Vegas vs. Premiere

[Jake McGlothlin]

I am new to the digital video arena, and need some help resolving some issues about a video editing program choice. I already have Adobe Premiere Elements, and have considered upgrading to Premiere Pro. Next year, once I have a little more cash I am going to buy a Mac and get Final Cut Pro, which sounds like the very best program today.

I am going to be shooting footage of fly fishing, hunting and outdoor scenes (just river water flowing and such) and will be publishing to DVD. I will also be shooting video for several web sites and am entertaining offers to shoot events such as weddings and conventions.

Vegas has a lot of fans out there, and I have heard many good things about it. I was wondering how it stacked up against Premiere in terms of:

-editing HD footage
-rendering times
-ease of use
-audio editing (do I need a seperate program to do this? I already own Adobe Audition)
-DVD authoring
-number of features
-quality of finished footage
-color correction

Feel free to express your experiences, concerns and thoughts about Vegas and Premiere. Like I said earlier, I am new to this and welcome any input. Thanks.

[Rick Steele]

Well, you're in a Vegas forum so I wonder what you'll hear? :)

I've got one foot out the door so I'll be brief:

I am a Premiere Pro user and have been for 5 years. I'm happy to say I'm 95% on the way to dumping it in favor of Vegas. (Just a few more incidental things to finish in Premiere).

In comparison, Vegas has been a joy to use and I could kick myself for not getting it years ago. It certainly doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Granted, I've only been editing SD footage at the present time.

Both have their quirks and either NLE will get you from point A to B. But for me, Vegas doesn't stop, crash and burn along the way.

[Jake McGlothlin]

Rick,

I was looking at the different versions of Vegas, and was wondering if I could do my editing, audio and dvd production without the Pro version. Do you know?

[Mike Gunter]

Hi Jake,

You can download the trial versions at Sony Creative Software - Vegas video - ACID & Sound Forge audio editing.

The studio versions are very good and have the same feel as the pro versions and are worth looking at and have upgrade paths to the pro versions.

You should download these versions and answer your questions for yourself.

My best,

Mike

[Chris Barcellos]

You can get full Pro Version of Vegas, including DVD Architect for around $200.00, the last time I looked. You buy the OEM disk of Vegas 6 at BH, then upgrade through Sony's outlet upgrade pages. That deal seems to go on and off.

Sound editing is Vegas forte, as it was originally a sound editing software.

I have both Vegas 8 and Premiere Pro 2. I am not upgrading Premiere any longer as I find myself going to Vegas for most purposes.

[John Cline]

I have Vegas Pro v8, Premiere CS3 and Avid Media Composer installed on my main machine. I have a choice of these three programs when I start to edit something. 99% of the time, I click the Vegas icon and get to work. I only keep Premiere and Avid to remain compatible with a couple of my clients.

[James Harring]

My 2 cents -- I had Premiere and liked it a lot. However going to an HDV workflow in Premiere was far more expensive proposition in Premiere, that drove my decision to go to Vegas. I really like Vegas, and while third party support may not be as broad as Premiere or FCP I find I can do everything I need to do. But I don't really push it.

I shoot the same stuff as you are contemplating and only layered effects or nested VEG files in the timeline cause serious stutter in playback on an Athlon X64 4600+ CPU. I edit M2T files natively. NEO is a great option, but I'm an amateur and can't justify the cost.

One consideration you should add. Using an NLE is somewhat like a marriage - it's not like a you can open a Vegas timeline in another NLE and expect excellent fidelity. If FCP is your final direction, perhaps you should not upgrade to an intermediate platform, as you will have to continue to support the legacy platform(s). Sure there's ways around it, but point is, it adds time obligations and complexity.

Remember, it's only obsolete if it cannot do what you need it to do.

PS Adobe is taking pre-orders for PremElements 7, may want to see if that can get you to your FCP goal.

[Von Richter]

Originally Posted by Jake McGlothlin

Vegas has a lot of fans out there, and I have heard many good things about it. I was wondering how it stacked up against Premiere in terms of:

-editing HD footage

Vegas.

Originally Posted by Jake McGlothlin

-ease of use

Vegas. The thing is, Vegas uses a different, and faster paradigm than traditional editing apps that try to emulate analog film workflow. So people who are used to those programs tend to find Vegas initially confusing. In reality, it's interface is faster/simpler than any other prosumer NLE, you just have to throw out learned habits. Coming from an audio background, Vegas made instant sense to me, since it works just like any audio multitrack program.

Also, Vegas uses the "hidden in plain site" model. It seems bone simple at first. It turns out that the advanced tools like 3D compositing etc are handily tucked away until you need them. Overall it's a very smooth layout and design.

A nice bonus about Vegas: it's a "format whore" (to quote a friend)... just about any media type or codec you throw at it will work.

Originally Posted by Jake McGlothlin

-audio editing (do I need a seperate program to do this? I already own Adobe Audition)

Adobe Audition is a great waveform editor and I recommend you continue using it.

Now, no NLE video app is a good audio *editor*, so what we need to know is which one is the best *multitrack audio mixing* application. And Vegas wipes the floor with the competition here. Vegas actually started as a multitrack audio editor, and they slowly added video over time. In fact, many people who use other NLE's still turn to Vegas when mixing time comes.

Originally Posted by Jake McGlothlin

-color correction

Vegas. Mainly for speed and ease of use.

Final thoughts:
You mentioned you might switch to mac. If you end up doing that, Final Cut is basically your only choice, and a good choice at that. If you stick with PC, give the Vegas trial a workout.

[Anthony Smith]

does Vegas compatible with canopus proCoder as a plugin ?
What dvd author software is suitable for Vegas?

[Edward Troxel]

Vegas comes with DVD Architect which is the DVD authoring program. DVD Architect 5 can do both SD and blu-ray discs.

Vegas comes with the Main Concept MPEG2 encoder. If you want to use something else, you'll have to use it as a standalone (i.e. render out from Vegas and then give that file to the other MPEG2 encoder - or use the frameserver software from debugmode.)

[Anthony Smith]

Originally Posted by Edward Troxel

Vegas comes with DVD Architect which is the DVD authoring program. DVD Architect 5 can do both SD and blu-ray discs.

Vegas comes with the Main Concept MPEG2 encoder. If you want to use something else, you'll have to use it as a standalone (i.e. render out from Vegas and then give that file to the other MPEG2 encoder - or use the frameserver software from debugmode.)

Vegas sounds pretty good in this thread. I don't have any experience in vegas.

1/ how many hours of high quality video can fit in 4.7 dvd disc (4.2 give space for blank dvd) using Main Concept encoder.
2/ Can Main Concept encoder control the amount of gigabyte? say 2.5 hours of video clips for 4 gig for example. Thanks.
The canopus procoder can control the gigabyte.

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Anthony Smith

Vegas sounds pretty good in this thread. I don't have any experience in vegas.

1/ how many hours of high quality video can fit in 4.7 dvd disc (4.2 give space for blank dvd) using Main Concept encoder.
2/ Can Main Concept encoder control the amount of gigabyte? say 2.5 hours of video clips for 4 gig for example. Thanks.
The canopus procoder can control the gigabyte.

The same as any other encoder. For longer videos, you reduce the bitrate. Reduced bitrates lower the quality, though. But you *can* fit 2.5 hours onto a single 4.3 Gig dvd (but I typically try to not go over two hours)