With 20 years of Vegas experience, my perspective on Vegas Pro 23.

vagnerdesouza wrote on 10/10/2025, 1:55 PM

Hello everyone. I've been a Vegas user since version 4 in 2004. After submitting dozens of items on my "wish list" and seeing none of them fulfilled, I decided to switch video editing software.

Below is my technical evaluation of Vegas Pro 23 "Trial" (which is only "trial" in name!)

1. 30-DAY TRIAL? This is NOT true. VP23 only lets you try the program, but it doesn't allow rendering without a very huge watermark on the file, which is rendered useless by the presence of the "Vegas Pro" watermark on every frame. EVERY!

2. VP23 doesn't export markers as chapters in the MP4 file. (DaVinci Resolve does).

3. You can't change the software's language after installation. (DaVinci Resolve allows it at any time). When installing Vegas Pro 23, there's no option to choose the program's DEFINITIVE language. If you have a Portuguese-language Windows operating system but want to install Vegas Pro 23 in English to follow tutorials in English, forget it! No way!

4. VP23 only allows you to export MP4 videos with AAC-LC stereo audio. It has issues with HE AAC and HE AAC v2 audio in the timeline.

5. VP23 doesn't import or export MKV files. (DaVinci Resolve does!) Just to upset the critics: MKV DOES NOT MEAN PIRATE VIDEO FILE!

6. There's no LUT for videos made with the GoPro Hero 13 in LOG mode.

7. Most transitions of VP23 are from the SonicFoundry Vegas 4 era. They haven't evolved!

8. The upgrade price is barely different from the perpetual license price. I found the price too expensive!

9. After applying the stabilization effect, the video loses performance in the timeline, and this is on an AMD Ryzen 9 32-thread @ 4 GHz machine with an NVidia RTX 4060 graphics card. In DaVinci Resolve, it runs smoothly at 59.94fps after stabilization

10. VP23 still with only one timeline per project.

I stopped at item number 10. I only tested the program for less than 1 hour, but I was already able to form an opinion about it, and I already uninstalled the Vegas Pro 23 "trial"

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Comments

MikeS wrote on 11/13/2025, 8:54 AM

>our headcount has continued to decrease

Actually, that's worrying to hear

VEGASDerek wrote on 11/13/2025, 12:14 PM

Actually, that's worrying to hear

Honestly, it is sorta par-for-the-course right now in the software industry.

That said, I believe the team is in pretty good spot right now as we accelerate efforts to get some badly needed features done. The key for us is to focus on the core strengths of Vegas and continue to make them better. The team is gaining some good momentum right now despite some of the negative impacts of the restructuring. In the end, we will come out stronger from this process.

wjauch wrote on 11/13/2025, 9:31 PM

An Ai assistant though unlikely it could make sense of the VEGAS codebase.

VEGAS does have limited raw support (Braw, Prores raw, cDNG).

I would add that Red r3d raw has been supported by Vegas for about 12 years, and I believe about 1 year ago was updated to support newer Red Raptor and Komodo cameras.

bitman wrote on 11/14/2025, 11:53 AM

>our headcount has continued to decrease

Actually, that's worrying to hear

You could look at it the positive way: the less people tinker with the code, the less bugs are introduced!

Gid wrote on 11/14/2025, 1:13 PM

>our headcount has continued to decrease

Actually, that's worrying to hear

You could look at it the positive way: the less people tinker with the code, the less bugs are introduced!

One person could easily introduce just as many bugs as a whole group of people could, + a group of people's collective interaction & knowledge could pick up on & correct those bugs before they dig themselves into a hole too deep to get themselves out of.