Vegas Pro alternative
 

Long story, I shall try to be brief. Been using Vegas Pro editing software since day one. Currently using Vegas Pro 14 and the WB eyedropper doesn’t work. Never did. I sent a request for help to Magix which went unanswered, and the online forum was no help. Now I can’t even install Vegas Pro 13 on my new Windows 10 desktop as I’m told ‘Your trial has expired’. Wadiya mean; I purchased that product some time ago and it’s supposed to be good for my life, I thought! My plan was to load a video file in Vegas Pro 13, use the WB eyedropper, save the veg file and load it in Vegas Pro 14. Perhaps not the best way to proceed.

As I think it through these days I really don’t need the functionality, the complexity of Vegas Pro products, All I need is color correction, sharpening adjustment, WB correction, cutting, trimming, fading and suchlike.

Here’s my question: is there a free or cheap product I should consider as an alternative rather than fighting with Sony Creative Software/Magix, and basically getting nowhere?

Many thanks.

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

gave up vegas after magix bought it. have been using resolve with great effect. very steep learning curve, but well worth it.
resolve also happens to be free ;-)

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

Thankyou Leslie, what a great thought! I downloaded and installed Resolve. Fortunately not such a big learning curve for me as I easily remember this software, more or less, from my original BMPCC days.

And now I'm up and running, smiling as I uninstall you know what...

Cheers, and thanks again.

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

That's a shame Leslie.

I use Resolve as well but with regards to sheer speed so far I can't get up to the speed of editing that I'm capable of with Vegas 15 which now has great support for the latest Nvidia cards. With the 1080i card I have real-time Best / Full 50p playback of XAVC-I 220Mbps HD with color correction, curves etc applied. It's also been rock solid on the current TV series so far. As it is a history doco series all the archive material is a mish mash of every resolution, codec, AVI, MOV, MPEG etc, format and frequency, 50./60Hz that you can think of and V15 hasn't buckled at any of it when doing the ARC'ing and standards conversions..

As regards the white balance tool in Vegas it was never much good. By far the best WB tool I have ever used in Vegas is the AAV ColoLab tool, and it is free to boot! Apart from WB it has numerous other correction and level functions. A very useful tool. Oldie but a goodie!

AAV ColorLab

Chris Young

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

Yes the AAV ColoLab WB is excellent and the Plug In is quite versatile as well. Within Vegas you can use the Colour Corrector to set your White Balance with great accuracy.

Richard

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

I gave up on Vegas when Sony sat on it. I know I sound disgruntled but after Magix bought it and released their update which was a lot of stuff we'd been asking Sony for for years, I gave up and went back to learning FCPX with Premiere probably in my future.

I too have been with Vegas since Sonic Foundry. Given updates for Vegas cost what they do, an Adobe single program cloud subscription for Premiere is logical. Just my two cents.

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

Thanks folks, appreciate the input.

Always subscribing to the notion not to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face I decided to pursue the Vegas route one more time. I finally got Vegas Pro 13 working - a loop in the registry Magix support told me - but essentially to no avail. The program does all I need however it was not designed for working in 4k using a 4k monitor and with my less than absolutely perfect youthful eyesight things are too small to comfortably read. And while the white balance eye dropper tool works perfectly a saved veg file does not respond when opened in Vegas Pro 14. I did a complete clean reinstall of Vegas Pro 14 and the white balance tool remains totally non-functional. This is on a new Windows 10 desktop computer with a new Nvidia graphics card, just as useless as it was on my older Windows 8.1 desktop.

An suggestions?

Resolve is OK but while the price is right I much prefer working with Vegas Pro.

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

John,

Here's what I did a couple of months ago. Since I was buying a C200, I wanted to see how my Windows/Vegas machine could do with the 4k footage, not the Camera Raw, just the 4k. So I downloaded a demo of Adobe Premiere and used my Vegas 13 to test out the playback on my NLE, with a 2gb video card. Adobe Premiere played back the 4k footage like a dream. Now I didn't have any effects, just the footage. Vegas stumbled all over itself. And for giggles, I downloaded Resolve. So that was enough for me. It just doesn't make any sense for Vegas to be so far behind the curve.

My test was a simple one, but it made sense to me.

Re: Vegas Pro 14 White Balance Problem
 

Many thanks Steven, I hear you.

(I have re-worded the thread title to reflect my evolved thinking).

I have a new desktop computer sporting an Intel i7-7700 processor along with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card and that setup handles 4k files in Vegas Pro 14 with ease. My problem is only the white balance tool and it should function in Vegas Pro 14, I believe. I am quite inclined to get Vegas Pro 14 working as it should, that is the white balance tool being the only fly in the ointment, rather than look at other products, for now.

I do appreciate your simple test and how it made sense in your situation however it is not applicable in my situation.

If anyone can enlighten me about the White balance tool functionality, the lack thereof, in Vegas Pro 14 I'm all ears and shall be forever grateful.

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

In post #4 I entered the link for the AAV ColorLab plugin. Download the 64 bit one and check it out. In Vegas I don't think you would use any other WB picker once you have used it. If you have made a bad pick to reset the picker just click on a white are of the plugin interface then re-select the picker and again choose in your picture what you want to be white.

AAV ColorLab

Chris Young

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

Thankyou Christopher, and I did download the 64 bit plugin and was somewhat puzzled by that which appeared when I selected it in Vegas Pro 14 and Vegas Pro 13. Here is what I see.

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

You need to select the top left checkbox if and then click on "adjust" to access the WBal panel. Then follow the info in the screen grab. Easy when you get the gist of it :))

Chris Young

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

Ah, why didn't I think of that!

First the good news; it works in Vegas Pro 13 just like the built in WB adjuster. The not so good news (though I'm hardly surprised) is that it does not work in Vegas Pro 14, just like the built in WB adjuster.

My guess, and it really is just a cynical guess, is that both work perfectly in Vegas Pro 15!

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

Let me place this in context. I purchased a new camera, a Lumix G9 which has the video functionality of the GH5 sans the 10bit and 4:2:2 capability but otherwise it is an insanely (new buzz word to replace awesome) capable video camera. I have discovered how to fine tune White Balance in camera, which is preferable to fixing it in post, I think. So that’s now what I’m doing making this whole Vegas thing a somewhat mute point. But I am dissatisfied when a product that I paid good money for does not perform right out of the box, as advertised, that is Vegas Pro 14, but I'm extremely delighted with the Lumix G9.

Cheers.

Re: Vegas Pro alternative
 

John, I have been using Vegas since version 6 (Movie Studio) followed by 8 & 10 then upgrading to Vegas pro for 10 & 12. It then got stuck at V13 as Sony lost interest and looked for a buyer.
Magix launched V14 with an offer to get 13 with a free upgrade to 14 (really only a Magix badged version of the Sony application), I decided to go for it. I have never had problems with the WB function although I prefer to use the Color Correction tool which via the '-droppers' allows neutral balances at high, middle and low video levels. It probably also uses some of the same code as the other WB tool.
Having decided to try Resolve 12 when it came out last year, I upgraded my platform to include a suitable Nvidia GPU. When Magix came out with a decent offer for Vegas Pro 15 upgrade, I took the bait but hhave so far been pleasantly surprised. At last they have upgraded the rendering to use the GPU with the Nvidenc CODEC. It works really well. The other gain was the ability to handle H254 streams using the higher profiles 5.1 & 5.2 which is needed for 10 bit, 4:2:2 and 2160p50 & 60, (I have a GH5). As far as I am concerned, Vegas 15 is what Sony would have got to had they no lost interest in the programme. (For me) it all works as per the can including the GPU accelerated rendering.
I will still attempt to ascend the Resolve learning cliff-face, (now at V14.3 and looking to try V15 when it settles down), but Vegas 15 is the default editor unless I want to do some difficult grading.