If "perfect" is your measure for switching, you might give yourself a head start of a few days, because no software is perfect!

This is an update of software that has been around for so many years. Why can't I expect it to be perfect?

... I could have bought neoscene, but I didn't...
... I could have gone to the competition, but I didn't...
... I could have left this forum months ago, but I didn't...

That is how loyal I'm to Vegas.
Boy, I'm so eager to test the trial.

'If any Sony engineer is actually reading this forum' It's nice to see you have a sense of humor Ivan, that's very funny ;) Those eggheads couldn't even find this forum, let alone care about it or us! Too busy with the Pro stuff I'm sure. I agree that they better hit a home run with this new version as I have seen other progams (some less expensive) with really nice features. I have been using this program long before Sony bought it, and am use to it and feel a sense of loyalty, but.................. Let's just keep our fingers crossed. :) Cin

This is an update of software that has been around for so many years. Why can't I expect it to be perfect?

You can "expect" whatever you want. Those of us who live in the real world realize that no software is perfect.

You can fix, or try to fix, problems .. but doing so often creates other problems. You can add new features, but that also creates new problems.

WHY? Because every computer that runs Vegas is different. Different hardware .. different operating systems .. different operating system upgrades .. different software installed. Any of those things can / and do affect how a program runs.

Let's not get hung up on semantics here, ok?

In the world of software "perfect" has a distinct meaning: it means the software will do what it is advertised to do without failing, and if it fails it will be fixed so it doesn't fail.

In the case of Vegas MS there are a couple of examples I am aware of that show how the current version misses this mark:

(1) Vegas can't render AVCHD without the 64-bit fix

(2) Vegas has memory leaks that prevent it from handling large still image files

(3) Vegas can't create Blu-Ray output (with menus etc.) even though it can handle 1920x1080 input directly

There is also the performance issue of Vegas not leveraging the graphics card GPU, but to be fair Sony never said it would do this.

My sense is that the true test of Vegas 10 will be the degree to which it meets (and/or exceeds) the functionality and performance of alternative products now on the market. The bottom line is that people that use products like Vegas simply want to get their work done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Will Vegas 10 let them do that? Here's hoping it does.

In the world of software "perfect" has a distinct meaning: it means the software will do what it is advertised to do without failing, and if it fails it will be fixed so it doesn't fail.

The *only* way to get "perfect" software .. using Sony's Vegas for an example ... is when you buy Vegas it comes pre-installed on it's own computer. A compter supplied by Sony. A computer that you *cannot* install *anything* else on, No internet, no wordprocessor .. nothing else.

THAT is the ONLY way it will run "perfectly" for every customer.

A dedicated pc for editing, a dedicated pc for surfing the net, a dedicated pc for office applications, and a dedicated pc for photoshopping... I'm sure Bill will love this - are you working for him, perhaps? But for a family father with 3 young children, there simply is no budget (nor room) for this!
Why doesn't Vegas put all its essentials in some kind of safe 'sandbox'. Upgrading Quick Time Player should NEVER have an impact on the functionality of Vegas. If it does, it is a major, fundamental flaw in the way the sony engineers have built the program.
This is what I mean with 'perfect': there shouldn't be fundamental flaws. Yes, I can live with some minor issues, if they can be dealt with with future releases.

Upgrading Quick Time Player should NEVER have an impact on the functionality of Vegas. If it does, it is a major, fundamental flaw in the way the sony engineers have built the program.

That reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of the way these two companies operate. They are competitors on many fronts. If one chooses to break its proprietary product in order to sabotage the other, what is the other to do? Adapt, circumvent, or cave in. Those are the only options I am aware of. So the only logical conclusion to your argument is that Sony should abandon support for Quicktime formats entirely. Would that make you happy?

...there shouldn't be fundamental flaws. Yes, I can live with some minor issues ...

What is "minor" for you is "fundamental" for someone else.

I've got 3 Windows PCs here in my home office, each running Vegas as well as dozens or a hundred other applications. At any given time i've got Vegas AND a dozen other applications actively running. I have no idea what the heck versions of Quicktime i have installed on any of them; just whatever happened to be current the last time i had a weak moment and clicked the "upgrade now" button when Apple bugged me enough.

Vegas ... Just ... Runs. Period.

I do agree that a lot of Vegas problems are due to unfortunate interactions on each user's individual hardware and assorted software installations. I guess i'm just careful about what i install. In general, no downloaded games, no fancy accelerated support (memory, graphics, network, etc.), and NO no-name/3rd party codec packs of any sort, not ever.

At this moment in time, I would call not being able to play avchd files at a reasonable framerate (24fps) a major flaw.
Also, unpredictable crashes when importing mov files and large format still images is a major flaw.
Sony advertising its propriatory blu-ray format, but not supporting it with DVDA, again, I would dare to call that a major flaw.
Installing third party codecs imho also should not affect Vegas performance. Yes, I'm only a consumer, not a pro, but that is why I bought into VMS, and not Vegas Pro.

Developing flawed software and then blame the consumer because he keeps his pc up to date, is about the worse marketing strategy I can think of...

Installing third party codecs imho also should not affect Vegas performance.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Even consumers know what GIGO means.

>Vegas ... Just ... Runs. Period.

This is not so. It indeed does run pretty well if you use DV and mpeg2 formats. It runs if you use AVCHD, but you never export back via Sony AVC (which is crashy -- the No 1 reported problem around here lately). Other formats are not as fortunate though.

The biggest weakness of Vegas is Quicktime. And I'm NOT referring to the incompatibility of Vegas with the last few latest versions of Quicktime (which let's face it, it can happen, it's nothing weird to expect). The real problem is that it is VERY crashy with Quicktime formats, e.g. dSLR MOV h.264 (Vegas uses the Quicktime decoder for them than for AVCHD). HD dSLR is the next big thing among video enthusiasts (rather than soccer moms), and this is a format that needed SUPER DUPER support from Sony. Instead, Sony continues to shrug off the need, and giving the go-ahead to Adobe: CS5 has special support for dSLRs (both in project properties and in h.264 CUDA acceleration), recognizing the importance of the market trend.

I have written here about my gripes with Vegas Pro 8 and Platinum 9:
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2009/06/29/the-top-10-must-fix-features-for-vegas/

And since Pro 9, another major problem arose: red/black frames with Cineform (a bug that does NOT exist in previous versions of their engine). The dSLR users who use Cineform, since it's the best intermediate format for the job (otherwise our footage crashes and burns), have to go back to Pro 8 to do some real work without crashes and/or black frames. This in my view is unacceptable. Previous Vegas versions did not have the bug. I think it's safe to assume that Platinum 10 will have the same bug, since it will be using the Pro 9 engine. This bug can cost dearly to Sony in terms of mind share (if not also market share), because most of these dSLR users are the "next generation" of enthusiasts and filmmakers.

The big advantage of Vegas is its user experience in terms of usability. But it has some really bad architectural and support problems in various levels. Then again, Premiere Pro sucks in usability, and it has some other stability problems too (I managed to crash my whole PC with it the other day, while reviewing the software for the tech magazine I'm writing for).

The point is this: Vegas offers us the best "feel good" experience. It kind of reminds me the BeOS -- an operating system from 10 years ago that had an eclectic following, and it felt that the software had soul, that it was alive. Vegas feels the same to me. I love it for it. But the truth is that it's pretty weak too in many levels, and Sony needs to get serious about these problems, because if they won't, they will become irrelevant as the time goes by. I'm personally seriously thinking of switching to Premiere Pro CS5. The only thing that's holding me back is that terrible usability that Adobe has mashed together in that product.

Accepting that there are several issues with Vegas mentioned here, I have to say that I've had very, very good luck with it, other than the Quick Time bugs. I often need to view and render QT movies provided by clients backing and forthing between Vegas and Cubase.
I have a professionally built PC though and it really has been worth every penny. It's a six year old single core P4 and still can do an amazing amount of processing both in Cubase and even HD editing in Vegas without a problem. Rock solid stable with virtually no crashes and today I finished a huge music mix with the CPU meter in the red at times ! for several hours of work and it still rendered the music flawlessley and did not crash !
I have talked with the builder of this PC and though most of what he says is way, way too technical for me, the bottom line is that you need to know a ton to build a professional machine. He not only talked about all of the ins and outs of motherboards and RAM and this and that, but, he also knew, in depth, the technical information about my application... and Vegas too.

Sure, Vegas is great with DV, HDV and motion jpeg. Those formats have been around for years - dv more than 10 years! Don't know much about sound, but I can imagine that Vegas never crashes when rendering to wav or mp3, either.
Those formats are old, or some would say obsolete, now.
The problems lie with the new, more compressed formats. My fear is, that VMS10, being built on the Vegas 9 (pro) engine, will simply not deliver what is being promised.