Page-peel effects, for some reason, are not included in the demo.

Nick,

So, would you be able to render and view a video despite the inability to save the project? The issue is whether Vegas can render a video faster than Studio 7 on this laptop. And the quality of the video would most likely also be relevant.

It is well worth the time downloading...even on a 56K dial up...it's only about 30MB.
On a Win 98 machine with no other Sonic Foundry products installed, upon install, there may be a prompt to update the Windows Installer, just follow the prompts...a reboot, and the install will continue. After it is installed, no need to reboot again.
Open Vegas, and click "I would like to demo this Amazing Apllication"....or something...

Here are the limitations encountered:
The interface is COMPLETE...what you see is what you will get.

Capture video......and bring in media to timeline.....edit. The page peel transition is a perk for registering the purchased product within 30 days, or something like that. For Video Factory it was the cookie cutter fx........whatever.......not sure about all the FX being active.

You will not be able to save a project file (.veg file)

You WILL be able to render as normal.....allowing you to compare render times and check quality etc. However, upon rendering, a few frames of BLACK with the Sonic Foundry logo is inserted every 5 seconds........and a "buzz" is inserted in the audio every 5 sec's as well.
You have 20 evalutation renders for MP3.....but a "buzz" will be inserted in the beginning and about every 5-6 sec's.
MPEG 1 & 2 codec is from MainConcepts, and is included with the purchase, but requires separate registration after purchase and registering Vegas. MPEG rendering is disabled in the demo.

Enjoy!

Salad,

Thanks for that excellent information. That gives me enough specifics to recommend to the laptop Studio 7 user to try the Vegas demo.

Salad,

Here is a copy of the message I left in the CompuServe "Video and Home Theater" forum, based on the material that you kindly supplied. You will notice that I lifted much of the material verbatim from your helpful message.

Jan,

Buying a new laptop will cost some money. I think you should try some alternative software first. My recommendation would be Vegas Video 3 from Sonic Foundry. There are a couple of reviews of Vegas Video at:

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2001/12_dec/reviews/cw_vegasvid3.htm

http://video.multimedian.com/reviews/vegasvideo3.html

You can find out more information and download a limited demo at

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/PRODUCTS/NewShowProduct.asp?PID=612

The demo does have several limitations, but I believe you will be able to tell enough from it to decide whether to upgrade your Studio 7 video editor to Vegas.

The Vegas demo user interface is complete. You can capture video, bring in media to as many tracks as you need on the timeline and edit both video and audio tracks. You will not be able to save a project file (.veg file), but you WILL be able to render as normal, allowing you to compare render times and check quality, etc.

However, upon rendering, a few frames of BLACK with the Sonic Foundry logo is inserted every 5 seconds, and a "buzz" is inserted in the audio every 5 sec's as well. You have 20 evalutation renders for MP3.....but a "buzz" will be inserted in the beginning and about every 5-6 sec's. The MPEG 1 & 2 codec is from MainConcepts, and is included with the purchase, but requires separate registration after purchase and registering Vegas. MPEG rendering is disabled in the demo.

If you do decide to acquire Vegas Video for yourself, you might want to consider first purchasing Sonic Foundry's entry level VideoFactory 2.0 for its discount price of $59.97 and then upgrade your VideoFactory to Vegas Video 3.0 for $199.95. That gives you two good video editors, and saves you a bunch of money over just purchasing Vegas Video 3.0 for its list price of $599.95. I was delighted to follow that upgrade route and save a bundle.

I am using Vegas Video 3.0 on a desktop system that is not much more powerful than your laptop. My CPU is less powerful than yours. I also have 256 MB of RAM but instead of just one 20 GB hard drive I have two, but my processor is only an AMD 401 mHz. If you want to make feature length movies, you will need a bigger hard drive, but you should be able to make a lot of creative short subjects with your current laptop. My objective is to make MiniDVDs on my CDRW burner. MiniDVDs can play in some set top DVD players, including mine and both of my sons' players. MiniDVDs have full DVD quality, with full 720 x 480 pixel frames at 29.97 frames per second and CD-quality audio, but because CDs have much less space than DVDs, you get only 15 to 18 minutes of video on a MiniDVD. But a MiniDVD costs only about 50 cents and audiences don't mind the shorter playing time. Of course, you can make VCDs or SVCDs for longer playing times at the cost of some video quality.

I love too many things about Vegas Video to list them all, but in particular I like Vegas' powerful audio abilities. I think the sound is as important as the video. You can use many audio tracks to accomodate the original captured stereo sound, and then add separate stereo music bed tracks from CDs, MP3s, or other sources. You can also add one or more voiceover narration tracks with a microphone, sing on some karaoke, add sound effects, add lip sync video, or whatever. Vegas has plenty of editing tools, filters, and sound processing plug-ins to "sweeten" your audio. I can't think of anything better for making your own music videos. I like it that Vegas lets me get just as creative with my audio as with my video. And the audio on a lot of my DV footage needs a lot of help.

-- Burton --

Seeker,
Wow, that's an excellent bit of info there. I like how you threw in the upgrade purchase option from VideoFactory. That's what prompted me to purchase VV3.

There were reports in this forum of certain Pinnacle products conflicting with VV3. I don't know if they've been ironed out, but SoFo isn't supporting Pinnacle, even though several models of their OHCI compliant 1394 cards work fine. You didn't hear this from me though...

Anyhow, nice job. I hope they like VV and don't have any issues, but they can always come here for help.

An even cheaper way to obtain Vegas Video 3.0 is to purchase Sonic Foundries "Digital Video and Audio Production" (A hands-on guide to creating rich multimedia with Vegas Video) for $49.95. It comes with a CD-Rom which includes:

Vegas® Video 3.0 LE
Sound Forge XP Studio 5.0
ACID™ XPress 3.0
Loops for ACID
VideoFactory™ 2.0 Demo
Noise Reduction™ DirectX Plug-In 2.0 Demo
PDF Manuals
Lesson Files
Sample Media

You can then upgrade from Vegas Video 3.0 LE to the full blown Vegas Video 3.0 for $199.95.

You get a good tutorial guide and Vegas Video for $250....hard to beat.

I just bought VV3 from a guy on ebay for $175. It's brand-new and sealed, and not the academic version. It pays to look around.

Dan,

An excellent suggestion. I am passing it along to the CompuServe laptop Studio 7 user. I took the liberty of just copying the body of your message. The message I just left was:

Jan,

One other thing. In case you decide that Vegas Video is something you want to use, there is an even "smarter" way to acquire Vegas Video 3.0 than the upgrade route I followed and suggested in my last message. I just learned today about this better way on Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video forum. To save typing, I am going to just paste in here the body of a message that was posted by user "dcrandall" there:

<snip>

An even cheaper way to obtain Vegas Video 3.0 is to purchase Sonic Foundry's "Digital Video and Audio Production" (A hands-on guide to creating rich multimedia with Vegas Video) for $49.95. It comes with a CD-Rom which includes:

Vegas® Video 3.0 LE
Sound Forge XP Studio 5.0
ACID™ XPress 3.0
Loops for ACID
VideoFactory™ 2.0 Demo
Noise Reduction™ DirectX Plug-In 2.0 Demo
PDF Manuals
Lesson Files
Sample Media

You can then upgrade from Vegas Video 3.0 LE to the full blown Vegas Video 3.0 for $199.95.

You get a good tutorial guide and Vegas Video for $250....hard to beat.

<snip>

I agree with Dan Crandall 100% on this. The "Digital Video and Audio Production" book by Gary Rebholz and Michael Bryant is very helpful, and comes with a valuable package of extras including some neat audio software. I recently purchased it, and am now using it as a self study course. Incidentally, one of the best features of Vegas Video is the great user community on the Sonic Foundry forums. I am a relative newcomer to this video and audio editing stuff, but I have found the Vegas users and Sonic Foundry staffers to be enormously helpful and knowledgeable. In my opinion, those good people are the single best feature of Vegas Video. But you can see for yourself by accessing the Sonic Foundry family of forums at:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/default.asp

Of course we will want to continue to participate here at the CompuServe Video and Home Theater forum for the excellent interchanges that happen here.

-- Burton --

Dan,

As an update on this, Jan, the Studio 7 laptop user on CompuServe, went to the website for the "Digital Vidio and Audio Production" book and was impressed with the sample pages. She said the sample pages gave very explicit directions that were quite clear. They plan to purchase the book with the bundled software and use the included Vegas Video 3.0 LE as an entry level video editor on their present laptop. They think there is a good possibility that LE may be sufficient for their present needs. If they need more capability they will have the option to upgrade to the full version of Vegas. Even the $250 total cost would be much less than the cost of a more powerful computer. A copy of my response to Jan's last message follows:

Jan,