an aside:

interesting that ae keeps cropping up as some sort of 'missing link' in vegas and / or somehow not having such options built into vegas somehow diminishes its value as a nle.

as a user of nearly every nle out there i don't recall ANY of them having ae abilities 'built-in', and that when required, such 'ae' fx would always be done in ae itself.

conversely, ae isn't adapted to any serious form of editing, such as doco / wedding / etc.,

finally, whenever i have the need for such fx that can only be created in ae, i usually go to an experienced ae editor - it's simply not worth my time and energy to learn such complex software to the degree i would require in order to create what i wanted. (i have owned ae for many years and have done some relatively minor fx work with it)

bcc7 is a relatively good (maturing) compromise (within vegas) - but it's by no means ae. then again, as i wrote, neither is ae an nle

Thanks all. My conclusion is I should probably take advantage of the special pricing on CS5.5, if for nothing else, than to get access to After Effects. I will probably continue to use Vegas for the majority of my editing, but since I already have extensive experience in PPro, I will have that to go to in collaberative situations.

The next rub will come when a new upgrade is annouced, and the pricing that may be involved there.

Thank you all for your input. Again I did not intend to be insulting to anyone out there and I thank you for your input.

You do have motion tracking in Vegas with Boris BCC 7 and Boris RED 5

How solid an implementation is it? I started getting in to AE and Nuke for that feature, but if I can stay in Vegas, that'd be better.

Chris, just a thought...if you really need only AE and just occasionally at that, it MIGHT be worth checking to see if getting a month subscription whenever when the need arises. In that case, if an upgrade occurs (estimating around April-ish next year with their new release schedule), you automatically are entitled to it.

If you go with traditional licensing, of course you don't HAVE to upgrade to a new version if your current installation is doing the job for you. But then again it is tough to resist trying out the new "toys" each time, eh?

Before any of you Vegas people elope with After Effects, I'll double down on Boris, it truly supercharges your capability. And if you must run off with another software, go with Nuke, it's the darling of Hollywood VFX houses and just a better software than AE.

Brian:

Sounds like it time to do a Boris v. AE v. Nuke thread....