The only thing I like about Final Cut Pro is the Phonetic search plugin.

Adobe is now, subscribe only... that's crazy.

HitFilm plugins CPU based, are much faster than Genarts Sapphire S_warpfisheye GPU CUDA based acceleration with a slow GT 740 1GB.

the lens correction takes 1 minute vs. 5 minutes.

AMD has a new server technology "Naples" allows 64-cores / 128-threads, but Non-Server Windows is limited to 64-cores, & Dual CPU.

Vegas13 is limited to 16-cores... I have to enter the "secret menu" to manually force the 32-cores...

i have not tested Resolve with my 32-Core machine, because I'm waiting for a new power supply, more efficient.

Server Windows does not work with GeForce drivers, fails.

It looks like Blackmagic is trying to disrupt the NLE business.

If I were to upgrade to Vegas 14 (which I still haven't done), it would cost me only $50 LESS than an outright purchase of the studio version of Resolve 14.

There were two things have compelled me to keep Vegas close at hand: 1) audio handling was just better, faster, more intuitive. Resolve 12 made me realize just how good Vegas was at audio. 2) Cheap upgrades.

Those two friction points have been Resolved (as it were) by the addition of Fairlight audio to resolve - basically, it's going to include a version of the what will amount to a DAW built into Resolve.

As for price, like I said, I'll pay $50 more for the studio version of resolve, than a slightly updated version of Vegas. And I'll never have to pay for an upgrade again. I could also opt to buy a new camera (which I'm in the market for). If I buy a BMD camera, Resolve Studio is free.

Vegas is a fine, old, mature editor. It's not taking advantage of my new hardware, and I certainly don't want to spend extra time rendering in Vegas compared to the significantly fast Resolve. It's also sluggish editing UHD and output takes an excruciatingly long time.

Resolve was a serious competitor in the NLE market - I think it may have just become a much more serious contender (it'll take a few years, but I can see Resolve being a top 2 editor. The one-time payment and price point - for a perpetual license - should worry Adobe. Avid is probably looking at its business model too.

Even if I wanted to, my business partner would slap me I bought Vegas again, just based on price. As much as I love Vegas, there's no room for sentimentality these days. And it does feel old and slow by comparison to the fresh codebase in Resolve.

This will be the last time I poke my head in here. I'll be using VP13 to rearrange and maintain old projects. For larger ones I'll export EDLs and rebuild them in Resolve (partly for practice, and partly to speed up output). All new work is being done with Resolve 12.5.5 until 14 is released (the Beta is barely Alpha - test or trial it with caution).

I'd like to thank everyone who was kind enough to be helpful with technical problems and issues over the years. I also hope I was able to help a few people who had issues I was familiar with. The Vegas community was always a bit of a saner refuge online for support and discussion. I always enjoyed the more philosophical discussions about filmmaking, meaning, and story-telling.

Alas, my road with Vegas has come to an end. And I'm as conflicted and melancholy about it as one can be over a piece of software. Vegas has been my primary production tool (in solo production environs) for more than a decade. I used it at the Edmonton Oilers when I was director of digital media - nothing could get online interviews and highlights online faster ( and our production guys were a SONY shop so it all worked well).

Anyway, cheers everyone...happy shooting...happy cutting....hopefully we'll see your work around online.

Cheers,
~A

well put aschwabe - couldn't agree with you more. however, although i'm using resolve i'm still hanging around to see what 15 brings to the table. admittedly it's going to have to be pretty spectacular to contend with nearly any of the competition given that they all use the latest video cards...

I have used Resolve as a coloring tool, and it works really well. It is, or has been, quite clunky in other aspects, audio, one, creating masks, another, and the timeline is just not "grab and go" intuitive as is Vegas. So if you can render a bit faster but spend twice as long getting your edits done on the timeline, how is that any sort of timesave? Vegas is NOT that slow rendering, I have a modestly fast HP Z workstation, One Zeon CPU, 6 core E5-1660, ver. 2, (utilizes twelve hyperthreaded virtual core). I don't think Resolve is there yet as an NLE, and I am anxious to analyze the new Vegas 14 (don't have it yet). I also use the Adobe suite, and premiere is way clunkier than Vegas, IMHO. YMMV.

The best programs are the ones that do the job you want. Vegas has been great and often I say that it is so intuitive that I never bothered to read the manual. Of course that omits that I enjoyed several of DSE's training courses and, now that you mention it, I did delve into the manual many times and more often asked questions on this forum. So maybe over all those years, starting at Vegas 5, it was not as intuitive as I remember? Resolve is a very different configuration, influenced by the original NLEs, and of course was not itself an NLE -- it was built for very powerful colour grading of feature films (no one else could afford to use it). So to describe it as a 'colouring tool' is to completely misunderstand its heritage and power. To say it is clunky in masking demonstrates you haven't understood how to use it. Black Magic acquired Resolve with the aim of developing it into a general post production tool, continuing to enhance its power for colour grading whilst adding other capabilities required of a NLE. All while giving away software that used to be too expensive for any of us to even look at. However if Vegas does what you want then why look at Resolve? It isn't yet as simple to use as Vegas and may never be. If you don't recognise what Resolve offers and are not prepared to put in the hours learning how to drive it, then of course it isn't for you. Maybe like wanting to pilot an F-16 when you've just about mastered a Cessna. Both fly through the air, but require different skills.

Serena, I am not here to "argue my case" and the reason I say it is clunky is, compared to other programs, it is just not as elegant; for example, how you draw masks and then the animation of those masks, as compared to Mocha or AE etc. Just not nearly as functional, unless they have radically improved that over the last several months. When I say "coloring tool" why are you here to correct my 'nomenclature.' It colors, it is a coloring tool, yes, grading and coloring are maybe not exactly the same. I don't come here to get nit picked. I very much understand its power, and I very much respect the program. And now, they are, as everyone has made note, trying to make it into a more of a complete NLE solution, and that's great, for me, it's not there, not yet. I appreciate their efforts to that effect. They are an impressive organization for sure.

The "heritage and power" of Sonic Foundry's Vegas, Sony Vegas, Magix's Vegas, (covering all the nomenclature, lest I be outed as a know nothing) is that it began as an audio tool, or that is the foundation it is built on, and for quite a few "audio editor" types, like myself, the mode of interfacing is quite similar and the routines are familiar, or more, for us, perhaps, 'intuitive' and for just that reason. AND, you can solve most audio problems or challenges inside the programs, and elegantly so, and what you cannot, it directly interfaces with your favorite audio editing program, so without leaving Vegas, you open the file in that second editor and when your done, close that program and you're back in business, just like that. That is powerful. Just that idea puts the program ahead of Premiere. certainly Resolve, and probably a host of others, at least to those who find that aspect paramount. Do you understand that YMMV means? (Your mileage may vary), and you may well get much more out of a program than me or others, due to a myriad of factors. I think most understand that.

I agree with zdogg's second paragraph completely. I chose Vegas when it was Sonic Foundry because it was based on a audio editor and therefore was logical in operation to me. Premiere always feels alien to me since it really started off from a graphics editing base. Resolve, as you say, started as colour grading tool and may, eventually turn out to be a good NLE. Anything based on Mac I steer well clear of as I have never understood the Apple philosophy.

I am a visual type, and I find Vegas much more intuitive than Resolve. And since Vegas and the multitude of plugins does everything I need I am not willing to throw away my learning curve. And I would ask, why does a firm drop the price of a product by over 70%. BM has been late to market with its products and if you check at DVuser you can find multiple threads how this has affected the perception of the firm. If you drop the price of a product and give a subset away for free the only way to can cover fixed costs for that product is to sell a ton of it. yes I have it and fusion loaded and I play with it sometimes but Vegas fills my needs very well and I won't change unless Vegas dies. Magix seems to be willing to really develop the product and I for one am staying. Threads like this are akin to those posted on DPR when a certain camera company was paying shills to post slanted comparisons or negative posts about other companies products.This should have been posted in the "other topics" area IMHO. You can call me a fan boy, but I do like Vegas. I don't do long arc sequential stuff, but for the short stuff I do Vegas is fast, easy, and most importantly a tool whose faults are known with workarounds. You can spend your time being productive or learning new programs, only you can choose which is the best use of your time, for me it imaging more and using tools I know.

It is two years down the line and we are on Vegas 16 and Resolve 15 - both products have come a fair way. A Vegas 15 user is presented with an upgrade price (form time to time) of $199 while Resolve Studio 15 is $299. I would be curious to know the thoughts of those who started and joined this thread two years ago, given their respective developments.

Not sure of what value this thread is either when it was started or now, but I will add a bit for the fun of it. I have tinkered with Resolve since v12 through 12.5, 14, and currently 15.2.3 (all public versions). I have been using Vegas Pro since v11, with the exception of v14.

I currently use Resolve 15 for all my work (retired, so no deadlines, no clients, no complaints!). I also tinker with Movie Studio 13 through 16 and Vegas 13 through 16 (again with the exception of v14). I keep my foot in the fire with Vegas because......well, I can support a few friends on Vegas and MS, while I keep up to date, just in case I want to switch back.

Resolve does everything I need so far, and if I extended beyond the crippled public version, I will upgrade to the studio version. I understand why some have migrated to Resolve and I understand why some stick with Vegas. It actually makes for a nice choice.

It is two years down the line and we are on Vegas 16 and Resolve 15 - both products have come a fair way. A Vegas 15 user is presented with an upgrade price (form time to time) of $199 while Resolve Studio 15 is $299. I would be curious to know the thoughts of those who started and joined this thread two years ago, given their respective developments.

Resolve Studio version is $299, but Resolve 15 is free. I bought Resolve Studio 12 and there is no charge for upgrading. So far Blackmagic Design policy is all future updates and upgrades are free. Resolve 15 has Fusion (A VFX software) merged into it, as well as Fairlight for Audio. Resolve 15 (Free version) is more than enough for most of the users. You cannot compare Resolve 15 (free as well as Studio version) to Vegas 15/16. The performance and features of Resolve are far more superior to Vegas. I switched to Resolve 2 years ago. I have Vegas 14 and will never ever upgrade it. It there for the older projects in case I need to redo some of it.

I am a visual type, and I find Vegas much more intuitive than Resolve. And since Vegas and the multitude of plugins does everything I need I am not willing to throw away my learning curve. And I would ask, why does a firm drop the price of a product by over 70%. BM has been late to market with its products and if you check at DVuser you can find multiple threads how this has affected the perception of the firm. If you drop the price of a product and give a subset away for free the only way to can cover fixed costs for that product is to sell a ton of it. yes I have it and fusion loaded and I play with it sometimes but Vegas fills my needs very well and I won't change unless Vegas dies. Magix seems to be willing to really develop the product and I for one am staying. Threads like this are akin to those posted on DPR when a certain camera company was paying shills to post slanted comparisons or negative posts about other companies products.This should have been posted in the "other topics" area IMHO. You can call me a fan boy, but I do like Vegas. I don't do long arc sequential stuff, but for the short stuff I do Vegas is fast, easy, and most importantly a tool whose faults are known with workarounds. You can spend your time being productive or learning new programs, only you can choose which is the best use of your time, for me it imaging more and using tools I know.

BM dropped the price 2 years ago to compete against Adobe. It does not mean their product is inferior to others. Vegas is no comparison to Resolve. Resolve users since version 8 has not paid the upgarde price. All the upgrade have been free of charge. Therefore, even users who paid $999.00 before Resolve 12 had a better deal if you compare to the cost of Vegas. I am not sure which multiple thread perceptions are you talking. Resolve is used by professional Color graders, Vegas is not. Fusion (now merged with Resolve) is one of the defactos for pro-VFX'ers in the film industry, Vegas is not.

Resolve requires you to use specialized hardware to see a full screen preview, vegas does not. Resolve requires far more powerful hardware to get the same level of performance you get with weaker hardware in Vegas. Resolve's audio tools still aren't on par with Vegas'. Resolve still outputs to a limited number of formats compared to Vegas. Resolve still isn't anywhere near as good at editing as Vegas, which is why people only take it seriously in the color grading world. Resolve doesn't have the storyboarding features Vegas has. HDR implementation is easier and better in Vegas, with Vegas again requiring no specialized hardware to edit in HDR, and also being able to export direct to HDR formats and allowing the HDR metadata to be specified within the software. Resolve doesn't support scripting... I could fill a page with things Vegas can do that Resolve cannot.

There is a reason why Vegas costs 2x as much, but is still able to compete against a program whose base version is free. Neither NLE is perfefct, they all have big, stupid flaws that hold them back from being the best, but Vegas has stood the test of time for around 2 decades now for a reason.

Because of its audio tools, scripting and fast timeline editing style I still love Vegas Pro. If they fix the hardware acceleration problems it can still beat all the other programs at editing. Most editing software are just over complicated with dumb logic that's why I still use Vegas even though these days with Vegas 16 I can't render using RAM+GPU so recently I have to use Premiere, sometimes I edit in Vegas and export my project with Premiere, it takes a tricky workaround but this is the best combination for me right now.

And what about all those "Value add-on's" you get with Vegas like ProDAD VitaScene, Boris FX, Ignite etc etc? Are they a tipping point over Resolve for some?

And what about all those "Value add-on's" you get with Vegas like ProDAD VitaScene, Boris FX, Ignite etc etc? Are they a tipping point over Resolve for some?

These are not "Value add-on's" but to make you buy the full versions later on. Ignite Express is free, anyone can download it. Also, Resolve Studio version has most of the plugin built in. The native plugins work more effecient, you will rarely need the third party add-ons like Boris etc etc

suhaib-siddiqi wrote on 4/30/2017

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/why-buy-vegas-if-resolve-is-free--106500/?page=1#ca659656

And what about all those "Value add-on's" you get with Vegas like ProDAD VitaScene, Boris FX, Ignite etc etc? Are they a tipping point over Resolve for some?

These are not "Value add-on's" but to make you buy the full versions later on. Ignite Express is free, anyone can download it. Also, Resolve Studio version has most of the plugin built in. The native plugins work more effecient, you will rarely need the third party add-ons like Boris etc etc

and if you dont buy the full one, sometimes (Often) those plugs don't work in the next vegas version :(

In a word, it's clunky and harder to use, and although it has sophisticated color tools, Vegas can do a good job with correcting too. I have Resolve Studio and rarely use it unless I want to experiment with colors. For me, Vegas just works and I can edit so quickly in it, do all my audio work, add titles and effects, and render everything out very quickly and nicely. Black Magic is being disruptive to the market and they know it, just like Blender is being to 3D. I don't know how it is a sustainable model in any way. I notice Blender is even asking for donations now. Also, while I have had some luck in getting some assistance from Black Magic when was having issues, I don't count on it. Since the program is free, you can have no expectation about technical support. It is hard to find the right analogy, but I think of Resolve as a medical specialist who is trying to practice general medicine and Vegas as a good general practitioner with a nice bedside manner.

Black Magic is being disruptive to the market … I don't know how it is a sustainable model in any way.

It has been said before, but Blackmagic is predominantly a hardware company and therefore does not need to rely on Resolve as a significant income earner. I suppose it might be considered to be a loss-leader for the company - it builds goodwill which may lead to purchases of their far more profitable hardware.

@vkmast … your link to suhaib-siddiqi's post back in 2017 on this same topic sums it all up really well.