Jumping ship
 

Hey guys,

been a Vegas 7 and 8 user, can't stand instability and inability to render any more. So I need a new NLE.

I've noted not many post here, I guess everybody lives over at Canopus Worldwide Home, but I'm posting here to hopefully get a unbiased response. A few questions if you could bare with me.

(a) Are there any current Vegas users who haven't looked back since going to Edius?

(b) How are the Edius colour correction, audio, titling abilities - do you need a lot of plug's to make this program effective?

(c) Whats the concensus on stability and format support ?

thanks guys

regards

Adam Letch

Well, I use both Vegas and Edius. I find that they work differently and complement each other.

I've actually been slacking a lot lately (not doing video--just reading here) so I'd have to say I have a preference for Vegas in color correction although Edius does have a full set of tools--with Waveform and Vectorscopes. Ehh, I'd call it a toss-up.

Vegas was designed as an audio editor so I think I'd have to give the nod there as well; Edius has decent basic tools for EQ and such. Sorry, I don't do much titling. Previous versions came with something called Titlemotion which I never used.

Stability has always been a hallmark of Canopus products and GV seems to be continuing. They don't release it if its buggy and are pretty good about followups. With version 5, the Professional and Broadcast products are merged into one so format support is pretty good.

I attended a demo on version 5 and the new features looked good. If you use Vegas' layout tool a lot, I think you'll find Edius just as good.

In my limited use, I haven't had problems with Vegas so I can't comment there. But I'd recommend keeping Vegas and adding Edius.

I'll second what Andy said, and raise one NLE to Avid. I keep all three on my workflow list. When Vegas went south, I switched to Edius 4.6. Edius has realtime playback, rock solid. It is a little simple, sometimes, for things I need to do. Then my work started to get involved with film. OK, so not everyone works with film. But, after I got used to Avid, I really like it. There's a million ways to do something, and just as many shortcuts. It's hard to learn, and not forgiving of mistakes. But the DNxHD codecs are awesome, and timeline manipulation is pretty nice.

So, Vegas is relegated to being my DAW. Avid is my first line NLE, followed by Edius. I use "Eddy" for quick turnaround jobs. Fast and straightforward. Eddy 5 has a rather unique way of handling superblack/superwhite, but it's consistent with the way Avid MC3 handles it. Vegas is out on its own with CC. I never could figure Vegas' color methodology.

edit: FWIW...myself and others have been having problems with apps that use the Ilok licensing scheme from PACE antipiracy, since installing Eddy 5. There may be an issue there...beware.

Adam,

Our facility went nonlinear around the mid 90's. We've always use Premiere. After 8-9 years we shifted to EDIUS after premiere got so bulky. All five suites in our facility now use varying versions of Edius working with their cards and as software only.

As an editor it is stable and fast. Vegas was first an audio software, now its owned by sony, not a fan of how they do things.

Edius, formerly owned by canopus was taken in by GV. Its an old industry player in post and production business. It tells a lot on what they saw in the edius workflow.

The titler is Titlemotion, its made by industry leader in titlers, inscriber.
They also have a simple titler if Title motion intimidates you, its called Quicktitler.

BUT having said all that, its important to consider that in demanding work, some tools are meant to do things better.

Titling and compositing I do in a compositing app, in our facility its after effects.
If its a 3d title then the 3d I do in a 3d app before bringing it in AE.

Sound sweetening in another, cakewalk, audition or forge.

Putting it all together in Edius and export from there.

It would be naive to think you can have a single app for a really fine tuned work.

Of course if its a rush thing, edius can also do it all including DVD authoring with menus!


Ted

thanks guys
 

giving some good advice to chew on, I know that it wouldn't be a one stop shop, just gotta make the bang for buck factor improve. I think I'll use Sony stuff for the audio, hopefully importing a completed single avi file it'll be able to handle it so audio can be done. Avid is the standard, as is even FCP is starting to make headways, but investing in mac at this particular point is not an option.
Avid is a great option, but cost again and learning curve, I have done basic Avid stuff back in the Express days. Bill how does this cc problem occur, what form does it take? with the PACE antipiracy?

I was thinking of getting something like Zaxworks 3dtitling from Digital Juice, which is 1/2 price at the moment, any body come across this as well?

thanks

Adam

Vegas' "problem" is related to the way Sony chooses to handle superwhites/superblacks. They have a mode called 32-bit float, which is a mathematical precision option that changes the way Vegas handles superwhite/superblack. I don't know that it is "wrong", perse, just very confusing to me. Vegas seems to shift luma values, sometimes, in ways that I don't understand.

No the Pace licensing problem is a different issue. It appears that if you have more than one application on your computer that relies on Pace Ilok license, there is a possible corruption of one of the apps. I noticed this, recently, when Avid quit working after installation of Edius 5. Edius 4.64 didn't corrupt my system.

The Pace/Alladin driver conflict is a real pain, but the solution is simple when you know how(took me weeks to find out). Since GV included the solution on the Edius 5 installer disc, they obviously knew about the problem and so should have done more to let the users be aware of it.

But actually the original driver conflict is the responsibility of the dongle companies rather than GV. I don't think this issue is a reason to choose one NLE over another, however the total lack of response from GV technical support is another matter.

Richard

May I also suggest downloading the V5 Edius tryout, full version, 30 days free?

Paul

thanks guys
 

I have bought Edius 5, alreay enjoying the stability vs vegas, bit of learning curve but nothing serious. Interesting I import Vegas CC'd footage into Edius, and what Vegas told me was in the legal range turns out not to be in Edius. As you were saying Bill, they must do something funny in Vegas when it comes to CC.

If only Sony would pull their finger out, Vegas would be the editors choice of software(once third party vendors catch up and they stop treating it like a toy and get things like CC and stability and serious looking into!!) due purely to the workflow. But Edius is now going to be my workhorse, and I'm glad with my choice thus far.

The only thing I think I would really help it would to be to set it up like Vegas with a preview DVI output, I find the 2 monitor setup for Edius a bit of a waste of space, and would rather use my second monitor for full screen preview.

At the moment, I've got two 21" monitors going. The monitors and timeline on one and bin, effects, info etc on the other. I also have the HD Spark so I have HDMI out. I like!

Hi Adam. Are you using an Nvidia graphics card? The most recent Nvidia drivers don't allow full screen video on a second monitor, but if you install forceware V162.18 you can get this feature. This driver is stable on my system, and lets me see full screen video from Edius, WMP, and Quicktime on the second DVI monitor.

Richard