Vegas - hobby/amateur or work/buisness?

[Seth Bloombaum]

Kim, I think this sort of thing varies by region and market. These are U.S. companies (except Thomson) and the U.S. is huge in terms of the number of media markets and regions.

Here in Portland, Oregon we are in indie heaven. Final Cut is in use by almost all independants, and most corporate and production houses. Probably the #2 indie choice is Premiere, #2 for corporate and indie is maybe AVID.

AVID has a good following in all broadcast and some corporate, but Final Cut is slowly making progress into smaller broadcast operations.

I don't know what government is doing.

I am a Vegas user, 90% for client work, 10% for my documentary work and other personal projects. I do a fair amount of audio production on Vegas as well. No "home video". I also teach at a local college where we have 56 FCP stations, soon to be over 80 systems. It is very clear to us that we should be teaching Final Cut to students who are preparing for employment.

[Dennis Murphy]

I'm in the middle of evolving from serious hobby (part-time income) to fulltime business.
I originally edited with Premier Pro, but after continuous crashes etc, I tried the trial of Vegas.
Initially I found it a bit difficult to get my head around in terms of GUI, but I wouldn't look back now.
I find it's robustness far excels that of the Adobe product I used, although, I still stroke my Photoshop and After Effects packaging with misty eyed romantic fondness.

[Ian Stark]

Originally Posted by Kim Olsson

For you who using Vegas in the line of work, is it your fulltime job/fulltime income or is it a job aside your regular?

Full time since 2002. I've used Vegas since Sonic Foundry's version 3 (maybe 2, can't recall!).

I used to wish I had started off down the Avid route, purely for its industry status, but I am now of the opinion that, in the right hands, Vegas is just as capable of producing national tv standard programmes as anything else you can buy for any amount of money. Now, whether it's capable of doing that as efficiently and securely as an Avid suite, and whether it is robust enough for, say, the BBC to depend on it, is another question. But surely that's not where it's aimed.

[Ken Steadman]

100% hobby/personal

[Jamie Hellmich]

For now... hobby, church production stuff, and personal home movies, but a ton of it.

Looking to move forward and more seriously, but not necessarily event filming. Perhaps more documentary and artistic type stuff. Hey... we all dream don't we.

I moved to Vegas 6 around 3 years ago, after 6 years of dealing with "consumer" and other "semi-pro" pc based software. Shooting is one thing, but workflow, options, computer system stability, and ease of use in post are of great importance to me. Vegas fits nicely into my niche, and I've no need to look elsewhere.

Vegas has many bells and whistles, but you just ring and blow the ones you want.

Jamie

[Paul Fierlinger]

"I though Sony Vegas, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, was more for the freelancer ". Doesn't freelancer always imply profesional but working outside of a corporate structure? I use Vegas 100% for freelance work such as TV spots and children's programs, a theatrical feature film (now 7 minutes away from completion), and educational films. I am a 2D animator and my full blown animation and design studio lives in the same computer where my Vegas lives.

[Sherif Choudhry]

Originally Posted by Mark Holmes

95% professional. Our little production company, Daisy 3 Pictures, has produced two feature films, a few music videos, some corporate work and the occasional fun experiments with it. Check out the site for our latest feature - all edited, composited and color corrected in Vegas 8 Pro:

www.readyokmovie.com

That looks a really cool movie my family would enjoy - and all edited in Vegas!! - just goes to show these "which software?" discussions can be sometimes pointless - just get out and start shooting.....

Mark, If you have time would be great to know what workflow you used from camera, to capture, to cc, and render, and then output (to 35mm I assume?)

I cant wait to see it on a DVD.

Sherif

[Allen Green]

I started editing with tape to tape in the early 90's then Media 100, later Avid and last year did a project on FCP. I went freelance in 96 and work mostly in the field shooting and doing sound with the occasional edit job or my personal short films. I found FCP not too user friendly. I bought Vegas 6 couple years ago to play with (just did some home stuff, my son did a history fair project, etc). Then about a month ago picked up a Real Estate show to edit, it will air 3rd and 4th quarter on Fox Sports Southwest. Not having the budget to sink into an Avid I polished off the Vegas 6 along with Photoshop, Digital Juice elements and video tutorals from Vasst (by Doug Spotted Eagle, and one from Timothy Duncan) and with a deadline from hell its coming together suprizingly smooth. I was pleased how user friendly the Vegas is and fast to learn. My biggest problem is the guys I office with have Avid and FCP on Macs and filesharing is non-exsistant. As a freelancer I find in the larger shops Avid is still king with some FCP systems thrown in. I plan on upgrading to 8 after the dust settles. So I've been pleased with how the Vegas is performing in a professional setting.

[Bill Mecca]

I started editing on 3/4" tape in the early 80's, have some 16 mm film experience. (I was a TV news reporter/anchor) first NLE at work (1 person office in state government) was Avid's Media Suite Pro,(Mac), having the film experience, the clips, bins etc terminology made sense to me)

I have used Avid Xpress DV (PC)for about 6 years. Picked up Vegas 6 to see what it was about. I like it's audio abilities and the fact that you can make adjustments while the timeline is playing. (XDV, and Xpress Pro 4.2 which I have at home cannot).

I'm a much faster editor on Avid, but been thinking of switching at work, but am still on the fence. It will probably come down to budget. To me they are just tools to get the job done, and the best one is the one that "works they way you think."

[Kim Olsson]

Fun to read you all...

You guys seems to have so much experience with video production and NLE's and so on...

When I wrote about freelancers before, I didn't meant that they aren't professionals, my english wouldn't just justify my though...

I meant something like freelancers budget maybe are smaller, so NLE's like Vegas, Premiere and so on, suites them more then bigger TV companys...

[Ian Stark]

Originally Posted by Bill Mecca

To me they are just tools to get the job done, and the best one is the one that "works they way you think."

Amen.





(Shame I couldn't have left it at that, but this board - rightly - requires posts of a minimum length!)

[Mark Holmes]

Originally Posted by Sherif Choudhry

That looks a really cool movie my family would enjoy - and all edited in Vegas!! - just goes to show these "which software?" discussions can be sometimes pointless - just get out and start shooting.....

Mark, If you have time would be great to know what workflow you used from camera, to capture, to cc, and render, and then output (to 35mm I assume?)

I cant wait to see it on a DVD.

Sherif

Hey, thanks Sherif. Yes, just getting out and shooting is key. Although I'm not getting much sleep lately; indie filmmaking is not for the faint of heart, or wallet.

We shot HVX 200 to P2 cards, captured to duplicate USB drives, edited from drives with RayLight plug-in, CC'd in Vegas, rendered to MPEG-2 for DVD and to DNX-HD files for input to an Avid and then output to DigiBeta and Beta SP (the most common festival screening formats). We have not output to film. We are currently making the rounds of festivals; just played NewFest NYC this weekend and Philly, LA and San Francisco are next. Come see us at one!