Anyone here from Vegas?

[Rick Steele]

Vegas Video I mean. I'm currently a PPro 1.5 user and have been with Premiere since version 6.0.

I'm looking to jump ship and just wondered if any of you went from to Vegas to PPro? (And why?).

[Paul Kepen]

Just wondering why your thinking of "jumping ship." What is it that you don't like about PPro, and what is it you like better about Vegas?
I have pinnacle studio and premiere elements. I'm currently experimenting with the trial versions of PPro 1.5 , Vegas 6, and Liquid. From what I can see, they all have very poor help files, that don't help with most things. They go on and on about rudimentary things, and some extremely esoteric stuff, but the stuff in the middle that an average user or a new user with some experience w other editors would need is missing/ hard to find.
Adobe's nested drop down boxes and all the little arrows you have to click to get to the slider controls are not real quick/efficent. I also don't like the way the timeline doesn't keep moving to keep the current time indicator on the screen during preview/editing. Also, is there a way to preview a transition/effect before applying it so you kind of can see what it does? It would sure be nice, but I haven't found a way to do it.
Vegas, on the other hand does not seem to have as extensive a set of filters, so you spend more time tweaking with curves, etc. Also you can't use + - to strertch/compress the time line. instead the scroller bar can be stretch or squeezed to vary the timeline. The problem with this is that as you move the mouse to slide the scroll bar, it often only want to go into the expand/contract mode. Also Vegas does not seem to have an easy way to do frame fwd/rev and no jog wheel.
Liquid nice screen and color correction, but limited flexibility in setting up your work area as you'd like, and difficult to understand manual (pdf file).
If I was a smart programer, I could make lots of $$$ by writng a new editor that combines the best features of each:)
One other observation, in both Vegas and Premiere, it does not seem that the professional version really offers very much over the amatuer version for the price difference. Both the pro and amateur version functions and look identical in Vegas, and very simmilar in Premiere. Yes you loose some things on them like 2ndary color corr, a 2nd source monitor (instead of a button to switch the 1 monitor back and forth in elements, although, all versions of Vegas, even the full pro Vegas 6 only have 1 monitor window).
One BIG DISCLAIMER - I don't claim to be an expert by ANY means on these, and there very well maybe shortcuts and so forth that I'm unaware of. I would like to know any of them, as it could well sway my purchase decision. I do need HDV capability as I just got a Sony HC-1 yesterday. Also, I would like some sort of reasonable cost way to do multi-camera editing. The sweet spot might be the Vegas Platinum edition, about $130, it does HDV and has the Hi-mid-low color correction wheels. I don't know if its hdv performance is the same as the full Vegas 6 or not ie does it use some version of the cineform connect transcoder?

[David J. Payne]

what is the main difference between PPro and normal premiere? I have never used pro...

[Paul Kepen]

Okay, I just learned by playing around how to move 1 frame at a time in Vegas - just use the left & right arrow keys.

The Difference between Premiere Pro and Premiere? I'll take a stab at it. I've seen some Sony Vaio computers that came with "Premiere" pre loaded on them. I think its an older version (6.0?) The current version is Premiere Pro 1.5. It also can be purchased as part of the Adobe Video Collection. There is also the consumer version, Premiere Elements. Have a good weekend everyone!

[Rick Steele]

Just wondering why your thinking of "jumping ship."

Having some stability issues right now. Mainly with complex projects use lots of nested sequences. My project files are getting corrupted and won't load half the time. I'm forced to live life on the edge, make many redundant copies of the project file and basically pray I get things finished other than that, Premiere Pro works fine for me for basic "no-frills" projects.

And I know little about Vegas. It's interesting though. While I've found others that have given up on Premiere and switched to Vegas I haven't found anyone giving up Vegas for Premiere. (I've asked this same question in the Vegas group).

I've also been tinkering with Liquid. I just don't know if I have the stomach for this one. Every time I load it I quit in disgust because I find it difficult to do even the simpiliest tasks. (Granted, this is my fault for not devoting the time to learn it). I also have used Pinnacle's Studio 10+. Now, I wouldn't consider using this professionally (particularly this buggy version) but since it also uses Liquid's rendering engine and has a lot of problems I can't help but wonder if Liquid has some quirks as well.

Help files I don't care about - plenty of info available for any NLE on the web. (forums like this, downloadable PDF's, etc).

I know what you mean about the inteface in Adobe Apps... real cumbersome at times. The UI really needs an update IMO.

Also, is there a way to preview a transition/effect before applying it so you kind of can see what it does?

Other than double-click it and then select "Show actual sources"... No. Believe it or not previous versions used to do this but for some reason not Premiere Pro.

Also, I would like some sort of reasonable cost way to do multi-camera editing.

Which is what's supposed to be in Premiere Pro 2.0 expected out in a few months. I've decided to wait and see what that version brings.

Can't speak for Vegas though - But I will warn you... Selecting the "dumbed down" versions of these products (Premiere Elements and Vegas MovieStudio) will cost you money in the long run. I gaurantee that as your editing skills improve you're going to find something you want to do but can't simply because of the limitations of these entry level NLE's. (They are priced that way for a reason).

what is the main difference between PPro and normal premiere?

A lot. Far too much to cover here. Some die-hards might say it got worse, especially those that liked A-B style editing which was removed in the Pro version. But we adapted.

What concerns me most about Adobe is their lack of updates. Time between version changes is far too long and they always seem to be playing catchup.

[Paul Kepen]

So Rick Steele, do I understand you tried Pinnacle Studio 10 for HDV and found it "buggy" ? I've used studio 9 and found it worked for short simple projects, but longer pprojects- over 30 min with transitions, filters, titles, etc. just seemed to bring it down. Like you, I would make back ups, and hope and pray. Sometimes when it would crash, it would come back up right where it had been, other times I'd find 4 hours of work down the drain. In experimenting with Liquid I've only had it crash once, seemed to loose a bunch of my work, but then strangely I found it had just added it, like a duplicate, at the end of the time line. I think switching editors is a pain, and I'm experimenting with 3, but its driving me crazy trying to figure stuff out. Maybe I should have spent the $$ for a Mac and FCp?

[Rick Steele]

do I understand you tried Pinnacle Studio 10 for HDV and found it "buggy"?

An "understatement" if I ever heard one. Studio 10 fails out of the box and hasn't gotten a decent review yet. (There's an uprising in Pinnacle's forums right now). Avid/Pinnacle is working on a patch - supposed to be out 1st quarter. I really can't say enough "bad" things about this product or Pinnacle - I think it hit the shelves in beta mode.

Yeah Paul, I've heard about Liquid 7. The only thing it's got going for it is it was originally an acquired product meaning the coders at Pinnacle didn't get a chance to screw it up before they got it. I'm just not too keen on the background rendering it does if it's anything like Studio. But a lot of folks do swear by it.

Maybe I should have spent the $$ for a Mac and FCp?

Any NLE will have its base camp of cheerleaders. Personally... I prefer my mice with 2 buttons.

[Bob Schneider]

Rick,

Just an observation, but I think more people have switched from Premiere to Vegas primarily due to the sheer volume of people who adopted Premiere from the early days of NLE, and due to some of its shortcomings in some of those early versions. There are also MANY more Premiere users overall. This can be attributed to Premieres early strategy of co-marketing and bundling its software with various hardware venders such as Pyro & Matrox over the years. It has built a huge user base. However Premiere seemed to be a complicated program to learn to many users. Vegas came along which seemed a little more user freindly to some. It obviously has become a popular program. All these software programs keep evolving, improving, and becoming more powerful, which of couse is good for all of us.

Bob

[Paul Kepen]

Rick - thanks for the info on Studio 10. I have used Studio 9 and 9+ and they seemed prone to crash whenever a project got longer then about 20 minutes or so. I started out with Studio and Video editing 2 years ago. What is your favorite NLE over all, and why? What are your opinions (pro/con) of the NLE's you have used?

Bob - Same question - what do you use/ like the best - and why you like it, and what NLE's you've tried.

Of the ones I've used or experimented with (Pinn. Studio, Liquid, Premier, and Vegas - I'd say I'm torn between Vegas and PPro. They each have things I prefer/dislike versus the other. Everyone seems to think Vegas is so much easier to use, but I find them about the same. I see Video Guys has packages with the Adobe Video Collection and the Cineform HD for a fair price, but I don't see any similar package with Vegas. With Vegas, I think you still need the Cineform Connect HD to get reasonable resposiveness with HDV. Is this correct, or is Vegas good with HDV without the addition of Connect HD?

Thanns, and have a good one - PK

[Bob Schneider]

Paul,

I play around with both. It is all personal preference as to which one is better. As has been debated endlessly, it boils down to which one feels better to you. They are both very capable and are constantly evolving. My advice is to try the demos online for a time, and make a decision. The sooner you commit to one or the other, the sooner you can become proficiant at the program. Choose one and learn it well. You can't go wrong with either one. It's ultimately the users talents that will shine in the end.

Bob

[Rick Steele]

And I echo Bob's sentiments as well. Don't put so much emphasis on the "canvas" when creating that materpiece. I've seen things done in Windows Movie Maker that have literally brought me to my knees.

I can also say that one should try and choose an NLE that best suits your current hardware - unless you're starting all this from scratch which would work the other way around of course.

For now, I've decided to wait until Premiere Pro 2.0 gets released 1st quarter and see what that has to offer. The buzz is it'll have multi-cam support and "might" include DVD authoring right in the app a.k.a. Liquid Edition style. I also hope the UI has been redesigned but that would require a change to the entire creative suite and I don't know if they've had enough time for that.

But I can gaurantee... that if my substantial investment in 3rd party plugins "do not" work with PPro 2.0 (as is the tradition with Premiere upgrades it seems) I will drop it like an old hat.

- Rick

[Paul Kepen]

Thanks guys for your input. I agree, I 've heard people that are passionate about one or the other (Vegas + PPro), but after spending time with both, I can't really say that one is superior to the other. There are certain aspects of each of them that I prefer, but in the balance they seem about equal.

That being said, the demo versions don''t have all the features enabled, so maybe more of a difference would be noticed in the full version. For instance, Vegas is suppose to be great for audio, but the demo version has most of these features greyed out.

I have a panny GS-400 and a new Sony HC-1. I would like to mix footage between the two, so were talking SD and HDV. Will both of these NLE's do mixed SD/HDV?
I know PPro needs the Cinneform Aspect plugin. Does Vegas do HDV without the Cineform Connect plugin (with reasonable performance)?

The cost of the Adobe Video Collection with the Aspect plugin is $950 vs $450 for Vegas+DVD. However, how much is the Cineform plugin for Vegas (if I need it/I think I do)? They don't seem to have a bundled price, like they do for Adobe. Would you say the full Adobe Video Collection is more complete and capable then Vegas+DVD (it has AfterEffects +Audition)? With Vegas do you I need Sound Forge + Acid to be comparable? Are they both equal at converting 60i to 24p?

Rick, sounds like you use Adobe, and obviously must be frustrated with it if your thinking of jumping ship. You've probably played arould with the Vegas demo, did you like it? PPro 2 sounds very interesting, where are you getting the info/rumors about it? Until you mentioned it, I had no idea there was a new version in the works.

I could become comfortable with either of these NLE's. It boils down to: 1. The best quality output. 2.Performance (realtime perf.+speed rendering to DVD) 3. Price.

My system: AMD Athlon X2 4200 dual core, 2 gig Ram and 1300G of hard drives.

Thank you all, and Happy Holidays - PK

[Rick Steele]

PPro 2 sounds very interesting, where are you getting the info/rumors about it?

Check Adobe's Premiere Pro forum. (I'd give a link but the forum rules don't allow it). Adobe is notorius for their Non Disclosure Agreements so yes, info is a rumor at best but the realease date will be 1st quarter of 2006.

[Paul Kepen]

Thanks Rick