VV3 has got to be THE BEST home editor out there, IMO. I would recommend this software over any other to anyone. I tried several others before "graduating" to VV3. I would use no other program.

You really should download the demo of Adobe Premiere 6 and make a direct comparision. In my own view this (Adobe Premiere) will always be the overall winner as it just has so much more going for it, in terms of exceptional plug-ins and a better all round editing sequence.. and even performance. Its the more "professional" of the two - although VV3 remains one of those charming pickup-and-play products that stands out for all of the right reasons, but as soon as you begin to ask or demand more form it you find that it is sadly lacking under the bonnet. Also, if you are a european PAL user I would definate say go with Adobe Premiere as PAL users have always suffered with poor MPEG compression compared to NTSC counterparts with some products out there; and at least with Premiere you can select the encoder of your choice rather than be restrained.

One other aspect is on certain systems VV3 performs poorly when transfering video back to DV-tape; Adobe has never once let me down in this respect. Also, recall that Sonic Foundry are (like many companies these days) having extremely worrying financial problems. This in itself is going to put people off buying into Vegas Video as you can't be sure that they are going to be working on the software this time next year.

Your main purpose is to generate high quality video.. forget which "looks" the best.. go with that which "performs" the best; and ultimately VV3 is always going to be at the lower end of the scale. I would even suggest that Studio 7, whilst being a cheapo-product, can perform in some respects better than VV3. Its editing is actually outstanding compared to some of the more expensive products, and it does have some really nice power-features.

Think carefully .. and remember, all that glitters is not gold!

Hi-

Elysium has obviously had a poor experience with VV3, however, I would say most have had an excellent experience with it.

Software only to software only VV3 blows away Premiere. Premiere is only good when you add on a Storm, Pinnacle or Matrox card. Of those 3, only Storm outputs in real time to DV.

VV3's ability to compost, slo-mo, and image pan crop are superior to Premiere. Try adding a transition on tracks V2 or above in Premiere for instance.

As for output to tape, I have never had a problem.

VV3 is not perfect though. For 3D you need to go to a third party software package. My own pet peave is VV3's ripple is less than desirable, I use select events to end instead, which is an OK workaround.

VV3 PAL issues have been corrected in the latest update. I don't use PAL so, if it is important, ask another PAL user.

Bottom Line? I do have both VV3 and Storm/Premiere. For me, I mostly use VV3.

As with most things it remains subjective as to which is the better, and I would still suggest that all of the products should be demoed before making a firm choice.

I am in no way against Vegas Video 3. I have recommended it to friends as I appreciate that in certain situations (particularlly ease of use) it is a fine product to have around. I do feel for the "work horse" amoungst us, its lacking; but once again, that is just my view of which I am entitled.

The product suffers *badly* in european PAL use, being forced to use a codec that has been demonstrated to create extremely poor video (particularly at SVCD standard). This has *not* been fixed in any suggested upgrade that you mention and remains there.

I should also ask any of you in the european area who have wide-screen TVs to create DV video back to its original source and then play this through your regular widescreen TV and watch all 'transitions' cause the picture to switch between various widescreen modes (4:3 to widescreen) at the start and end of the transition. -- Can you imagine creating footage now and having it play fine on a "normal" 4:3 set and then in the future uprading to a widescreen TV and see important footage play back incorrectly? .. Now try the very same thing inside of Premiere and you will have no such problem. Possibly VV3 is incorrectly setting the "bit" that controls the signal to the TV for which mode it belongs in (at transition time).. but its a major problem that has not been corrected in the six months since it was reported.

This is not to comment on VV3 vs PS7, but your comment on quality of SVCD.
I must say that trying just about every encoder available that works with DV avi the one built into VV3 is the VERY BEST.
Nothing can match the quality of it.

And it is included with the program. Go & buy CCE 2.x for thousands of dollars...

sebus

I've "demoed" Premiere ever since version three and it has never stayed on any of my PC's for more than a couple weeks. I only tried it because I've used Photoshop for years and figured Adobe would do it right. WRONG! I find Premiere clumsy and awkward. The fact that Premiere supports so many 3rd party plug-ins is they don't include a lot of things in the basic package.

I presume you are not in the PAL region or your comments would certainly not have been that forcefully made. If you had been you would have understood what I mean by poor SVCD render; but I do not intend to get drawn into the nitty gritty of this argument as the proof is in the eating of the proverbial pudding. I simply outlined that the "final render.." is more important than the editing interface itself when all said and done, and your "choices and options" are increased tenfold when using Premiere. You may not like its looks, but performance (and please, feel free to read any number of professional reviews on it) will always outclass VV3 in the majority of important areas. But .. thats not to say that VV3 is bad, I agree its a fantastic product that had(?) great potential.. but Sonic Foundry simply are not up to the task of realising this in reality.

I started out with Studio 7 (it was cheap!) but I had a lot of problems with it. I have done much more complex work with VV3 and have experienced 0 problems with it. Also, in case you don't know, Studio 7 rerenders the entire project when you make a change while VV3 rerenders only those parts that need it. This is a significant advantage. I do the same kinds of things you mentioned and I think VV3 is the superior product. I can't comment on Adobe Premiere since I have never used it.

Elysium says:
"The product suffers *badly* in european PAL use, being forced to use a codec that has been demonstrated to create extremely poor video (particularly at SVCD standard). This has *not* been fixed in any suggested upgrade that you mention and remains there."

--------------
please don't be fooled into thinking Vegas *forces* you to use any codecs, substandard or not. on the contrary, with VV3 you have the option of using one of the best DV codecs out there (the built in SF DV codec) as well as many other formats. if you don't want a codec at all, you can render to uncompressed video, and use whatever tool you like to compress the video. no *forcing* is involved.

the original poster was asking which editor to choose for these tasks:
"My usage is home movies, music concerts, marching band performances, youth sport team videos and dance team videos. I have an HP Pavilion 7955, P4, 1.5 GHz, 768 MB of RAM, 120 GB video hard drive. Sony TRV900 is main camera used."

I would whole heartedly recommend VV3 as it's easy to learn, fun to create with, and stable as a horse. plus you have this lively forum to ask for help in :D

- ben (cheesehole!)

I'm a home videoguy using Vegas Video 3.0 as my first digital video editing program, and it has presented zero problems. In the first evening, I made a 3-minute music video of my son & friends watching a soccer game, with lots of slow motion & etc., before reading the on-line manual (which is terrific). As Cheesehole said: it's a blast to use; it's stable; it produces fine results; and this (and other forums) provide immediate help from experts, several of whom are on the Sonicfoundry staff.

I previously used Pinnacle's "Studio 400" hybrid editer: it was buggier than a month-old banana. The Studio interface is a good, simple introduction to editing programs; but in the long run, simple beauty is only skin deep. We want 'em to be beautiful, but we need 'em to work.

The Vegas Video interface is easy to learn, although the program is very powerful, and it uses standard Windows conventions.

Thanks for all the great input on VV3. It is really helpful to hear from folks that have used both products, Studio 7 and VV3. One of the comments that I read in this forum suggested purchasing VideoFactory first, get used to the interface, then upgrade to VV3. Any inputs on that suggestion? Should I just go strait to VV3?

Thanks agian.

If you are worried at getting lost in it all I'm teeling you just jump in with both feet first...you'll be just fine. Don't import 9 tracks of video w/audio and start compositing and stuff. If you take it slow you'll see how intuitive/flexible VV3 is. After awhile of just experimenting I'd stumble upon new stuff that I could do...then I read the manual and got a cup of coffee and REALLY got into the whole compositing 3 different video overlays with text flying across the screen. I'm a newby to video so all this is soooo cool to me. Later.

I live in PAL country (UK), but work in whatever the source material is (PAL or NTSC)
The quality of any mpeg2 rendered project is FAR better (due to excellent MC codec) than any standalone encoder no matter how expensive.

What makes you state the "poor SVCD quality"
Really would be interested in it!

sebus

It's really up to you and your level of experience with video editing and computer applications. I recommend starting with VF first for 2 reasons:

1. It's cheaper to go from VF to VV than straight to VV.
2. The programs work the same way and VF is very powerful too. You might discover that VF may be able to handle all your video editing needs without upgrading, plus... I feel it's a little bit easier to learn from scratch than VV.

Good luck!!!