Avid DVX vs. Vegas Video 3
 

Could anyone tell me what the practical difference between Avid's real time effects and VV3's real time preview is?
Avid has to render for DV output just like VV3, right?

I can't tell you a lick about VV3 except it appears that a lot of the PC guys around here use it. However, Avid I can tell you about. I don't use DVX, but I did get a chance to play with it last week. Very impresive. It should really challenge Final Cut Pro in the low/middle range of editors. Avid real time effects do not need to render. True real time is limited by amount of ram, speed of processor and to some degree speed of the drives. The number of tracks, effects, audio etc. are limited by the above factors. It plays back in real time without rendering. It's all done in the software, so to speak. My first Avid back in '93 had real time effects, no rendering, only $80,000.

If you exceede your systems limit for real time effects you may need to render certain segments or effects. The problem is you don't always know if it will play right. You preview the real time effect and everything is fine. You go to tape with it and it drops a frame. All that time was wasted and you still have to go back and render that effect. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. However, the version we tryed did just fine with real time effects. We didn't try to make it stall though, kept it simple.

Jeff

Do any of you Vegas Video guys have a take on this?

Thanks!

Vegas offers previews in real time - although the frame rate will be reduced depending on memory and cpu speed. It keeps up amazingly well on a PIII 750MHz pc. It also works with a greater range of hardware than XDV.

Vegas renders all transitions prior to outputting to tape. Although that may add a little bit of extra time up front, I'd rather know it is going to be right the first time rather than end up with a glitch (because it wasn't rendered) 1 1/2 hours into a 2 hour program.

Yes, you're correct. You must render to output in XDV. As far as I know the only consumer package that allows realtime out is the new Matrox bundle, but that's a card. Pinnacle has a line called liquid, but I'm not familiar with it.

Processor speed and the amount of memory will determine how many real-time preview layers you can use (Obviously). I think the Max is 4 layers of RT. If you have a single P4 you should be able to run a PIP and three other filters in RT.

In my opinion, what makes XDV faster than Vegas is the media management and the powerful trimming tools. It's really just an efficient way to cut.

Yes, the "Media Pool" is a known problem in Vegas. However, the easy way around that is to use subdirectories on the hard drive and just access the files via the built-in explorer window instead. This allows for very good organization. An over-hauled media pool is rumored for the next release.

As for trimming, I do not know how Avid works. However, Vegas works very well with many different options available. I do know that many people have complained in this area and suspect it will be another area of improvement in the next version.

Finally, if you DON'T want to run XP, Avid is not a solution.