This thread may also help

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/super-deal-offered-on-vp18-edit-seeking-advice-from-you-experts--129183/

Well, I took the plunge and bought the upgrade to Vegas Pro for $99. Not only is that a great price, but it came bundled with Boris FX Particle Illusion and New Blue Elements 3 Overlay! I couldn't resist. Will I use all the extra features provided by Vegas Pro and the add-ons? Probably not, but it's nice to have them available if needed down the road. Thanks for the input folks.

Keep the commentary. Let us know at a future time, your thoughts,

One thing I'd like to comment on actually has nothing to do with the software itself. I first bought an ancient version of Sony Vegas Movie Maker around 2002/2003 (I still have it). They didn't bundle it with extra software or plugins, but it did come with stock video and still templates (4:3 SD of course) and royalty-free music loops and sound effects. That's almost as good as being bundled with extra video effects and plugins, etc. I'd like to see something like that offered as an option in future releases.

Curious, I have seen on the forum where some are receiving this $99 vegas pro update offer. I have 'use newsfeed to stay informed' checked in preferences. I check the 'check for news' in the help menu so often (never seen any news). When registering the programs I also allow for 'contact or updates' with Magix. What is the secret to getting this offer? I have MSP 17 platinum. I also have Vegas pro 16. Both programs are properly registered with Magix.

Thanks

Well, I took the plunge and bought the upgrade to Vegas Pro for $99. Not only is that a great price, but it came bundled with Boris FX Particle Illusion and New Blue Elements 3 Overlay! I couldn't resist. Will I use all the extra features provided by Vegas Pro and the add-ons? Probably not, but it's nice to have them available if needed down the road. Thanks for the input folks.

That is so cool! So is this the same pop-up $99 upgrade offer I see every time I start Vegas? I was tempted also, but the BorisFX and New Blue add-ons aren't mentioned in the $99 offer, so I never bit. I was planning to re-buy Vegas 17 just to get the current BorisFX Stylize bundle.

What is the secret to getting this offer? I have MSP 17 platinum.

Interesting. I bought Vegas Movie Studio 17 Suite about a week ago, so perhaps the $99 offer is only available to those who bought the suite version, and not those who bought platinum. Just a guess; i.e., I didn't do anything special to get the offer.

What is the secret to getting this offer? I have MSP 17 platinum.

Interesting. I bought Vegas Movie Studio 17 Suite about a week ago, so perhaps the $99 offer is only available to those who bought the suite version, and not those who bought platinum. Just a guess; i.e., I didn't do anything special to get the offer.

You will get such offer in few months. I got one but decided not to upgrade.

What is the secret to getting this offer? I have MSP 17 platinum.

Interesting. I bought Vegas Movie Studio 17 Suite about a week ago, so perhaps the $99 offer is only available to those who bought the suite version, and not those who bought platinum. Just a guess; i.e., I didn't do anything special to get the offer.

I purchased VMS 17 Platinum with all the extras for £29 one month ago. I have received the offer of an upgrade to Vegas Pro for £74. Not going to take it as I do not have enough knowledge to need the extras. Although...? what do other members of the community think?

Regards

Ross (now learning about pictures in windows)

@Ross-Jackson As one of the other members of the community I'd recommend you to take the offer just to be more future-proof and the price is a steal anyway. You can still have your VMS 17 Platinum and use it of course. The thread @EricLNZ linked above is worth reading.

@Ross-Jackson As one of the other members of the community I'd recommend you to take the offer just to be more future-proof and the price is a steal anyway. You can still have your VMS 17 Platinum and use it of course. The thread @EricLNZ linked above is worth reading.

Is my computer good enough for Vegas pro?

DELL i5 4th QUAD DESKTOP TOWER PC & 22' TFT COMPUTER SET 16GB WINDOWS 10 1TB HDD

on board - Intel(R) HD graphics 4600

Ross

The current recommended minimum System requirements for VPro 18 are here

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-pro/specifications/#productMenu

What is the secret to getting this offer? I have MSP 17 platinum.

Interesting. I bought Vegas Movie Studio 17 Suite about a week ago, so perhaps the $99 offer is only available to those who bought the suite version, and not those who bought platinum. Just a guess; i.e., I didn't do anything special to get the offer.

I purchased VMS 17 Platinum with all the extras for £29 one month ago. I have received the offer of an upgrade to Vegas Pro for £74. Not going to take it as I do not have enough knowledge to need the extras. Although...? what do other members of the community think?

Regards

Ross (now learning about pictures in windows)

Don't worry, there are deals all the time. If you visit the forum often, you will not miss them.

What is the secret to getting this offer? I have MSP 17 platinum. I also have Vegas pro 16. Both programs are properly registered with Magix.

Thanks

I didn't actually see the offer until checkout where I had the option to add them to my order. It was pleasantly surprised!

@Ross-Jackson As one of the other members of the community I'd recommend you to take the offer just to be more future-proof and the price is a steal anyway. You can still have your VMS 17 Platinum and use it of course. The thread @EricLNZ linked above is worth reading.

Is my computer good enough for Vegas pro?

DELL i5 4th QUAD DESKTOP TOWER PC & 22' TFT COMPUTER SET 16GB WINDOWS 10 1TB HDD

on board - Intel(R) HD graphics 4600

Ross

I read an article a while back which discussed the Core i5 moniker in some detail. The gist was, apparently, it's nomenclature that applies to a fairly broad product category, which lumps a pile of dissimilarly-performing CPUs with hugely varying performance-specs into a single brand-identity. I think the Core i7 (and definitely, Core i9) monikers are more "reliable" (e.g., any Core i7/i9 is going to be pretty fast).

That said, the performance of your particular Core i5 processor may or may not deliver the performance you desire. I have a cheap video card the vendor threw in for free (I'm still deciding between a Vegas-accelerated AMD card or a Boris-accelerated Nvidia card; i.e., BorisFX GPU-acceleration does not support AMD cards), and I've already run into a limitation due to the 2GB card I have installed (e.g., Vegas couldn't perform a specific task because, "there is not enough memory on your video card to perform this action").

Not sure if a higher perfomance display adapter can make up for a lower-performing CPU, but I do know that they kind of work in-tandem (i.e., if both are fast, there are cumulative gains to be had).

The weakest link in your system is its integrated graphics adapter. Any standalone graphics adapter is going to be an order of magnitude higher in performance than an integrated adapter. If you like, you can choose a budget adapter in the $200 range for perhaps a 4GB card with which you should see a significant performance gain. Spending about $400 will get you an 8GB card that should be wicked-fast for most applications.

A recent TechGage article recommended either the AMD Radeon RX 5700 8GB XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 8GB Super, specifically, for running Vegas. These MAP out at about $400 each—not bad at all for an 8GB card. Shop around and you may be able to find one for as little as $350.

Thank you Studio-4

Information noted. My system is new to me 1 month old. I purchased it as it was a bargain for me. Does all I need at the moment. Never faulted VMS once. Would love to add many of the upgrades you suggest though. Sweet dreams are made of this.. Onward and upward.

Good discussion guys, thanks.

I have a further question about the whole "bundled With" or added plugins sales promotions. If I understand this right, it really bugs me.

Magix/Vegas periodically offers what seems to be attractive sales promotions bundling the various third party vendors add-ons and of course the "Suite" versions with more add-ons. But in my limited experience, many of these deals have a big "gotcha". Please correct me if I am wrong about this.... I'd like to be wrong.

Generally these deals are provided with a serial number from Vegas and a link to download the add-on directly from the vendor.

1. The version downloaded is often not the full same version if purchased directly from the vendor. It sounds like it is in the Vegas promotions, but it's not. It is a "Vegas Special" version that in some ways is less than the direct purchase version. It's hard to ferret out those differences.

2. The Vegas bundled version does not qualify for post registration major upgrades directly from the vendor. Attempting to upgrade usually results in a unqualified serial number message.

3. Technical support is not offered directly from those add-on vendors for Vegas bundles products. We have to come here for help.

4. Upgrading to the next version of Vegas usually breaks the link and no re-establishment is possible. Later versions of Vegas will not integrate the older bumbled products. IOW the add-ons are locked only to the version of Vegas with which they are purchased. Add-ons will not reinstall on later versions of Vegas.

5. Buying the product directly from the add-on vendor does not guarantee that product will integrate smoothly with later versions of Vegas. They will work as a stand-alone of course.

Seems I have forgotten one of my other concerns (but I'm old so I get a pass). Maybe you-all can chime in!

Joe

As many of the extras and bonuses are BorisFX products, the following re those BorisFX products is my understanding:

Re point 1 - The 3 BorisFX Units currently bundled with Vegas Pro Suite 18 are not the current releases of those Units from the Boris Continuum Complete (BCC) range. The current version of BCC is 2021 (aka BCC14 and was released around October 2020), but the versions bundled with Vegas Pro Suite are listed on the Vegas Comparison chart as being 2020.5 which is the previous BCC release version (aka BCC13 and was released around May 2020).

Re points 2 & 3 - Your conclusions seem correct. But that situation would not be much different if your bought the same BCC Units directly from BorisFX. BorisFX has an Upgrade & Support Plan, but that plan specifically does not apply to BCC Units or Premium Filters.

https://borisfx.com/store/upgrade-and-support-plan/

Notes:1) Continuum Units and Premium Filters are not part of the Boris FX Upgrade and Support Plan.

BTW, to purchase just those 3 Units directly from BorisFX would cost $997 USD whereas buying the full BCC Suite (all Units and Premium Filters) would only cost $695 USD for the OFX version, the latter being the version needed to work in Vegas Pro as well some other NLEs such as HitFilm Pro and daVinci Resolve. And the full BCC Suite comes with the Upgrade and Support Plan.

Re point 4 - yes, that seems to be the case with many bundled plugins, more so these days than was the case years ago - plugins are now often licensed-locked to the version of Vegas Pro that they come bundled with.

Re point 5 - I've not experienced that issue with BorisFX products over the last 5 years. With a couple of exceptions - Title Studio and Particle Illusion (if the free SAL is downloaded and installed) - BCC Units are plugins only and do not function as SALs (standalones).

There was a problem with the Ignite Pro plugin package from FXHome when Vegas Pro 17 (I think it was) was released. A change of coding by MAGIX in VP17 meant that Ignite Pro 4.0 would not work in VP17, and FXHome released Ignite Pro 4.1 to make it compatible with VP. But, to get 4.1, you had to have a current Ignite Pro 12 months subscription with FXHome. And renewing a subscription with FXHome is very expensive, not much less than the full purchase price. I got 4.1 via Eyescream Factory when they offered it at a bargain basement price.

I am not sure what the situation currently is with the NewBlue FX bundled plugins.

For me, I long ago ditched being influenced by bonus extras and elected to go with the full packages such as BCC and NBFX's TotalFX bought directly from those 3rd party companies. This way, I have mostly avoided, with the exception of Ignite Pro, compatibility problems with later versions of Vegas Pro.

@Joe-Engel4655 @Dexcon You both summarise the situation with plug-ins well.

I rarely need anything extra for my occasional home movies so normally don't bother with the "extras". Plus like many it annoys me when plug-ins don't work with the next version of VMS. Plus, like fonts, you end up with a computer full of them that you never use.

Magix' promotional bundles:

Let me make a counter-argument for the bundled effects Magix offers. I love 'em. As you may know, Magix rotates the offered products pretty frequently, so I'm patiently awaiting the next bundle offer. I initially bought Vegas Movie Studio 17 Suite since it was only $30 more than Platinum alone, and I also wanted Sound Forge.

I missed the BorisFX Paticle Unit promotion by just a couple days and only got FXhome's Intensity VFX pack. But then I bought another license for Platinum 17 for $49 to get the new bundle. I never even installed the new licensed version of Platinum and the new activation keys worked just fine.

I chose not to opt for the full products from their respective vendors since I wasn't interested in many of the included plug-ins, really only just a select few.

The neat thing is that I now have three different vendors' versions of film/video damage filters, and I have to say the native-Magix ones and FXhome's are really good. At least one member here reported that when he upgraded to Pro 18, all of his bundled FX from his Platinum 17 purchase still worked.

However, a huge upside to buying the plug-ins directly from their developers is that they're the current version. Many (or perhaps all, I don't know) of the bundled effects are of prior versions, at least the BorisFX are (e.g., v2020.5).

Best reason to upgrade to Pro?

I've already said this in the other thread, but for me the best reason to upgrade to Pro 18 is for its layering/blending feature which Platinum completely lacks. This is an essential feature for me so an upgrade to Pro is soon in my future.

Once you got used to it you'll probably find scripting is the ultimate power feature of Vegas Pro if you do editing on a regular basis.

. . . I chose not to opt for the full products from their respective vendors since I wasn't interested in many of the included plug-ins, really only just a select few . . .

I just watched BorisFX' current promotional video for Continuum 2021, and yes, it's pretty impressive, with the Cinematographer's Toolkit being particularly noteworthy. They've upped their game considerably since 2020.5 and the app now includes a ton of presets. Though I like to create my own lighting effects organically, on-set, Boris' Light application is pretty powerful. The new lens flare app is also interesting.

So I'll probably re-think my "a handful of bundled BorisFX 2020.5 are good enough" attitude and pop for the full Continuum suite at some point; however, I'll most likely postpone that investment until this winter's Black Friday promotions arrive to save a few bucks.