Vegas vs. Premiere/Pro
 

After doing some countless research and reading several reviews, I have come down to either getting Vegas or Premiere/Pro as an program to edit my footage. Now, can you guys, with experience, list the pros and advantages of each program? I find myself leaning toward Vegas of it's better stability, less power-demanding, and supposedly easier to learn.

Don't forget costs as well. I don't remember how much both
packages cost, but I'm assuming you will have to take that into
account as well.

I think there are a lot of pros and cons to list for both packages,
depending on who's using them. Why not try the demos of both
products and see which one YOU like best? In the end both can
basically do the same (I don't know how good the color correction
tools in PPro are though) except that Vegas is better with audio
and has scripting support.

Other than that it basically boils down to which package you like
and works for you.

Vegas is a solid choice
 

I have both and I'd have to say I use Vegas more, its just so much more versatile and rock solid then premiere pro although I still like P-Pro because it has so much support and I have a lot of plugins from all my past Premiere versions that still work with P-Pro. If your a new editor Pro will have a much faster learning curve , but once you get down Vegas you may never go back. So what am I saying? Oh geez...... I love them both but Vegas is the one I'd go with if I could have only one!

I'd download the shortcut keys list for Vegas (it's in the Vegas forum here) and check out the Vegas demo. The shortcut keys list shows you all the editing tools in Vegas.

Paul, the good news is, if you get proficient in either one, you can produce high-quality, professional results, so there is not a wrong decision here. I'd agree with Rob -- download both demo versions, and see which one you're more comfortable with. I grew up with Windows Movie Maker, then Pinnacle Studio (garbage IMO), then to Vegas. I downloaded both, and Vegas just seemed much more intuitive to me, but I have heard that experienced P-Pro users can struggle getting used to Vegas because some of the concepts are different.

I was originally attracted to Vegas due to it's almost cult following, and the fact that it was a rock solid application.

So, good news here is you probably can't go wrong with your decision -- just be sure to allow yourself time to learn the application.

Hi,

Both Vegas and Premiere Pro are solid programs that you can do just about anything you want to do with NLEs.

There are other choices, too. Edius 2.0 from Canopus is now available in an OHCI package, and Ulead's Media Studio Pro is quite a bundle for little cost.

Most of these have demos available for download so you can see what features you want or need.

Best of luck.

The thread for the keyboard shortcuts for Vegas can be found here

Also remember, while Premiere DOES have more plug-in support, the amount of plug-ins that work with Vegas has now started to grow. There's a large list of links for Vegas plugins in this thread

Well, anyone ever get opposite results? Like I know some people say the Vegas renders faster than Premiere and then I've heard others who say the opposite on the same equivalent system, too! I'm interested in actually having a side-by-side rendering/speed/performance comparison between the two!

If your NLE/comp system does not have enough power, what is the disadvantage that you will get? Is it only the "wait time" of the rendering?

Well you are proving my point exactly David. Why not do the
comparison yourself with the two demo products? Whichover
product is fastest on my dual P4 3.4 ghz machine (fictional)
might not be the best on your brand new AMD64 machine (fictional).

As others and I have pointed out try the demos of both products
side by side on your system and see which ones work for you
in the type of work YOU want to do. A radial blur is probably
slower in Vegas then it is in PPro, but some argue that he quality
of the blur is better in Vegas.

No-one will work exactly like you and have the exact same system,
basically. So the best person to test this for yourself is YOU and
nobody else.

Basically you will have to wait longer before the render is done
indeed. As pointed out different things can have a different
quality from one package to the other. Audio tools are notably
better in Vegas than in PPro etc.