Comments by this user | VEGAS Community

The Vegas Creative Software Support Community – Find help here

Vegas - The Big Gamble

Offline, Member since 5/29/2004

Audio

on 2/21/2007

poll: how many people use HUI?

Ha! I just read down the first letters on each line of your post and it all became clear! Good advice
Audio

on 9/16/2006

Appreciation for products

Hey Ed. I agree with pretty much everything you say - it's progress, but within this context my point is still that I don't think Sony are leading the way in audio like Sound Forge used to. 1) UAD fixes are a catchup 2) I'm a music producer so video is of no interest - none of the audio apps my colleagues use have turned into video editors (with audio functionality) - I want the priority for the app I use to be audio! 3) It's a *Sony* Center 4) ACID isn't going downhill - I didn't say it was, but to not be able to drag audio across tracks in an audio app in 2006 is frankly bizarre! 5) Vegas, Sound Forge and ACID both created their own paradigms and they do "kiss ass"! Always have done, but I just want a clear sign that there is still a focus on pro audio users and not just American Idol consumers & video editors. Interesting debate though.
Audio

on 9/15/2006

Appreciation for products

It's great to get this perspective from someone with a background that stretches back to that era of innovation which seems so far removed from how we do everything now and yet still influences our production techniques! When I learned to edit tape and bounce multi-track recordings I didn't realise they would be skills I would stop using within a short time - although both helped me understand NLEs. I marvelled at the early systems with their own O/Ss & custom interfaces while Windows was struggling to do MIDI in time, or audio at all! So I was totally flabbergasted when I first used Sound Forge and then Vegas. I quickly felt at home thanks to the "feel" of the app which plays + visually represents the audio so solidly & smoothly - for me it gave an instant sensation of working with something "real"! I agree there has been fantastic progress, but whilst it is refreshing to see your wholly positive comment I must say I felt like it could have been written in the Sonic Foundry days! All around we see rapid developments - companies overtaking each other in cutting-edge functionality, innovative workflow features, file format support, UI protocols, higher performance and lower latency (right down to direct monitoring!). Features elsewhere that impress me now in the way that Vegas did years ago. Naturally users today are pushing for technical improvements and driving forward the industry and competition as they always have done. Had there been internet forums back in the '60s then I am guessing they would have been full of the same kinds of queries, comments & rants about the gear of the day. Of course people come to these product forums to complain about problems they are having. The modern corporate world doesn't answer the phone very quickly (or at all sometimes!) and so we are inclined to sound off and ask others for empathy and a possible resolution in a community like this. There are the constant requests for new features we have seen elsewhere and rants if the software we use appears to be falling behind - but then at least the manufacturer has some idea of the demand without customers just going off and buying another product. There is pressure on the application maker just as there is on the application user. We can do so much more now than ever before, but that just means more is expected of us too. Clients want things faster, without compromising standards and they expect us to make changes that would have been impossible in the past. We have to keep up with our own competitiors too so we need the best tools available. New products are appearing out of nowhere and quickly reaching feature levels of long-established products like Vegas. Sure it's easier if they're playing catch-up but one would think this would push Sony to introduce new audio functionality as a priority. Instead it's ever more clear that the emphasis has shifted to video. For me this a source of great frustration. It's difficult to imagine a parallel but here goes. What if new models of your analog multitrack tape machine suddenly came with video editing functionality which you had no wish to use - with no option to get a new audio-only version to fix "bugs" or shortcomings of the old one? Then as time went on you saw a clear slowdown in development of audio features as compared to competitors' new products, which had kept their priorities with audio and copied a good number of the best features of your machine along the way? Ask Sony what Vegas is and they'll tell you it's "the essential media toolset". Ask most music shops about Vegas and they'll tell you it's a mainly a video tool. That's a bad feeling for audio users. I asked a "Sony Center" in the UK what they recommend for video editing - I was told to try Adobe Premier. When I mentioned Vegas they said they had "heard of it". Sadder still in a way! Although it may have been a great business idea to turn Vegas into a video NLE with powerful audio to create something distinct and durable, the original Vegas target market were of course the audio producers so I am not at all surprised that the forum is now littered with more moans than ever. People asked for MIDI, Rewire, VSTis, tempo changes - and now it's all available in ACID Pro 6, but the audio editing & management side is simply poor in comparison to Vegas and I can't import my Vegas files. Sony have the source code and the programming team - yet another company has developed a full DAW in less time than it took to turn Vegas 6 into 7, with more of the Vegas audio functionality than Sony's own ACID! Just as in the music industry - "you're only as good as your latest release". The current debate is exactly that. Is Vegas where it should be today? Is there any good reason to upgrade from 6 to 7 as an audio only user? In a nutshell - I just can't see why I would buy Vegas 7! That being the case I wonder how long will I continue to work with Vegas 6. For me, now is just not the time to pat Sony on the back for the past achievements of a company they bought. I want to keep "up-to-date" but that may well mean buying a different company's product unless ACID 7 provides all audio functionality that Vegas 6 did + .veg support. Sony refusal to comment or even outline plans is unhelpful and causes people to moan - because it means we don't know what's coming until we don't get it! Even talk of a transition from Vegas to ACID because the programmers have moved across caused an "i'm only speculating" caveat from a staff member. If the priority for ACID 7 will be integration with Cinescore or American Idol XMC rather than keeping the previous Vegas audio customers happy with a proper step forward in functionality then the audio software catalogue is clearly moving from a professional to a consumer product range as I see it.
Scripting

on 10/12/2005

Automating Titles

Well for now I guess I'll have to restrict use to my own system and consider it a way to speed up things I do for my clients. In the meantime here's an example of what is so exciting about all of this... the following was done with js - I obviously won't publish the script here for the moment. Check out: http://www.vegasscripts.com/300Words.zip ....and imagine trying to do this manually! It's obviously not a very sophisticated "look" (for this demo) but I gave the veg to a friend and he came back with a result that anyone would have guessed had been created with After Effects. I'm so excited, once again, with what can be achieved in Vegas!!! But will I be in trouble if I publish my very useful script? Or does it just need to come with a caveat? Thanks drew
Scripting

on 10/11/2005

Automating Titles

>"If I were Sony, I would blacklist the program" Well... if *I* were Sony, I would be interested in seeing what creative ideas third-party scripters had come up with and simply want to test their apps to make sure there were no side effects. I might not officially endorse it, but I certainly wouldn't do anything to prevent it being available to users. >So what if this 3rd party software introduces an error into one of those files that causes Vegas to crash when it reads it! How does Sony support that??? *I know third-party VSTs which crash Vegas when added to a session *I know video camera device drivers which hang Vegas automatically on start up *I know registry cleaners which remove keys used by Vegas if you don't know what "DXTransform" is when it asks you. *My MTC won't sync correctly and my audio device port mappings jump around dependent on which other s/w I have open when I start Vegas. *Friends with the UAD-1 tell me you should change internal settings to get the device working at its best with Vegas. There are surely already loads of examples of 3rd party applications/plug-ins or other external factors which could cause problems in Vegas and I wouldn't expect Sony to do anything other than refer users back to the source with those. I think it's safe to say if people were fore-warned and aware of what they were installing then most would be more likely to go back to the script source anyway. According to my legal advisor the "restrictions" clause in the EULA relates far more to someone pulling apart the software code than to someone looking into or even "adapting" an output file. Otherwise I would be breaking the agreement if opened a veg file with notepad and typed a few letters at random and closed it again. If the person who writes a script to do this doesn't actually own Vegas then are they even subject to the EULA? Are the users breaking any part of the EULA if they use but didn't write it?
Scripting

on 10/8/2005

Automating Titles

OK - well.. there's only one answer. Sony's! I would much rather hear that or silence, than someone else's interpration of Sony's position. The idea of Edward or anyone else being made nervous about trying to provide products which enhance the functionality of Vegas is very sad. So then Sony - am I considered to be illegally "reverse engineering" if I write a function to replace a portion of the .dxp preset file? For me the R.E. term has normally referred to people trying to disassemble or otherwise mess with a program exe or dlls.. whereas this is about replacement of bytes in an output file (and not even the .veg). Obviously we know it is possible to do this in .js - if I were to publish here a routine which did that then (since I am not making money from it) would Sony have any objection? The reason for doing this is purely to expand the possibilities for scripting in Vegas. I hope if Sony does have an objection than at least this functionality can be included in Vegas 7. Thanks drew
Scripting

on 10/6/2005

Automating Titles

Ok.. it looks like you're doing the same as my workaround for this - ie. creating a temp preset by copying a default .dxp, changing the rich text portion and adjusting the little-endian length accordingly... I had always refrained from "releasing" anything that does this in case the dxp format itself were to change in the next Vegas release. Can we assume this is not the case?
Scripting

on 9/21/2005

Automating Titles

I really can't stress enough how much of difference this funcionality would make!... So many people have asked me about this directly + I have seen it mentioned & requested here time & time again. I have had clients wanting automated title or diverse caption scripts which could only be achieved if this were added to the API. There are just so many potential benefits for workflow!! Yet more examples: During production of a program you could automatically import and place scene names or other internal references that would be used during by the production team and needed for "in-progress" screening sessions. You could take text from markers and automatically turn them into captions. You could dynamically keep online files up-to-date with real-time data by scripting a routine to re-render incorporating the updated text info. You could produce: * Countdown/count-ups * After Effects style text-intensive sequences (but batch processed on demand) * Stylised name captions including transitions & motion for your whole project in one keypress * Amazing end titles sequences! Does anyone know if 6.0c has any scripting enhancements? If so can only dream that this may be one of them!
Scripting

on 8/16/2005

Help with SaveSnapshot

Thanks for this - I had been puzzling over that exact issue for a while!
Scripting

on 8/16/2005

Project Filename, "DoEvents" after SendKeys

That's all very useful to know!! Thanks very much for the responses.... I had no idea that "Vegas.Project.FilePath" would return the filename itself since "FilePath" always used to mean the path and *not* the filename when I was a lad!!! I'll post further developments in this thread
Scripting

on 8/14/2005

adding text

Since I have pretty much given up expecting or waiting for anything to be added to Vegas, I started thinking about alternative ways of adding text.. I guess the most logical way would be to make a script which takes marker labels and turns them into text by calling an external app which makes a transparent title in, for example, PNG format and then imports it. Alternatively it could just take the marker positions in order and read in the text from a text file and do it that way. Just wondering has anyone done anything like this? If not I'll look into it further. Ideally the app it shells out to should be something well-known which handles batch processing requests and has presets which could be specified. drew
Audio

on 6/14/2005

this place

Geoff - people still have problems, believe me! The fact is, it is a little depressing to report a problem and then see a bunch of "me too" responses if, in the end, Sony won't now confirm or explain what is going on. I think a lot of people are now afraid to criticise for fear of being banned or suspended from this forum. Many, like myself, are real Vegas fans who have an issue with Sony's treatment of the users both on and off the forums. My main frustrations right now are as follows: 1) The long-standing metronome bug has finally been fixed but I have to pay for a whole new version in order to take advantage of it! That feature in version 5 was "defective" yet I have to pay for it to work correctly. 2) I gave up after a few minutes of my 30 day trial of 6.0a (as I did with SF8) because I had rendering problems in 6.0a (and problems with everything in SF8!) Unfortunately by the time 6.0b (and SF8.0a) were released my 30 days were up. So I can't now test it. Surely every new revision should at least give at least a few days grace if a previous version had been installed as a trial.. otherwise how can we be sure that the reason for *not* buying has been resolved? There.. I'm not complaining about features or technology.. just a simple question of company policy. I hope for an official answer - but maybe the most I can hope for is that the post doesn't get removed!!! Andrew
Scripting

on 5/22/2005

Please help! Importing subtitles as text media

Please Sony Please Please Please!!!!
Audio

on 5/1/2005

Made w/Vegas Forum

I'll assume you're talking specifically about audio productions here. I'm sure if an official Made with Vegas forum *were* created, it would not be tied to the audio side and few music or audio producers would be impressed by a list populated mainly by video. Alternatively if you mean this as a way for us to remind ourselves that we're not alone in using Vegas for Audio then I can see it could help to show support, but these days I'm not personally bothered about promoting, championing or supporting use of Vegas or Sound Forge and I know I'm not alone in this change of mood. To me the forum idea is all about a "feel-good" relationship with the product and its manufacturer. But dealing with Sony these days really doesn't feel like dealing with Mackie or even Digidesign. Gone is the time when I would be proud to tell people I *hadn't* used ProTools to make something which they said sounded great. Jaws would drop - people would ask "how??". I now use Vegas simply because I am used to it and it works pretty well for most things - but it's not complete, there are too many workarounds needed and it's not developing in the way many audio users had hoped. As such I don't feel any desire or benefit in "putting anything back in" to something of this type on a Sony site. It could look like I'm advocating use of Vegas - but I am already embarrassed enough about those I persuaded to use Sound Forge who are now telling me what "rubbish" version 8 is. You were right about the "bad timing" I'm afraid.
Scripting

on 4/23/2005

Vegas 6 Script Developers Kit

Sounds good to me!!! How much do you want for doing that then ;o) Seriously - if this does happen it will have real benefits for workflow and open the way for scripters to do so much more. Also the main interface could benefit from a function to right-click on a piece of generated text media and "Clone this Text Media using imported text file", taking each line from a .txt and making a new clip with the same params as the highlighted one. Yum!!
Scripting

on 4/23/2005

What's new in Vegas 6.0a

Shame. When a product gets you so excited with the initial implementation of features, it's just bound to create disappointment if it doesn't continue to add to them on a regular basis. Especially when those features are ones that people request time and again. I'm still hopeful for future releases but you only have to look at the audio forum to see how disappointed users are that the main addition this time (after a year) was something which was already released in ACID and SF.. ie. things aren't really moving at great speed with anything but video in Vegas. Of course since no-one will ever tell us what scripting improvements are planned for future releases (although I can't see why it's considered sensitive info compared with A/V functionality additions) we just have to sit & wait for another year or so.
Scripting

on 4/18/2005

Vegas 6 Script Developers Kit

It's ok PJM.. it doesn't appear what I had been hoping for has been implemented :o( By the way *please* can someone from Sony explain why? Generated text set through scripting would make a world of difference for captioning, title headings, countdowns - so many potential uses, yet it doesn't seem like that would be a hard thing to put into the app! If it is, I'd love to know more. With respect, Drew
Audio

on 4/18/2005

Vegas 6 reliability

Sorry CDM... I think it's pretty clear why you were chosen to beta test!! I would have given Sony hell for not addressing the glaringly obvious routing issues as well as the messy key mappings and so many missed opportunities for plug-in management and workflow. To me this release is totally "Vegas5.5" and I would have told them so on a daily basis! On the audio side it's a metronome bug fix and the inclusion of a feature already seen in other Sony products. So yes what *have* they been doing for a year to warrant us spending more money? There was video stuff added at 5.0d so one would hope 6.0d might be something for those of us who are, once again, feeling disillusioned as we install yet another new version where we have to hide the video preview and switch off "quantize to frames" just to make any sense of an app we use for audio. It's a clear reminder that it's a Video App and after the SF8 disaster my fear is nobody at Sony will have time to think about audio functionality in Vegas for a while. I'm with Vegas 5 and Sound Forge 6 for now... until there's a real incentive to invest in new Sony products.
Scripting

on 4/18/2005

What's new in Vegas 6.0a

and maybe I missed it, but PLEASE tell me that I can set the actual text for Sony Text generated media in scripts now!
Audio

on 4/18/2005

Vegas 6.0 - Mackie Control Bug

Editor OffLine? Surely this isn't a real problem! While on the subject though, since it looks like the Mackie Control is set to be the only surface to use with Vegas 6, have there been any improvements or additions? Anything that goes against it?
Scripting

on 4/18/2005

Cut to the beat

My preferred way of doing this is to use a script I wrote where you count the number of beats or measures (bars if you prefer!) in a range, then it sets the tempo. You can then place clips on the grid.. It would only be a short hop from there to get to script to take all the images on the selected track and line them up on the grid, all with the correct length to make a seamless montage. Right Edward?
Audio

on 4/15/2005

Is this it? Vegas 6 - prepare to be depressed.

You know, I've got a really good feeling about Vegas 7. Any idea when it's due for release? Seriously.. I'm hoping I *won't* feel that way.. but if the metronome bug ain't gone - if key mapping isn't cleared up - and if pan>bus issue isn't resolved from 5 + if there's nothing more than VST added then is it even worth the upgrade fee? Come to think of it even *with* the bug fixes why should I have to pay for a version that corrects them!? SO... LET'S HOPE!
Scripting

on 4/3/2005

New Feature hope

Well if you've asked for it repeatedly and it hasn't happened yet I don't see any reason to stop asking! Surely the more voices the better? In the Audio Forum you will see Sony *have* made suggestions and little hints about improvements & developments in certain areas for Vegas 6. I know they have to be careful what they say, but I guess I'm looking for an assurance this isn't going to go the way of Sonar's CAL.
Scripting

on 4/3/2005

New Feature hope

Well I count 14 posts in 15 days for the whole forum .. ie less than one per day 6 of them came from you! You call that buzzing? Really I'd rather you hadn't replied since you adding nothing.. not even point of view on the subject.