Im a newbie with VV-3 and was playing with the Pinnacle DC-2000 with
Premiere 6.0c. as soon as I loaded up VV-3 in Computer #2 I never went back to
Premiere in computer #3. Premiere just sits there like an abandoned
ship in the middle of the ocean. Almost too lazy to delete it out.

James J. Kizak

to steal a line from mike tyson--i'm so happy i don't know whether i'm ecstatic or ludacris??!!


seriously, i am NOT a professional videographer
however, i see lots of them at private parties and events
i showed them some of the videos, slide shows, streaming vidoes i created--and they couldn't beleive it
i started in november of 2001 with absolutely NO EXPERIENCE
i didn't know what a timeline was!!
anyway, now i have professional videograhers coming over to my place so i can show them what vv3 can do
needless to say--they all switched to vegas
one thing----they all bought a dedicated computer to render the projects
i also bought a computer in february for one reason---vegas video
i don't play video games--so this is my toy
good luck
also, this forum rocks!!!!!!
the people in here really help newbies and others--which helped my learning curve immensely
sbsbsbsbsbsbsb

I am leaving Premiere because it crashes ALL the time in my long project. I'm not paying to see if 6.5 crashes, too.

I'm mostly trying to decide between Vegas Video and Avid Xpress DV. Since I qualify for student prices, Avid isn't so far out of line. I decided not to look at Ulead since I hardly hear of anybody using it (though I do like PhotoImpact, whether others use it or not). AIST looks interesting, but n-o-o-o-body uses it. Pinnacle Edition is new and doesn't grab me. After reading this thread I looked up Blade, which doesn't look bad, but again, I don't want to be the last person on earth using a product nobody's heard of.

Despite my love for free plug-ins, the thought of paying for the program now, when a new version is around the corner, doesn't thrill me.

I'd like more feedback about the difference between VV and Avid Xpress DV. Not just, I never use Avid now that I have VV, but why.

I'm also wondering about comments here:

No export to an image sequence. How do you export a sequence to Photoshop?

No bins. Does that mean there's no way to separate clips into groups within the program, and instead you organize your video drive into bin-like folders?

I think somebody mentioned not being able to take out audio glitches in Premiere. I got pretty good at it and actually like Premiere for rearranging audio accurately, even though I don't like its lack of audio tools otherwise.

Somebody said Premiere 6.5 realtime previews don't compare to VV's. What's the difference?

I don't see the seamless integration between Premiere and After Effects that Adobe boasts about. I do want more compositing in an editing program and I like having a program that works with a lot of third party plug-ins.

The crashing thing: Many people on the Premiere forum say it's a totally stable program and problems are the fault of the user's system. I don't want a finicky program that doesn't work in a system where every other program works. How often does Vegas Video crash?

And what is this about financial problems? Will Vegas Video be around for a while?

sondra
i own all sonic ofundry products: vv2, vv3, sound forge, acid, noise reduction and i have yet to have a crash---14 months and counting--knock on wood
i first heard of sonic foundry in 1998
anyway, other can help you with the other stuff--all i know is pro videographers are now using it
hope you buy it, it's a great product
sb

I had composed a lot of music with Acid before using Vegas, so it took away some of the learning curve. (Like splitting an event with the S key and fading the edges of an event). There's something about the way Sonic Foundry writes software that I just haven't seen anywhere else. They really think about the user and do a better job than anyone else in making an app "user friendly."

As I've said before in this forum I think I've discovered at least 2% of what Vegas can do and that covers about 98% of what I need to do. So much is there on the surface. But for that other 2% I've never seen a better forum for learning than this one. You rarely have to wait more than an hour (unless it's Saturday night) for a definitive answer to your problem!

Sondra--
Yeah... don't you love student pricing? I just picked up Lightwave 7.5 for under $400! :)

I'd like more feedback about the difference between VV and Avid Xpress DV. Not just, I never use Avid now that I have VV, but why.

I, for the record, use Vegas 2 & Xpress 3.0, so I can't comment on the Avid color correction tools. Rumor has it that they ARE worthwhile, but I'm also waiting to see what's coming in Vegas 4. It's (Avid's RT color correction) a bandwagon that Final Cut jumped on, too... and I'm interested how SoFo's tools are going to change.
As for differences... the VV audio tools are head and shoulders above Xpress's. VV's workflow is much, much more intuitive. I'm yet to find something in Xpress (which runs about $400-ish for students, as memory serves) that I can't do faster in VV. Avid's good to know for resume fodder, but you'll ALWAYS be falling back on VV for projects, trust me.

I'm also wondering about comments here:

No export to an image sequence. How do you export a sequence to Photoshop?

Yeah, I've been wondering that same thing. It will IMPORT a still sequence, but as far as I know, I won't export one... which is unfortunate if, for example, you wanted to convert a video to pencil sketch animation in Photoshop. I use AE to export.

No bins. Does that mean there's no way to separate clips into groups within the program, and instead you organize your video drive into bin-like folders?

That's what I do... however, it has one unintended benefit-- it causes me to be very, very careful with what I capture & where I put it. I (unlike some other people in this forum) could care less about bins. I LIKE the Explorer view, and having everything immediately accessable.

I think somebody mentioned not being able to take out audio glitches in Premiere. I got pretty good at it and actually like Premiere for rearranging audio accurately, even though I don't like its lack of audio tools otherwise.

The audio in Premiere cannot, repeat, CANNOT compare to VV. Between VV, Sound Forge & Vegas, it's a full-blow audio suite. Some good hardware, and maybe better Midi implimentation, and even Pro Tools (the big, bad overrated bastard that it is) has nothing on SoFo.

Somebody said Premiere 6.5 realtime previews don't compare to VV's. What's the difference?

More layers, more layers and, um, well, more layers. Great for compositing. Oh wait, the compositing tools are pretty well limited in Premeire, aren't they? ;)


I don't see the seamless integration between Premiere and After Effects that Adobe boasts about. I do want more compositing in an editing program and I like having a program that works with a lot of third party plug-ins.

See... now the intigration is much tighter in Adobe products, which is one thing that pisses me off. I'd LOVE to move a Photoshop comp. with layers into VV and have them individually editable, as in Photoshop & AE. But I'm betting that's not going to happen.

The crashing thing: Many people on the Premiere forum say it's a totally stable program and problems are the fault of the user's system.

Yup. And I've got a great idea-- click on the Acid forum, and throw that idea out there. Then stand back.

I don't want a finicky program that doesn't work in a system where every other program works. How often does Vegas Video crash?

In a couple of years with Vegas... I haven't gotten it to crash. I've slowed it down considerably (importing a bunch of 4000X4000 stills... but what do you expect?), but it has never, NEVER crashed on me.

And what is this about financial problems? Will Vegas Video be around for a while?

It damn well better be! There are a lot of happy converts out there... and as word gets out (I, for one, find myself insanely loyal to VV and SoFo as a whole-- I shill for them like you wouldn't believe!), you'll find more and more people who are curious... then converted.
Vegas is like Premiere & about half of AE rolled into one with some REALLY nice audio tools built in. That is the long and the short of it.

Getting off my soapbox now!
David.

Question about version 4 comming out should I wait or go ahead and purchase now. Do they have a pretty fair upgrade pricing?

If you can purchase now with those free plugins I'd definitely go for it. The upgrade prices seems to always come in at $99 for the first month or two after its released. Not everyone gets everything they want in an upgrade but its always been pretty reasonable to me.
If I were you, given the feedback you've gotten in this forum and the great pricing that has been mentioned now several times, I'd make your next post about questions on learning your new VV purchase.

this is a very helpful board too.

I love VV as well. I only use my Mac for email and word processing now, and haven't bothered updating to the latest version of FCP. VV is just so much better.

One advantage of Premiere that no-one has mentioned though, is that it can preview video with a video overlay. I sure wish Sonic Foundry would add that!

A big advantage on the Sonic Foundry side though is the quality of the coding. I don't know if they use more machine code or exactly how they do it, but working with a Sonic Foundry product always makes you feel like your computer is twice as fast as it is running anything else. With VV, an older computer can still do real time previews. With anything else, you better have the latest and greatest system!

Another thing I love is the photo manipulating abilities of VV. I just did a video for a local museum with just a little bit of video footage of the grounds, and a huge amount of moving still photo renders of the artwork. I don't know how I would have done it with any other software.

Yet another thing is the hard disk efficiency. I have gobs of mp3 files stored on my hard drive. They are all 44.k, 128 mbps files. I just drag the music to the timeline and it works. With any other software, I'd have to uncompress the music and convert it to 48k. Another good thing about using mp3s for music is that they tax your hard drives less since they only need a tenth or so of the hard disk throughput. I've done projects with external Maxtor 1394 drives that wouldn't have been able to keep up if I was using uncompressed audio. With VV you can have libraries of music and sound effects in MP3 or WMA format either on your hard disk or on DVD-Rs that would take up ten times as much space if you were using a competing program that couldn't handle compressed audio. When I've finished a project, I render it directly to the DVD ready separate video and audio mp3 files. This takes a fraction of the space that I used to need to render the video uncompressed, then more space for the DVD writing software to compress the DVD ready files. Combine this with the fact that you usually don't need to use hard disk space for transition renders either and you'll find that VV is way more hard disk efficient than anything else on the market.

Like I said, I would hate to go back to FCP. VV is the only editor I even try to use these day.

Laurence Kingston

I'm in it for audio...gettin CDA 5 so will very likely not want to get VV4, but would still like to see a VV3d...'s been a long wait for me..! anyone else..?