FCP slo-mo VS Vegas slo-mo

[Glen Elliott]

RE: Spot's post on the Sony forums- he did a test in B&H today where he took the same ArtBeats clip in both Vegas 5 and Final Cut Pro and slowed them both down to 20% speed...to test the interpolating quality. Apparently Vegas beat out FCP hands down. This intrigued me- I decided to do some tests of my own though I don't know how official they really are.

I took a clip I captured via Vegas (DV avi format) sent it to a friend who uses Final Cut Pro and asked him to slow it down 20% and return it to me. I did the same. Once I got his clip back (in quicktime format...settings equivalent to DVavi) I dropped them both on the timeline. Now I don't know if the interpolating quality is something that has to be judged on an external monitor- or if sending a Vegas Catpured DVavi to a Mac and having it converted to quicktime to be compatable in a Final Cut Pro interface will nullify any volidity of the experiment. Non the less here's what we came up with.....

http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...FCPvsVegas.mpg

[Peter Jefferson]

funny coz some of my slow mos come out super smooth while other come out horrible and jittery

im tryin to work out why and even supersamplig is terrible..

any ideas??
im runnin gthe footage between 50 and 75% speed and its stutters so bad its driving me nuts

[Glen Elliott]

Change the monitor preview quality from "Preview" to either "Good" or "Best".

[Peter Jefferson]

that doesnt do much, its the final render which is what i am refering to... sometimes its good other times its absolutely terrible

[Glen Elliott]

Have you tried rendering it at "best"?

[Dennis Vogel]

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : ... Non the less here's what we came up with..... -->>>
So Vegas does beat FCP.

Dennis Vogel

[Jeff Donald]

So Vegas does beat FCP.

It does in that limited example. But you'll find that the quality of the slow motion has a lot to do with choice of speeds and the type of footage used. Most serious FCP users use different plugins for motion effects, rather than the default FCP effect.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Jeff,
I'm not gonna argue the point, a: because I also use FCP and b: because I know plugs are available for most things...but....there are also tools to improve most of the stock offerings in Vegas. Comparing Apples to apples, using the same original pjpeg footage from Artbeats, Vegas did much better frame interpolation. And that's the only way to do a fair test.
For purposes of my comparison, I did one better than Glen, I rendered to QT in Vegas as well, so the comparisons were exact.

I'm not trying to push the FCP vs Vegas thing, it's more that I'm pretty tired of the hype surrounding FCP that is in many extremes, just plain BS...It's a very good tool. But, it's missing a lot of great things because Apple is relying on third parties to build what they didn't do correctly in the first place.

[Peter Jefferson]

It's a very good tool. But, it's missing a lot of great things because Apple is relying on third parties to build what they didn't do correctly in the first place.


which is why i stopped using it when Vegas 2 came out ;)

[Jeff Donald]

Photoshop must be a terrible program, I use 10 to 15 different plugins daily. I guess I'll need to find new photo editing software.

[Peter Jefferson]

no far from it mate.. i understand the sarcasm LOL.. but for me the fact that i come from an audio background.. Vegas makes a Huge difference wit the way i visualise and create an edit.. also the way i work is alot more efficient, but everyone is different..

THese are tools, and im jsut greatful that theyre always improving..

I jsut wish vegas had afew more plugins!!

[Jeff Donald]

Ah, so maybe the greatness of a program can help be determined by the number of individuals and companies willing to invest the time and effort to write plugins. If this is true, than maybe Photoshop isn't so bad after all.

[Peter Jefferson]

ROFLMAO youre evil dude! LOL

[Glen Elliott]

Those Mac people are a firey bunch. :)

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I wonder how many companies (several) that Adobe has put out of biz because they realize the necessity of workflow that many plugs provide, and so they eventually add those features to their arsenal of tools.
While plugs may or may not determine the value of a tool, and were that the case, Vegas would be at the bottom of the heap, you'd think that for something as absolutely basic as slo-mo, no one would EVER have to write a plug. Might as well write a plug for something silly like...fade in/fade out.
A WHOLE lot fewer plugs for Photoshop these days compared to 4 years ago. Wonder why?