I hear ya Bob. I understand what you're saying. But times have changed. Today anybody can run "pro" software and act like a "pro". I can have and operate the same stuff on my machine at home that some Hollywood based editor can. I think Sony has recognized that and come to the clear understanding that there is much more money to be made in an open market as opposed to catering specifically and solely to the pro.

Avid has understood this with the drastic price drop in MC along with the killing and rewriting Avid Liquid. Ulead has understood this with the killing of MSP and it's replacement with a cheesy consumer level videostudio with MSP extras.

You may want to call this a bit sad but I don't think it's the software adjusting to the pro anymore as much as it is in the Pro having to adjust to the way that this is all going.

In my younger days I spent a lot of time under water as a Commercial diver and I always remember the bitter taste people in this profession had for Jacques Cousteau.... who invented SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus). Prior to this it was the Pro and only the Pro that could deep dive and work underwater. SCUBA changed that. It took away a pro industry from the pro and offered it to anybody and everybody that could strap a tank on their back.

The same kind of evolution is happening here.... and it won't stop either.

Marketing to the masses isn't necessarily a bad thing, although it definitely does change the business for the professionals. The desktop computer industry has done this to many other professions. The word processing industry was built up in the 1970s around Harris-Lanier, Wang, CPT and other dedicated systems. Operators had to go to school to learn how to use them. Companies could only afford to buy one or two of these, and the people that operated them became highly sought-after. Then, the PC came along, and with Wordstar (and later WordPerfect and Word) any idiot could create a document without much investment and very little training.

The resulting documents were often not very professional.

Then we started with Desktop Publishing. I participated in countless seminars at Seybold (a trade show for the industry) where the old pros complained about what we were doing to the typesetting trade. Indeed, we did set it on its ear, and the unwashed masses invaded and started creating really bad-look documents. The art of typography was lost. Strangely, much of the schlock stuff found its way back into the pro ranks, and you started seeing professional documents with intentionally shocking mixtures of typefaces, and really bad layouts.

We're now seeing the same thing in video editing. Just substitute the appropriate words in the above paragraph, and you have a description of the current state of video, complete with YouTube now influencing what we see in the professional ranks. We now regularly see horrendous hand-held footage in "professional" movies, television shows and ads; intentionally blown-out highlights, just like in the clip Bob just linked to; and color grading that looks like it was done by Stevie Wonder.

However, as far as Sony goes, what they have done in marketing in order to sell more products -- if indeed they have (I've tried to get market share figures) -- is a good thing. However, it still doesn't explain what appears to be almost a bunker mentality when it comes to interacting with their customers.

" However, it still doesn't explain what appears to be almost a bunker mentality when it comes to interacting with their customers."

John, you need to spend some time on other sites because I PROMISE you that the general complaints are ALL the same.

They've known about this bug for years.. how come it's not fixed?
They're just plain not listening to us!
There used to be a presence by the Engineers and other officials... and now there isn't.
How come they keep us in the dark and never tell us anything?
This is a program??? It looks like a Beta to me!!!

Yadda, yadda yadda....

You think these complaints are unique to Vegas???
They are not.

Yes... people like David are in tune with their customers. They have to be.... they're a small organization where every customer counts. That's how you build a business. but when the ball gets rolling and picks up speed, the company gets bigger, shortcuts get made.... and Sony is no different.

Now is this a shame? Sure.... but that's life.

My real profession is that of an Engineer and I work for our government in low income housing. We don't pay Contractors to high a wage....it's taxpayer's money so we have to be careful.... and i can't tell you how many Contractor businesses we've put on the map.... and never hear from them again when they are on the map.

They're young, fresh... just starting out, and willing to do work for very little profit. Now although we don't pay much... the work from us is extremely steady.... and if you take that money and pump it back into your business (which most of them do)... then it's just a matter of time before the business gets big enough so they don't have to rely on our rather low paying jobs anymore... and they don't. In fact what most of them do at some point is intentionally up their rates until a point is hit where we stop calling.

This is nothing personal John.... it's just business.

... I work for our government... it's taxpayer's money so we have to be careful....

ROFL -- Sorry, that just caught me funny, all things considered.

Nothing personal, Blink.

"ROFL -- Sorry, that just caught me funny, all things considered."

yeah... well we're pretty careful about the price of the tenders we put out, but then on the other hand... the money that's wasted in other areas (won't go into detail) is just amazing!

Picture a central boiler plant that had $465.000.00 spent on it and a new 20 year lease on life... only to be marked for considered replacement 4 years later.

blink,

Everything you say is probably correct. It doesn't mean, however, that things need to be this way or, more importantly, that it was always so. The phrase "dumbing down" has been applied to all sorts of things related to our culture, and I think it applies here as well. What I mean is that I think people have, unfortunately, learned to accept useless, automated response telephone attendants ("press 1 to hear unhelpful response to your problem; press 2 to wait another five minutes listening to our Musak-on-hold; press 3 to record your frustrated screams ..."). They have learned to accept the idea that pride in workmanship and what you do is not something of value.

Anyway, like I said, I think that everything you say is probably correct, and therefore my expectations for Sony Creative Software are just simply unrealistic.

Wow, Someone is agreeing with Blink! ;-) Well, not to be out done, I'm going to agree with Blink and JohnMeyer on both their points! ;-) I still believe Corp Sony has a direction, the same direction as before. I do agree with John about support for a product, especially if its by a small business. But this model failures with massive world product lines in "money and credit tight" times. If Vegas generated .01% of gross income or more important 5%> to the net profit line, critical $$ support for the product would be found. Otherwise, the big projects gets the $$$ first, the $$$ crumbs left over, the rest fight for, tooth and nail!

"Picture a central boiler plant that had $465.000.00 spent on it and a new 20 year lease on life... only to be marked for considered replacement 4 years later." Hey! You have Canadian hired and trained by heating contractor! ;-) I bet my local building inspector must have Canada training too! My house remodelling, 2 years+, makes the movie "Money Pit" s a dream! New code, old code, change or add one electrical connection, must change or upgrade 5 subpanels....... move an outside lighting location by a foot, they want to replace all the underground cable with armour cabling or encased it in steel tubing, all 4000+ft................ it never ends!

"Anyway, like I said, I think that everything you say is probably correct, and therefore my expectations for Sony Creative Software are just simply unrealistic"

I wouldn't say "unrealistic" john.... because it's not..... or at least wasn't. Probably "dated" is a better word

"Hey! You have Canadian hired and trained by heating contractor! ;-) "

hey... I wish it was that simple to explain. It however is purely a Broadway-glass-office, pencil-pusher generated work order and tender. The life expectancy calculators deduced the fact that this power plant package has hit the end of its service use... time for a replacement. And they have lost the file that proves it was rebuilt 4 years ago.... of course, without the file.... it was never rebuilt.

Now... that's Broadway logic. We in the trenches have not figured out how they arrive at these "class A" decisions.... but we're trying.