No, you're right Danny. It stinks...really does.

Despite my disappointment, I still give Sony kudos for being the first 64 bit NLE (they are the first, aren't they, or am I mistaken?).

I became disenchanted with Vegas a few months ago, but after looking around at the alternatives (for the tenth tiime) I've made my peace with it and have to admit that dollar for dollar, Vegas is a great program. Luckily I'm still shooting in SD, or I'd be singing a different song, I'm sure.

Biggest disappointment by far is the lack of 64 bit plug-ins. I still can't believe I didn't think of that in advance...

Great Thread-

I understand the Panny/Sony market share issues, and thanks. We've been a bit behind on the P2 technology but just purchased 3 200's. Amazing camera! We will start the Raylight wraps i guess. Can someone advise if the EX1 in Vegas is a better decision for workflow? Also with so much 64b disqualifications, could someone start a list of what will not work? Because it will suck bad if I download "c" or .1 and my plug ins turn grey...

Thanks

Ive been down that road also, and still keep coming back. We produce one of the few National Broadcasts totally created in Vegas and our EP just ordered all shows for 09 to be cut on FCP or AVID. My time is running out...

Actually Fred, your 32 bit will work just fine after installing 8.1...and 8.1 appears to be totally backwards compatible, no issues there. You can work on a project in 64 bit, reopen it in 32 bit seamlessly...and go back and forth all you like. I imagine it would be possible that some kind of file corruption could occur, so I'm not going to go back and forth unnecessarily...

My Ultimate S works great still with my original 32 Vegas installation and yours should also.

Jeff, are you saying 8.0 and 8.1 can co-exist on the same machine?

You'd think so unless you carefully watched Task Manager when Vegas 8.1 started. Later versions will come from synchronized code.

Jump right in, the water is fine!
 

Fred: Absolutely, that is what I've found...and Sony says (somewhere, forgot where I read it) that 8.1 is backward compatible.

I've opened up a lengthy project created in 32 bit, resaved it with another name to be safe, opened it up with 64 bit, and then reopened it in 32 bit then saved and reopened in 64 bit again.......no problems at all.

As I mentioned, though, I'm not going to press my luck by going back and forth unecessarily. At this early stage that is only asking for problems until more is known. Other than the freezing of 8.1 when attempting to view with firewire display, it is a painless installation, and so far I see NO danger of using it alongside the 32 bit version.

hmmmm...

I've been playing with the preview window and WFM, 8-bit vs. 32-bit float. Could it be? Did Sony fix the preview monitor and WFM problems? It's behaving differently than v8b. No mention of a fix in the 8c changes, but, perhaps there is more to this than Sony wants to admit. It would have been nice to annunciate whether the WFM calibration is REC601 or 709.

I think despite unaddressed issues and imperfections this is a decent first version of a 64 bit NLE. I hope there is more to it than they have said...would be a pleasant surprise. Now, if I could only get it to preview on my JVC, I'd much happier.

Any thoughts Bill?

This might be a dumb question but can a .veg created with Vista 64bit be openned with the 32 bit version?

Garrett,

Look at Jeff's reply 4 boxes up ;)

New issue for me: in 64 bit, two clips appear to be invisible to Vegas when playing back and when rendered. Very strange. When I open the project in 32 bit, it is fine.

If the project had been created in 64 bit, I bet the problem wouldn't be there.

Uninstalled 8.21
 

I uninstalled it. I'm done with it for now. Hopefully when I reinstall windows, etc, one day it will go better.

Overall, Vegas 8.1 seems fine, just a couple of bugs that I cannot workaround. It definitely runs fast and renders faster. At this point 64 bit is a novelty, and not much more.

With the issue of no plug-in support, I don't suppose it's worth much to me as it is. And with the inability to preview and AND invisible clips, I just don't have time for it.

I plan to keep an eye on these threads and see you how the rest of you do. What is strange to me is that so few are reporting their experiences...I would have expected droves of reports by now...

It's a friday, most people will start speaking up over the weekend.

I was lucky enough to read this thread before I upgraded. I ended up installing 8c rather than the 64bit based on your experiences. I'm in the middle of episode one of an eight episode project, so I think going to hold off until I finish.

I plugged in our Cannon HG10 and the software now imports and plays its flavor of avchd files flawlessly (so far). Other than that I like the new trim window...

I'm suprised I've not heard any comments/feedback related to the notorious black frame issue. Wasn't that to be fixed in this release? I frankly have never quite been able to figure out what the problem was that people were having but many Vegas users complained of this problem and it seemed a major one due to be "fixed".

Any word on this?

Jon