Long story, I shall try to be brief. Been using Vegas Pro editing software since day one. Currently using Vegas Pro 14 and the WB eyedropper doesn’t work. Never did. I sent a request for help to Magix which went unanswered, and the online forum was no help. Now I can’t even install Vegas Pro 13 on my new Windows 10 desktop as I’m told ‘Your trial has expired’. Wadiya mean; I purchased that product some time ago and it’s supposed to be good for my life, I thought! My plan was to load a video file in Vegas Pro 13, use the WB eyedropper, save the veg file and load it in Vegas Pro 14. Perhaps not the best way to proceed.

As I think it through these days I really don’t need the functionality, the complexity of Vegas Pro products, All I need is color correction, sharpening adjustment, WB correction, cutting, trimming, fading and suchlike.

Here’s my question: is there a free or cheap product I should consider as an alternative rather than fighting with Sony Creative Software/Magix, and basically getting nowhere?

Many thanks.

gave up vegas after magix bought it. have been using resolve with great effect. very steep learning curve, but well worth it.
resolve also happens to be free ;-)

Thankyou Leslie, what a great thought! I downloaded and installed Resolve. Fortunately not such a big learning curve for me as I easily remember this software, more or less, from my original BMPCC days.

And now I'm up and running, smiling as I uninstall you know what...

Cheers, and thanks again.

gave up vegas after magix bought it.

That's a shame Leslie.

I use Resolve as well but with regards to sheer speed so far I can't get up to the speed of editing that I'm capable of with Vegas 15 which now has great support for the latest Nvidia cards. With the 1080i card I have real-time Best / Full 50p playback of XAVC-I 220Mbps HD with color correction, curves etc applied. It's also been rock solid on the current TV series so far. As it is a history doco series all the archive material is a mish mash of every resolution, codec, AVI, MOV, MPEG etc, format and frequency, 50./60Hz that you can think of and V15 hasn't buckled at any of it when doing the ARC'ing and standards conversions..

As regards the white balance tool in Vegas it was never much good. By far the best WB tool I have ever used in Vegas is the AAV ColoLab tool, and it is free to boot! Apart from WB it has numerous other correction and level functions. A very useful tool. Oldie but a goodie!

AAV ColorLab (http://aav6cc.blogspot.com.au/)

Chris Young

Yes the AAV ColoLab WB is excellent and the Plug In is quite versatile as well. Within Vegas you can use the Colour Corrector to set your White Balance with great accuracy.

Richard

I gave up on Vegas when Sony sat on it. I know I sound disgruntled but after Magix bought it and released their update which was a lot of stuff we'd been asking Sony for for years, I gave up and went back to learning FCPX with Premiere probably in my future.

I too have been with Vegas since Sonic Foundry. Given updates for Vegas cost what they do, an Adobe single program cloud subscription for Premiere is logical. Just my two cents.

Thanks folks, appreciate the input.

Always subscribing to the notion not to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face I decided to pursue the Vegas route one more time. I finally got Vegas Pro 13 working - a loop in the registry Magix support told me - but essentially to no avail. The program does all I need however it was not designed for working in 4k using a 4k monitor and with my less than absolutely perfect youthful eyesight things are too small to comfortably read. And while the white balance eye dropper tool works perfectly a saved veg file does not respond when opened in Vegas Pro 14. I did a complete clean reinstall of Vegas Pro 14 and the white balance tool remains totally non-functional. This is on a new Windows 10 desktop computer with a new Nvidia graphics card, just as useless as it was on my older Windows 8.1 desktop.

An suggestions?

Resolve is OK but while the price is right I much prefer working with Vegas Pro.

John,

Here's what I did a couple of months ago. Since I was buying a C200, I wanted to see how my Windows/Vegas machine could do with the 4k footage, not the Camera Raw, just the 4k. So I downloaded a demo of Adobe Premiere and used my Vegas 13 to test out the playback on my NLE, with a 2gb video card. Adobe Premiere played back the 4k footage like a dream. Now I didn't have any effects, just the footage. Vegas stumbled all over itself. And for giggles, I downloaded Resolve. So that was enough for me. It just doesn't make any sense for Vegas to be so far behind the curve.

My test was a simple one, but it made sense to me.

Many thanks Steven, I hear you.

(I have re-worded the thread title to reflect my evolved thinking).

I have a new desktop computer sporting an Intel i7-7700 processor along with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card and that setup handles 4k files in Vegas Pro 14 with ease. My problem is only the white balance tool and it should function in Vegas Pro 14, I believe. I am quite inclined to get Vegas Pro 14 working as it should, that is the white balance tool being the only fly in the ointment, rather than look at other products, for now.

I do appreciate your simple test and how it made sense in your situation however it is not applicable in my situation.

If anyone can enlighten me about the White balance tool functionality, the lack thereof, in Vegas Pro 14 I'm all ears and shall be forever grateful.

In post #4 I entered the link for the AAV ColorLab plugin. Download the 64 bit one and check it out. In Vegas I don't think you would use any other WB picker once you have used it. If you have made a bad pick to reset the picker just click on a white are of the plugin interface then re-select the picker and again choose in your picture what you want to be white.

AAV ColorLab (http://aav6cc.blogspot.com.au/)

Chris Young

Thankyou Christopher, and I did download the 64 bit plugin and was somewhat puzzled by that which appeared when I selected it in Vegas Pro 14 and Vegas Pro 13. Here is what I see.

You need to select the top left checkbox if and then click on "adjust" to access the WBal panel. Then follow the info in the screen grab. Easy when you get the gist of it :))

Chris Young

Ah, why didn't I think of that!

First the good news; it works in Vegas Pro 13 just like the built in WB adjuster. The not so good news (though I'm hardly surprised) is that it does not work in Vegas Pro 14, just like the built in WB adjuster.

My guess, and it really is just a cynical guess, is that both work perfectly in Vegas Pro 15!

Let me place this in context. I purchased a new camera, a Lumix G9 which has the video functionality of the GH5 sans the 10bit and 4:2:2 capability but otherwise it is an insanely (new buzz word to replace awesome) capable video camera. I have discovered how to fine tune White Balance in camera, which is preferable to fixing it in post, I think. So that’s now what I’m doing making this whole Vegas thing a somewhat mute point. But I am dissatisfied when a product that I paid good money for does not perform right out of the box, as advertised, that is Vegas Pro 14, but I'm extremely delighted with the Lumix G9.

Cheers.

John, I have been using Vegas since version 6 (Movie Studio) followed by 8 & 10 then upgrading to Vegas pro for 10 & 12. It then got stuck at V13 as Sony lost interest and looked for a buyer.
Magix launched V14 with an offer to get 13 with a free upgrade to 14 (really only a Magix badged version of the Sony application), I decided to go for it. I have never had problems with the WB function although I prefer to use the Color Correction tool which via the '-droppers' allows neutral balances at high, middle and low video levels. It probably also uses some of the same code as the other WB tool.
Having decided to try Resolve 12 when it came out last year, I upgraded my platform to include a suitable Nvidia GPU. When Magix came out with a decent offer for Vegas Pro 15 upgrade, I took the bait but hhave so far been pleasantly surprised. At last they have upgraded the rendering to use the GPU with the Nvidenc CODEC. It works really well. The other gain was the ability to handle H254 streams using the higher profiles 5.1 & 5.2 which is needed for 10 bit, 4:2:2 and 2160p50 & 60, (I have a GH5). As far as I am concerned, Vegas 15 is what Sony would have got to had they no lost interest in the programme. (For me) it all works as per the can including the GPU accelerated rendering.
I will still attempt to ascend the Resolve learning cliff-face, (now at V14.3 and looking to try V15 when it settles down), but Vegas 15 is the default editor unless I want to do some difficult grading.

Thankyou Steve, most helpful, and this morning there in my inbox was a very good upgrade offer from Magix (did you arrange that -)), so I went with it as did you. I also had it in the back of my mind that this might well be the first real serious update since the Sony days and that in all likelihood it would be a better product overall, as you indicated.

Thus far I’m impressed. And the White Balance tool works too -)

I uninstalled Resolve, giving that a miss, again. I simply prefer Vegas Pro and it does what I want.

A question if I may: I note Vegas Pro 15 includes a render option for 4k I’ve not encountered previously and that is the Magix AVC/AAC MP4 which has a much smaller file size than the XAVC/S I have been previously using. Any thoughts on the differences, preferences, and what I should render as?

Again, many thanks.

Cheers

Hi Chris

If you don’t mind me asking, which exact model Nvidia card do you have?

Cheers!

Three machines. Nvidia i7 1080, Xeon dual1080Ti and on an older box a 680 which works very well in HD with v15 on XAVC-I. v15 with the right hardware is working well on our jobs.

Chris Young

Thanks Chris. I'm just in the market to update my main box. I'm pretty much editing 4k all the time now and I need the extra oomph!

I'm in a similar position to you regarding Vegas/other NLEs. I have Resolve and Premiere but I just can't cut as quickly as I can in Vegas. I think the writing is on the wall for me, though - I will move across - but I need a gap in business to do that - and I don't really want a gap in business!!

The dual Xeon with the 1080Ti handles the 4K without any difficulty with either Vegas or Resolve. I'm using Resolve for any really tricky grading. Generally though v15 with NewBlue, Magic Bullet and Tiffen DFX 4.0 which utilizes GPU I'm covered for 99% of my jobs which are mainly Rec 709 jobs like sport, entertainment, corporate. When I shoot S-LOG it's either S-LOG3 plus timeline LUT's or my own Custom mode S-LOG2 flavor neither of which give me any grief.

Funny though v15 hung on me yesterday for the first time since the Xeon box was commissioned. I think it was my fault though as I has just hit enter to start a render then realized it was the wrong render profile so within a second I hit the cancel dialogue and v15 hung. Restarted and continued to edit for many hours more and no issues. When I say it was the first v15 hang that means the first hang since June last year. I call that stable so I'm happy.

Chris Young

Ah, why didn't I think of that!

First the good news; it works in Vegas Pro 13 just like the built in WB adjuster. The not so good news (though I'm hardly surprised) is that it does not work in Vegas Pro 14, just like the built in WB adjuster.

My guess, and it really is just a cynical guess, is that both work perfectly in Vegas Pro 15!

something wrong with your v14 install then I would suggest. If the Sony WBal isn't working nor the AAV ColorLab something sounds not right. AAV ColorLab is working fine here in 12, 13, 14 and 15 so I think some investigation required. You could try a Vegas reset I guess.which is holding 'Ctrl & Shift' while clicking on the Vegas icon. BEWARE THOUGH AS THIS WILL SET EVERYTHING BACK TO THE ORIGINAL VEGAS INSTALL. If you are prepared to do that the total reset very often fixes some of the anomalies you can get with Vegas.

Chris Young

My apologies for the late response, Christopher, I've been offline.

Yes, I have no doubt you are correct. I upgraded to Vegas Pro 15 as much to experience what Magix have done and also that solved the WB problem. My new camera that got me going on this, the Lumix G9, has excellent WB adjustability and as things transpired fixing it in post is now not necessary.

Many thanks...

No probs squire!

Chris Young