What is with all of the Vegas Fanatics?
 

Just to get this out right away, I have been using XDV 3.5 now for about a year, having come from the Premiere/Canopus route. What I find amusing is the degree of fanaticism displayed by those that use Vegas Video. I am curious where the excitement comes from.

Is it the result of Premiere users who've switched?
Are there any current Avid users (XDV and others) who also use Vegas?
Is Vegas capable of exporting EDLs, etc. to make it a viable option for onlining?
What is the primary market/job type/demographic for VV (weddings, bat mitzvahs, funerals...)

TIA

From what I've read on this forum, most Vegas users are coming from long use of Premiere. A few will say something like "I downloaded a trial of XDV or FCP and tried it, didn't like it."

A lot of the "new" improvements to Vegas 4 were to make it more "avid like". Better media management, color correction... These are really essential in long form editing.

My guess, (and it's only a guess) is that the majority of Vegas users are event producers.

Don't know if Vegas handles edl or can do a cut-list for conforming negatives... I suspect not. It's primarily a video editing program, with excellent audio capabilities. (Not surprising as it is made by Sonic Foundry).

BillAngstrom

Vegas' EDL capabilities are limited. As the help file puts it, "Vegas EDLs are not the same as those used in traditional linear editing suites."

The previous note hits it right on the head -- long form editing. Not only in specific features needed for that, but in a clean user interface designed for Windows that results in higher productivity. So no matter what the use, Vegas promises to be cost-effective.

Windows centricity will prove to be a strong selling point for the product. A beneficiary of that is Vegas' scripting capabilities, which will allow the huge community of Windows developers to create extensions for Vegas.

I do not think Vegas' past will have much to do with Vegas' future, which I think will be rosy. That said, Vegas 3.0's following does not seem to be homogenous, rather a spectrum from personal use to event videography to music video to independent film.

I have been a long time Premiere user, and sometimes even Vegas. While I will always use Premiere, Vegas does have several good points. I like the audio capabilities, and I feel it exports SOME formats better. However, if I had to choose just one, it wouldn't be Vegas. But that is just PERSONAL PREFERENCE

I like Vegas 3 because it just feeeeeels right, if you know what I mean. I've used it for everything from event to indie production.
Haven't upgraded to Vegas 4 yet though. If it's better, I'll be in bliss.

Just started using Vegas
 

I have logged about 10 hours of Vegas use so far. I am pretty impressed with how intuitive it is.

I have used Premiere and Ulead Media Studio Pro slightly, both were good programs but the learning curve was higher than Vegas.

I don't know if I am a fanatic, but I am excited with the results I am achieving given the little amount of time I have spent learning.

I am beginning to think the adobe crowd is more of the "old dog, new tricks" type. I know I love my Photoshop because I am comfortable using it, but it took alot time to learn what I have. Being a Photoshop fan, I was excited to learn Premier, however, it wasn't as intuitive as I had hoped.

So, I think the excitement is the ease of use and the time saved.

Just my 2 cents,

Mark

I really, really wish the new Douglas Spotted Eagle would come out... :)

Hi Justin,

Just to get this out right away: Have you ever tried Vegas?

Ivan
(Not a fanatic - only impressed)

I think "fanatic" is not really the correct word.

For myself, I use Vegas because:
1. It is reasonably priced
2. It is VERY powerful with features on par with ANY NLE (Yes, some may do things vegas doesn't but vegas does things they don't as well)
3. It has great support both by the company and other users. The forums are GREAT.
4. It lets me get the job done quickly.
5. Now with scripting, it lets me get the job done even faster.
6. It just runs... (been open and running constantly on a Win2K machine with no reboots for over a month now)
7. I don't have to worry about which "track" I place items. A/B flow doesn't make much sense when editing 3/4/more camera shoots.
8. AUDIO!!!

DSE seems to have gone to DMN from COW and thus probably won't do DVi.

But Troxel's here, which is pretty good.

I switched from Premiere to Vegas last year. I was an instant convert. I am an event guy as you have put it. Mostly weddings, training vids, and some very fun church vids Behind the Music spoofs and such.

Anyway Vegas is a real benefit for me compared to Premiere for photo montages. The pan and crop tools are really great compared to Premiere and never any jitters on any stills like I got sporadically but relatively often on Premiere.

Really great for splitting clips and crossfades (my #1 transition since it's wedding's) as I just slide one clip over another and got it. No pulling down a dissolve one at a time, no switching to cut tool and back again as in Premiere. Splitting in Vegas you just hit "S".

Never crashes through endless effects combinations. Premiere was crashig way too much for me.

I switched from Premiere before they got real time previews in 6.5 so the previews in Vegas were great.

Took me a while to get off the A/B style I was using in Premiere but now I love it.

Great compositing for an NLE and nice standard Light Rays effects. No having to by after effects and the shine plug in.

Great audio tools. I have the noise reduction plug and has really help on some noisy recordings of interviews I couldn't have cleaned up in Premiere.

The keyframing in Vegas is great compared to Premiere.

The Mpeg 2 conversion in Vegas was great. High quality and fast. No more frameserving to TMPG. Again, I switched before 6.5 and their Main concept addition of MPEG2 encoding.

I could go on forever but that's just a few reasons I prefer Vegas. Yeah there may have been a few things from Premiere I liked but I gained infinately more than I lost in the switch. Since I switched Premiere has been forced to fix issues that were lacking liek MPEG encoding and previews and their own nice titling capabilities and P7 may be great. I am really looking forward to Encore. Looks VERY cool.

Over the past year the NLE competition has exploded and there are now many great NLE's. I think for now however I am loving Vegas. A FANatic I suppose.

I'll have to put up a vote for Vegas.
Been a premiere user for 4-5 years now and only recent I got a copy of Vegas 3. It took me 3 times with vegas before I never started Premiere again.

Vegas do not crash -> Premiere did all the time.
Vegas have a lot of new feats - premiere does not.
Vegas have the upper hand when it comes to price.
Vegas supports more file formats and export better.

These are the things most important to me. Perhaps
others feel diffrent.

/Andreas

I went from Avid to Vegas--I just find Vegas to be superior in so many ways---Remember, at this point, Vegas is primary a DV editor---That will change in the near future but for DV I don't see any other program (including Avid) that has its feature set and intuitive interface.

I wouldn't call Vegas users fanatics---I think that they are so happy that they have a stable and powerful NLE and thus want other people to know about it. By the way, Vegas 4.0B update just came out---supports 24fps and HD---I would watch this NLE carefully---They are starting to develop relationships and that should bode well for future versions.

Let's face it.......
 

Without re-hashing everything above.......

Any of Adobe's products are WAY over priced IMO.
They have way too much of their pride plugged into the cost that the consumer sees on the retail shelves. Again this is IMO.

At this point there is not a low cost product that can replace Photoshop for me, but there are products that can easily replace Premeire with a lower price point. The first one that comes to mind is Vegas Video.

Ivan Wrote:

Hi Justin,

Just to get this out right away: Have you ever tried Vegas?

When I was still using Premiere, I DL'd a demo and played around with it for a spell. I am reading a lot of posts regarding its intuitive interface, and I found the opposite to be true. However, that is likely the result of having to learn the Premiere workflow. I
appreciate all of the responses and my interest is piqued. I am an avid Avid user (one could say "fanatic") and with all of the VV vs. Premiere, Premiere vs. XDV, etc. talk one finds in abundance I wanted some opinions regarding how VV stacks up against Avid.

Thanks Again!