Vegas 4 vs Premiere 6.5
 

Hello,

I've been a keen Premiere 6.5 fan since I got into video editing on my PC, but today I got introduced to Vegas 4 and I must say that I'm _VERY_ impressed!

* Modern & responsive interface
* Easy to understand, took me 10 minutes to do my first project
* Many features that Premiere 6.5 lacks ( like ramping )
* Can capture a whole tape from my XM-2 and make Clips of it ( VERY useful ).
* Read .PSD files directly ( with transperancy and all )

It feels like Vegas is a good mix of Premiere 6.5, After Effects and Scenalyzer wich makes it a powerful blend in my opinion.

I'm already scratching my wallet trying to find some $$$ too buy Vegas for and replace my pre-historic Premiere software....

Interested in YOUR opinion! What is missing in Vegas 4? Does Premiere excel in some areas? maybe I should use them both?

The thread is open <g>

// Lazze

I gave up on Premiere. It was never really stable (sometimes I could go for days without a crash. Sometimes it crashed every 20 minutes.) It was also, well, clunky.

I like everything about Vegas expect its name and the lack of a hard copy manual (printing a 300 plus page pdf file is annoying.) Robust, stable, full featured. I am still learning the bells and whistles but overall I am a happy editor.

Hi Rick,

I worked in Vegas for about 6 hours yesterday, I'm sold! It is so good! Maybe you can do the same in premiere, but it is so much easier in Vegas!

// Lazze

I am still struggling with the Vegas interface. Lots of easy things that I took for granted in Premiere are suddenly annoying in Vegas. Scrubbing the timeline still annoys me. It is a very different interface.

Overall though, minor quibbles aside, Vegas is so much better than Premiere. Much much better editor.

Hi Lars,

Although I prefer editing on my Mac in Final Cut Pro, I have to agree with you about Vegas 4. On my Windows PC, Vegas is the best NLE I have used, compared with other NLEs, in that price range. Vegas is without doubt the most intuitive and powerful NLE for the money. Premiere was my first real NLE, and a really good one, but I think Vegas is even better.

I hope Sonicfoundry don´t have as much financial troubles as the rumors tells, because I think they do deserve to continue their work with this great NLE.

Ivan

One thing to add. I agree with you guys that Vegas seems to be the superior product, but in case of multicam editing whereas you want to transition from your A roll to your B roll, Premiere's interface seems to be less hassle and much easier to use.

Unless you guys have a better idea, this is how I see doing a multicam edit in Vegas:

Capture Camera1

Capture Camera2

Create a video track.

Go through each clip and place them on the video track and sync them up correctly.

In Premiere, if you have two cameras synchronized at the shoot, all you would have to do is capture Cam1 and Cam2 and place it on the A and B roll on the timeline and then add transitions.

Vegas makes this operation impossibly easy. You really just have to know the interface (specifically the A/B track switch).

1) If you really don't want DV clips detected, turn DV scene detection off and then capture.

2) Add a video track and click the A/B exploded icon (bottom left corner of the video track controls to the left on the timeline)

3) Toss in both your video tracks. Do all your edits on one track, split it when you want to cut between A and B, then pull the split track away from the split any time to want to be viewing the other track. Pull the fader on the split track when you want to fade between A/B.

Please let me know if this doesn't make sense. I'll post pictures. :-)

About the only downside Vegas 4 i that it does not support Canon 4-track. However, neither did Premiere.

All things considered, and considering the way Discreet treated (or rather ignored) Cinestream owners, I will probably migrate to Vegas 4.

When Sonic Foundry asked me what I would like added, I said 4-track. Well at least they are looking at it.

What's cool with Vegas multi cam editing is that you can temporarily shrink cam1 preview and cam 2 preview and put them in the same preview window so you can easily watch both camera shots and decide when you want to change cam views. You can edit 3, 4, 5,6 etc cameras this way, simutaniously seeing all the cams.

The standard answer to the 4 track problem is "scenalyzer".

http://www.scenalyzer.com

Brian, I know how to expand the track but I can't see how you can place both video clips on the smae track and transition? Please make a lair out of me :), actually with this out of the way, Premiere will get uninstalled. :)

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all your input! I've been working on a project today, 100% in Vegas ;-) it is the story of our first child ( and so far, the only one ;-).... starts with some "before" shots, mix with stills, animations(boy/girl?!?!) and the "after shots" up until 6 months of age ( she is 7 months now ).

Since this is a home/family project I have taken the liberty of using "the girl is mine" song by M.Jackson.

The only thing that I find cumbersome in Vegas is the "trim" window... still like Premiere bette there ... even though Vegas function is more advanced.... but you know what they say about old dogs and sitting ( I'm hitting 30 in June ;-)

// Lazze

Here's a 30 second, 1 MB wmv of how to do A/B tracking. Right click it and save as, or plop the URL straight in Media Player. My web server doesn't know the wmv type, so it'll try and send it to you as a text file if you just click it.

http://www.maybemedia.com/abtrack.wmv

Hope it makes sense after that, and does what you want it to.

Vegas has a trim window?

OK, I was a dedicated Pinnacle product user for a long time. I know, the 1 I was using was as basic as they come, BUT, it always worked, was stable and I could do what I had to do with it for a long time (namely, I made money using it). Alas, my old slow machine was dying a slow death and not worth fixing anymore so I took the plunge to a new hot machine and new hot Pinnacle software, after trying Prem 6.0 and Vegas 4. I was all excited, new machine, new software, ready to go 3 weddings and a bar mitzvah waiting to be done. WOW! I can't wait!!! Well, the software although powerful and I mean powerful, would not work very well on the new machine and made trying to do my work frustrating and a total hardship. A friend gave me a brand new unregisitered program that started with an AV**. I loaded it was all excited and had never come away from anything as frustrated as that. Not very intuitive. Mind you, I'm a lot older than probably many if not most here, but I'm not all stupid or senile, I just could not find anything to work. (that didn't require a 3 month learning curve) Someone said try VideoFactory 2, learn the interface and if you like it keep it OR move up to Vegas 4. I said I tried V4 and had a problem. He said, You big dummy, try it again but 1st try MF2. I did that, and the moral of the story is; I am now a happy Vegas 4 user and now understand why people like it so much. It's intuitive, easy to learn, powerful makes editing almost fun and frankly I'm learning so much everytime I use it the "AH-HA" factor is running very high right now. I already have the bar mitzvah and 1 wedding done with no problems.
Vegas users of the world, I guess you can count me in :)
Don