Hey people, I've been hearing a lot abot vegas-would you recommend it to someone like me who is a total newbie to the editing world? I know about fcp ad heard it's not user friendly.

If you have a PC, Vegas rules. Unless you'll be transferring to film or doing online edits. Then no.

I've encountered MANY pro's, who've spent years on Premiere, have a helluva time learning Vegas because the work flow is different. In my opinion, Vegas is simple, user friendly and easy to use. There's a lot of capability that's there to grow into. It works without frustrating lockups and freezes. I'd say, by all means..GO FOR IT. If you learn on an inferior product, then try to make the transition, it'll be harder than starting with V4 from the get go.

Yeah, Vegas is very easy to use. I used to use Premiere, but then I tried Vegas 4, and loved it. It took me a little while to get used to, but it's awesome now.

Three months ago I had not one stitch of experience editing. Now I feel pretty confident in Vegas4... learning something new every day. So, if I can do it, probably anyone can.

Also, make sure you frequent the several vegas forums.

I would love to see this place become a hot bed of Vegas posting---Hey Chris have you ever thought of dividing your NLE forums into product specific ones???

If Pinnacle Studio 8 worked, that would be the great place to start without editing experience, Videowave, or The Movie Maker built-into Windows XP, easy to jump into. Vegas is intuitive and stuff, but you need a good basic conceptual understanding of the editing process...well you can probably play with it awhile to learn to use it, but you won't lock the true potential!

Hi Michael,

I'd say No, if you're a complete newbie and haven't edited before, you probably won't be able to just jump into Vegas ... or any other full-featured NLE and start editing effectively.

I used Studio DV 7 for about 4 years, I remember it took me about 1 hour to get comfortable using it, maybe another 2 hours to feel like I understood it's design and felt like I could edit effectively without feeling like I was fumbling around.

When I switched to Vegas 3, I spent an hour just exploring the interface to get comfortable and to understand it. Another hour doing the tutorials. It took me another 4-5 hours to understand "how" the more advanced features features worked: f/x, compositing, masking, panning, cropping, and using keyframes - by the way the built-in tutorials aren't much use for those features. I'd say about 10-12 hours total before I felt like I understood the design and felt like I could edit effectively without feeling like I was fumbling around. I should say that about 3-4 hours was spent just playing around with the event f/x and event pan/crop (keyframe) tools trying out different things to get a handle on what those tools "really" did.

I'd say it took about a month before I felt comfortable saying, yes, I'm a Vegas user vs. yeah I own Vegas and have played around with it.

I think people are right when they say the interface is "easy" to use ... but only once you "get it". It is a great program once you get it into your brain.

The bad news is that Vegas can do so much more than an entry level NLE that you might go a little nuts and feel a bit daunted if it's your first NLE, you'd probably feel the same with Avid, Premiere, or Final Cut, the good news is that once you've got your brain on Vegas or any of the other NLEs, you'll have so much more flexibility in terms of what you can do.

sorry to disagree, Michael, but after horrible experiences with Premeire and Pinnacle, I was editting the first day I installed VV3. Unless you're a complete dolt, it should be practically intuitive.

Yeah, i'm with Bill on this one. I also got started on VV3, and it was easy right from the start. Before that I used Premiere, and I had to get used to the way Vegas worked differently, but I found that the way Vegas did do certain things differently, was actually much more better and faster. Sure it took me a while to get used to everything, like it would for any program. Hopefully you don't expect to learn everything a peice of software has to offer in a hour, do you? I am still learning new things in Vegas 4...

Michael:

I don't quite agree that Vegas is intuitive unless you have used another editor previously and can recognize some of the helpful things Vegas does that might otherwise be quite mysterious. I know this because when I looked at the Vegas 3 trial long ago, before I had any experience, I didn't get it. Then I put a short movie together with Pinnacle Studio after just an hour's work.

I agree that Studio is plagued with problems, but it's an awfully full featured product with an excellent user interface. Outside of simple things like Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker for XP, I think Studio is the best product for a starting editor.

However, I noticed you latched onto a VX2000 and mentioned documentary work in one of your posts. If you're doing serious commercial or professional work, you need something more than Studio. I'm in the Vegas camp.

Well, Rex, I will agree that their departure was a loss. However, as one of the remaining leaders, I will have to say that there is still a lot of good information available. However, notice I mentioned all three major locations - excellent information available in ALL places.

The response from vegas user's sounds pretty positive. A friend of mine in florida uses it and he highly suggested it after his frustration with learning fcp. He sold me on it but, I had to run it by the board first...lol. I understand editing is like putting together a puzzle and I plan to immerse myself into it, I just want a program in which the average person with no prior NLE experience can learn and won't get stuck in the mud. I'm checking out the suggesed vv forums now...thanks

I swear dude--if you have to have a (almost) full-blown NLE, Vegas is the way to go. The only reason not to use it, and go with Premiere, Avid, or FCP, is if you need to do separate offline and online edits, transfer to film, or enjoy banging your head on your desk. I've used all the others, and Vegas is my baby. If Vegas were a woman, I'd marry it. We'd never have children though--cause they ruin your life and tie you down.

Ed, I think you are a great asset to any forum you I have seen you post in---However, I think that we all have a responsibility to speak up when someone has been treated unfairly. In my case, I was censored merely because I had the audacity to question the morality of one of your fellow moderators. You know who he is---most people who have had experience with him would agree with me. Anyhow, I appreciate your input and support of Vegas.

Thanks, Rex.

I agree that Vegas 4 is very easy to pick up if you are already comfortable with editing video. Premier was a HUGE headache. I heard that you cannot see it's effects until it was rendered compared to Vegas. That might be wrong but I couldn't get it to work, EVER!

I moved to Vegas and love it to death.

Given the large number of Vegas users on DVi, I'd love to see a Vegas forum.