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.

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.

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!

i too am interested in a comparison between xpress dv and vegas, but in the dv editing realm, not for cutting negetives.

I began with Premeire, moved to Pinnacle, and finally found V3...now V4. I can't say enough about the flexibility, ease of workflow and customer support that comes with this product. For DV users, this is THE NLE to us, bar none. I don't like FCP or MAC platforms. In terms of productivity and capability(compositing, effects, transitions, and audio) nothing can touch Vegas 4 in the DV world..unless, of course, you got REAL deep pockets.

Both are excellent---Vegas is stronger in Real Time Previews, Compositing and of course, Audio. Avid is good if you want to transport your project to other Avid systems and allows you lots of control of the interface.

"stronger in real time reviews"

Both systems give you real time previews. Both systems utilize processing power to "scale" the effectiveness of those previews. Vegas will drop frames as the going gets tough. Avid starts out by dropping a field... and keeps the frame rate constant. Different choices to achieve the same relative "real time" ability.
Vegas gives rt previews out firewire, avid uses either the Matrox parahelia card or the "McFly" system.

NOTE: The new MOJO box with Xpress Pro offers full res real time previews for up to five streams. See www.avid.com

I disagree---I have used both and Vegas is much more effective given the same variables. I found that there were several effects that Avid could not show real time previews for.


One thing that has been left out is the huge price swing between the two NLE's----Vegas is much cheaper. Anyhow, whatever you decide enjoy it.

I've not had a dropped frame in 18 months of using Vegas. I know people have problems, but, they also don't know much about the mechanics of their computers. I might add that I never capture with Vegas, it's too cumbersome. My capturing tool is Scenealyzer Live...which I love.

No question in both platforms, that optimum configuration is the key.

I've never used Vegas, but I've sat behind a friend who was using it, and watched it drop frames as she added tracks.

I suspect that the system was not optimized properly. Much the same can happen in Avid. It has so many different settings to customize speed and style of renderings, it can be confusing.

Like Dylan said, it just feels right. :) Hey, but...do people videotape funerals? How Macabre...

I always take comments like "More intuitive... less intuitive" with a grain of salt. It all depends on where you're coming from, what you know, what you have to "un-learn". It's a very subjective comment.

I agree with Richard, but I guess if you are a PC user, Vegas is more intuitive, since amny of the mouse clicks, keystrokes are that of the OS while Premiere has a lot of Mac influence.

Yes computer mechanics are probably the main reason for frame drops. (My job is in computers)

If you are worth your weight in salt and doing video with a $2-3000 camera, you need to update that clunker.

I have met so many people that complain about their editing system. I ask "what are you using?" a Pentium 700 with a capture card, Adobe Premiere, 128 megs of memory and 3 80 gig drives.

You can build a serious machine/computer with 2.5+ gig CPU, 1 gig fast memory, and a 400 gig raid 0 array, for less than $1500. Software is another deal.

I am new to video but I just built this system and I have had frame drops in the first 2 minutes of one tape (out of the 15 I have captured from so far); I suspect the tape not the computer or the Vegas program.

So upgrade now, prices are cheap.

By the way, I am drooling over a Mac system with Final Cut Pro, but I can't afford it yet. The Dual G4's look sweet, but I just can't spend so much on dual processors that are that slow.

Back to the subject - Adobe, Avid, or Vegas are great, support them with some good hardware. Frame drops are subject to many variables other than software.

Vegas is so easy to learn and it is sooooo "intuitive", and it does feel "right" when you use it.

Listen to me, I have been able to edit for a couple days now, and I like what I am seeing.

Maybe I should post some film soon, so I can get some critiques,

Mark

Whats the specs on your system that is dropping frames...?

My system is only:

AMD 1Ghz Athlon
Some crappy motherboard
256MB PC133 SDRAM
Western Digital 40GB & 13.6GB HDD's -- both only 5400rpm
ATI 32MB AIW video card

...and it never dropped a frame, ever, when capturing with Vegas 3 & 4.

(Yeah, I know, I need to upgrade, but I don't have a job, :D)

Bill gates is cool because and only because he has arranged things so that I can bring home bacon to feed the wife and the two kids. But alex consider this, with everyone jumping on the MS band wagon in the early turn of the century, there are actually a shortage of folks who are dedicated Mac support people. My cousin supprts the Macs in UCSF and thoguh I give him hard time, like "Your OS is not even an OS, it is an application that runs under UNIX." and " OS X is nothing new, we called it Linux," Of course these statements are not 100% true and is meant to be insulting and it really gets under his skin...

I was going to flame on the Mac, but you know what? This is neither the forum nor the time to debate this useless debate sinc e I do not own stock in neither MS or Apple, but MS does help me feed my family. But I will say this, do not count out the Macs if you are lo0oking to enter the technical field professionally at this current economic state. It may be your way into companies who do a lot of production and is dedicated to Final Cut pro. BTW, a little tidbit, Pixar, a company owned by Steve Jobs uses PC's for everything, I know an animator...and also Billy Gates has an invested interest in Apple, so the lines are really blurry.

With vegas' new scripting features, there are some new scripts to handle EDL output for various systems.
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums

select the one titled scripting. Lots of help there.

i think the "fanatacism" comes from the fact tha Vegas hasnt been over rated like Premiere...
obviously people have their faves, but when u consider the fact that most people using premiere have been doin so for a long time...

Most people never heard of vegas before version 2 came out... but it was always there...

Vegas vs Premiere... as a standalone SW only punch out, Premiere doesnt stand a chance.

in premiere it used to take about 3 days to compile my clips, trim them, arrange storyboards, effects etc etc

in Vegas i do it in less than a day...

in Vegas there is no need for multicam applications, additional title apps, and u can even set you DVD Chapter points by setting markers in your final render.
Import and voila, instant dvd with motion menu...

I think premiere is gettin on a bit... and doesnt really have anything new to offer as a standalone product...

Mind you, as Vegas' popularity grows, we'll prolly end up seeing the same kind of 3rd party plug and HW support that premiere relies on now...

converted?
Mate, im now the preacher.. LOL

I as well picked up VV 3.0, now 4.0 after messing with Premier. I noticed it was much easier to be creative.

You can even create the new WMV with 5.1 for others to share which I find sweet. So, in Nuendo, you create TRUE 5.1 sountracks and import the mono files into vegas and you got a serious soundtrack onhand. Then I assume you got an excellent 5.1 DVD to watch. Even if it's a amatuer movie, done right, can sound far better than 2.0 projects.

Not everyone has this software(Nuendo) but if you have a chance to get it, it's far worth it and gives you 5.1 mxing experience.

So, basically you can watch the movie you made, send a song thru and pan the tracks in Vegas and hear it in REAL time if you have a capable soundcard like the AUDIGY or AUDIGY 2.

My Audigy has a firewire input which helps too. I don't have a DVD recorder though yet, so I can't give you my views on how it turns out on TV. Eventually I will and although I bet it's very time consuming, once done, it should be sweet to have such good audio for your home movie. Of course no need to bother with weddings and such or your REAL life home videos, but if you make small movies it should be a nice bonus.