I love Vegas

Douglas Spotted Eagle · July 29th, 2007, 08:35 AM

You've made most of my point, Merlin.
Seasoned professionals use Vegas. A judge/jury, whatever...obviously isn't made up of seasoned professionals, or they'd be smart enough to know that your work is judged on it's content, not on what was used to make it. Does anyone care what brand of paint Raphael used? Or what grade of sand Chihully uses? Or what kind of chisel Michaelangelo used?
Long, long after the edit is done, the work stands on its own. If you're judged by the tool you use, then you're judged by idiots.
Knowing how to use ProTools, knowing how to use FCP, knowing how to operate an Avid system can be important if you'll be working in the corporate world with other editors simply for reasons of consistency. But that too, is changing. For example, I've spent many weeks training at some of the largest broadcast houses, teaching their editing staff to use Vegas. All of them used to be Avid Newscutter exclusive.
BTW, Emmy's/Grammy's aren't "titles," but rather industry awards, voted on by peer members of the industry.
If you feel insulted, my apologies. On the other hand, it might be a good idea for you to be a bit more informed before making comparisons between Vegas and other software. Your post and Daniel's post both demonstrate a pretty significant ignorance when it comes to using the product, yet you're both making absolutist statements about what can and can't be done with the software. When in fact, the very things you both suggest can't be done, are done every day.

Merlin Vandenbossche · July 29th, 2007, 09:27 AM

No worries, my use of Vegas did not stand in the way of getting me an A for that project (and I don't mean to brag). So luckily I won't be taught by idiots that only look at applications rather than content. However still; the grim look and the fact that the editor students in our class will work exclusively with FCP or Avid starting next year looks to me as if Vegas has a certain 'co-notation' of not being an 'industry standard' yet. Then again if I had made the cut of my footage using Windows Movie Maker I still would've gotten the same grades. A cut is a cut by any means. And you are right pointing out just that.

In fact I think our angers are quite alike: I too feel dazed when my collegue students pledge an allegiance to FCP only. Definitely when I saw a job application asking editors with Adobe Premiere experience that very same day. Just to clear this out: I am a (happy) Vegas user too. All I wanted to tell is that in my environment I feel a certain degradation concerning Sony's software practically forcing me to step over (for studying reasons only :p) to the others. And I was merely suggesting a couple of possible reasons of why that is. In fact they should've been asked as questions: do the others offer a better workflow in audio? Are they better at color correcting?

Richard Zlamany · July 29th, 2007, 09:33 AM

I've seen the same where jobs ask for editors with Vegas experience. It can go all ways.

Seth Bloombaum · July 29th, 2007, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merlin Vandenbossche

...All I know is when I presented my first year's project and was asked which software I had used for editing (Vegas) the jury gave me that grim look and told me I better start working on FCP or AVID starting next year...

As an educator (as well as a 25-yr. industry pro), I can sympathize with the jury. I've been a Vegas user since it was an audio-only app, but also have to admit that if you were preparing for employment in my town, getting a good grounding in FCP and/or AVID would open up more job opportunities. Spot is right that such a jury should understand what Vegas enables as well.

Here in Portland, Oregon, we are sort of indie-central, with a solid base of corporate work as well. A medium-size broadcast market. FCP rules the non-broadcast roost.

Not that I think that is so good - my preferred editor is Vegas, by far! But if you want to work around the industry in Portland, be a power-user of FCP. I don't hire out as an editor, and use Vegas almost all of the time, except for those few projects where I'm working with another production company's editor.

Having said all that, learning to cut story is the important thing. How fast and easy you can do it is also an important job skill. Vegas is very good for me because I can be *very* productive with it, and mostly work on my own.

Jon McGuffin · July 29th, 2007, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merlin Vandenbossche

No worries, my use of Vegas did not stand in the way of getting me an A for that project (and I don't mean to brag). So luckily I won't be taught by idiots that only look at applications rather than content. However still; the grim look and the fact that the editor students in our class will work exclusively with FCP or Avid starting next year looks to me as if Vegas has a certain 'co-notation' of not being an 'industry standard' yet. Then again if I had made the cut of my footage using Windows Movie Maker I still would've gotten the same grades. A cut is a cut by any means. And you are right pointing out just that.

In fact I think our angers are quite alike: I too feel dazed when my collegue students pledge an allegiance to FCP only. Definitely when I saw a job application asking editors with Adobe Premiere experience that very same day. Just to clear this out: I am a (happy) Vegas user too. All I wanted to tell is that in my environment I feel a certain degradation concerning Sony's software practically forcing me to step over (for studying reasons only :p) to the others. And I was merely suggesting a couple of possible reasons of why that is. In fact they should've been asked as questions: do the others offer a better workflow in audio? Are they better at color correcting?

Frankly, and I don't mean this to be insulting in anyway, the population of the entire country of Belgium is about on par or even slightly less than LA and the surrounding communitites. I hardly think that whatever a few teachers over there say should be taken too seriously.

Arguments like this remind me of the MAC vs PC war's of years ago that fortunately don't seem to be to prevelant now. The facts of the matter are that Vegas is a professional quality product, nobody here has said otherwise. It is also fact that Apple and AVid also produce great products as well. Apple wouldn't be around today if it hadn't done such a good job over the years in their marketing department (It's no wonder their hardware/software costs so much more than their competition). They've always done a great job making huge inroads into schools, so if ANY school is telling you that Final Cut is the "industry standard" PLEASE take that with a grain of salt.

I can't speak exclusively for "the industry" but what I can say is that I know people have a very strong tendency to jump into a camp of comfort and defend their choices vehemently. If you disagree, just think politics... With that said, you are going to have a large group of people saying the FCP are the only way to go and others with Premiere, some with Vegas, AVID, whatever..

I can't stress enough what Douglas mentioned above which is that, in the end, content is all that matters and the form of delivery is merely a small means to the end. I think we hope that the tools we use can make up for the lack of ability and talent we have, therefore we make such a big deal about our tools.

Just my two cents...

Jon

Josh Bass · July 29th, 2007, 01:53 PM

It seems that for RIGHT NOW, if you're a production company/one-man operation who can finalize your work in house, you can use Vegas or whatever else you want, but if you want to work for someone else as an editor in the film/tv/production company environments, you need to have Avid/FCP experience. Every once in a while, I see an ad that mentions Premiere, but I think right now FCP and Avid are the industry standards. Maybe things'll change someday.

Richard Alvarez · July 29th, 2007, 01:57 PM

The more you CAN do, the more you WILL do.

Use what works for you, and develop the 'eye' necessary for being a great editor. Learn the tools you need to get a job in the area you need to get it in. (Might sound silly, but it makes sense.)

FWIW, I just checked Mandy.com for FULLY PAID post production jobs across the US. An 'unscientific' quick thumbnail snapshot of what it looks like RIGHT now.

26 Job postings looking for FCP editors

18 Job postings looking for AVID editors

5 Postings looking for Editors with BOTH Avid/FCP experience

1 Posting for FCP and Premiere experience

19 postings for 'other' sucha as Shake, Maya, After Effects, ProTools, Photoshop or the unspecified "Professional editor needed" category.

So doing the math, if you have experience in BOTH FCP and Avid, there are a total of 50 jobs open to you.

Laurence Kingston · July 29th, 2007, 02:51 PM

By the way, Vegas does do frame accurate edits. I wouldn't use it if it couldn't.

My latest project would be an abosolute pain in the but with FCP. I have 16 HDV tapes and to use FCP and it's intermediate codec would take gobs more hard disc space rather than the little $129 500 gig WD MyBook that I'm using.

I have been working with an FCP guy lately on a bunch of real estate virtual tour projects. When working in FCP, he insisted we capture with the SD downconvert because "it would take too long to render all the transitions in HD". I don't know how accurate this is, but I do know that I always work in HD on my older P4 laptop which is a fraction as powerful as his top of the Macbook Pro and I don't really find it any more cumbersome than working with SD downconverts.

As far as audio goes, I can't imagine having to export and import into ProTools. It is so much easier to just work in Vegas. I routinely use Sound Forge for fine edits of individual tracks and I have quite a few audio plugins which all work beautifully in either Sound Forge or Vegas. To me, going to Premier or FCP would be a huge step backwards.

Since I do documentary style production, I end up taking video from quite a wide variety of sources. Vegas is by far the best editor at handling multiple formats within a single project.

I use photo animations with pans and zooms quite a bit as well. Vegas is better here as well.

I use Vegas's scripting options all the time. Scripts like Ultimate S allow Vegas to do things incredibly quickly that would take ages on any other platform.

Vegas's titling capabilties are a bit lacking, but once I added Heroglyph, I found that I could make text dance around as well as anyone.

As far as the 8bit limitation goes, yeah, I wish Vegas could do ten bits. Not that it would make much difference to me right now. I am using HDV which is an 8 bit format, so it wouldn't buy me much. I do documentary style stuff so I don't do the sort of heavy color correction where working with a higher bit depth than my source material would make much of a difference, but, yeah it would be useful for those who do.

I wouldn't be going on like this except that I hate for anyone casually browsing the forum to get the idea that Vegas was limited compared to other editing platforms when that really isn't the case.

Hans Ledel · July 29th, 2007, 03:41 PM

The simple fact is that if you want to make money as an editor here in Europe you need to learn AVID and/or FCP.

AVID and FCP are the industry standard here.

If you are a Vegas editor you will not make much money in Europe

Laurence Kingston · July 29th, 2007, 05:31 PM

As I see it, Vegas has a certain niche that it fills really well: that is the small independant project. For someone like me working by myself, it is just "the bomb". I can do everything that is usually done by a bunch of people in different suites by myself and I can do it quite well.

I like working on small projects. I like being a camera guy, an interviewer, an editor, a musician, writing and recording voice overs, etc. The idea of being an editor working in a room with no windows endlessly on comercials for things like fragrances and automobiles leaves me cold. I can see where Vegas wouldn't be the best thing for somebody working in a regular commercial environment where they cut a video and send it off to another room for audio sweetening for instance. For me though, I really need the all-in-one approach.

As a Vegas user it is easy for me to see why people on the list that Spot referenced would all use Vegas. For anyone who wears many hats in a production, Vegas is by far the easiest way to tie everything together and get it all done quickly easily, at high quality, and in a way that is (most of all) actually fun.

The guys in the big post production houses use some of the best equipment and software in the world and yet they work on some of the most boring content imaginable. I don't at all feel that I need to use the same tools that they use and I wouldn't change places with them for anything.

Robert Wheeler · August 16th, 2007, 01:01 PM

I am about to make a bold statement:

Vegas will be the industry standard within 10 years.

They just need to a 10bit support and decent integrated titled and effects packages, and maybe a paint box, and you have by far the best all round package.

I have this sneaky feeling that most of the prejudice against Vegas is because it is a PC product, and it is also a Sony product. It's the only camera maker who have their own editing platform. And it is simply the best for performance, work flow and flexibility.

Rob,

Josh Bass · August 16th, 2007, 02:31 PM

It also has a somewhat silly name and most pros have never touched it, in my experience. Plus I've heard the GUI described as "Fisher Price". Apparently the key to winning hearts and minds is overly slick graphics and tiny tiny fonts that no human can read (looking at you FCP). :-)

Serge Victorovich · August 16th, 2007, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Wheeler

I have this sneaky feeling that most of the prejudice against Vegas is because it is a PC product, and it is also a Sony product. It's the only camera maker who have their own editing platform. And it is simply the best for performance, work flow and flexibility.

Rob,

Grass Valley (Thomson) have cameras and good NLE - Edius.

Douglas Spotted Eagle · August 16th, 2007, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serge Victorovich

Grass Valley (Thomson) have cameras and good NLE - Edius.

Grass Valley only acquired Edius a year ago, so I'm not sure I'd count that in the mix. Prior to one year ago, Sony is the only company with an end-to-end solution for the video production company/individual/broadcaster. Given that the Infinity is still not shipping, Sony still is the only ENG/EFP provider with an end-to-end solution.
This does tend to lead to a fair amount of prejudice.

Robert Wheeler · August 17th, 2007, 03:08 AM

Another thing I've just discovered they could do with adding (if it is not in version 7, I'm still on 6) is some more clocks like VITC and LTC that sit in the vertical blanks for broadcast on the BBC. In fact an opening clock generator and presets for BBC compatibility would be most welcome.

I had to brow beat my editor/director into using it, but when he got a hang of it, he realise how much better it was in terms of workflow, performance and reliability than any other platform. To a video editor the setup may not immediately make sense, but to someone like me who has had a background in audio applications such as Cubase and Cakewalk, it makes perfect sense.

I guess those who referred to Vegas as Fisher Price were doing the same to FCP when they moved from hours of developing and cutting film in labs. The more the tools move into the hands of the average person the better if you ask me. Even now, if you have the storage, it is perfectly feasible to edit a full 4k cinema grade movie in Vegas on a machine bought for under £500, by using the incredibly useful "replace" feature to edit dv reductions.

Its a powerhouse.

p.s. Is Grass Valley a descendant of GVP (Grass Valley Products) who used to produce mainly Amiga peripherals and I think a few PC clones? I thought they had gone bust, but i wondered if the name got picked up by somebody else...

July 29th, 2007, 08:35 AM	#16
Douglas Spotted Eagle VASST Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Stockton, UT Posts: 5,648	You've made most of my point, Merlin. Seasoned professionals use Vegas. A judge/jury, whatever...obviously isn't made up of seasoned professionals, or they'd be smart enough to know that your work is judged on it's content, not on what was used to make it. Does anyone care what brand of paint Raphael used? Or what grade of sand Chihully uses? Or what kind of chisel Michaelangelo used? Long, long after the edit is done, the work stands on its own. If you're judged by the tool you use, then you're judged by idiots. Knowing how to use ProTools, knowing how to use FCP, knowing how to operate an Avid system can be important if you'll be working in the corporate world with other editors simply for reasons of consistency. But that too, is changing. For example, I've spent many weeks training at some of the largest broadcast houses, teaching their editing staff to use Vegas. All of them used to be Avid Newscutter exclusive. BTW, Emmy's/Grammy's aren't "titles," but rather industry awards, voted on by peer members of the industry. If you feel insulted, my apologies. On the other hand, it might be a good idea for you to be a bit more informed before making comparisons between Vegas and other software. Your post and Daniel's post both demonstrate a pretty significant ignorance when it comes to using the product, yet you're both making absolutist statements about what can and can't be done with the software. When in fact, the very things you both suggest can't be done, are done every day. __________________ Douglas Spotted Eagle/Spot Author, producer, composer Certified Sony Vegas Trainer http://www.vasst.com

July 29th, 2007, 09:27 AM	#17
Merlin Vandenbossche Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Holsbeek BELGIUM Posts: 40	No worries, my use of Vegas did not stand in the way of getting me an A for that project (and I don't mean to brag). So luckily I won't be taught by idiots that only look at applications rather than content. However still; the grim look and the fact that the editor students in our class will work exclusively with FCP or Avid starting next year looks to me as if Vegas has a certain 'co-notation' of not being an 'industry standard' yet. Then again if I had made the cut of my footage using Windows Movie Maker I still would've gotten the same grades. A cut is a cut by any means. And you are right pointing out just that. In fact I think our angers are quite alike: I too feel dazed when my collegue students pledge an allegiance to FCP only. Definitely when I saw a job application asking editors with Adobe Premiere experience that very same day. Just to clear this out: I am a (happy) Vegas user too. All I wanted to tell is that in my environment I feel a certain degradation concerning Sony's software practically forcing me to step over (for studying reasons only :p) to the others. And I was merely suggesting a couple of possible reasons of why that is. In fact they should've been asked as questions: do the others offer a better workflow in audio? Are they better at color correcting? __________________ Canon XM-2 AVID Xpress Pro 5.7

July 29th, 2007, 01:53 PM	#21
Josh Bass Slash Rules! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 5,472	It seems that for RIGHT NOW, if you're a production company/one-man operation who can finalize your work in house, you can use Vegas or whatever else you want, but if you want to work for someone else as an editor in the film/tv/production company environments, you need to have Avid/FCP experience. Every once in a while, I see an ad that mentions Premiere, but I think right now FCP and Avid are the industry standards. Maybe things'll change someday. __________________ The Bass' camerawork The Bass on IMDB

July 29th, 2007, 03:41 PM	#24
Hans Ledel Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Stockholm Sweden Posts: 184	The simple fact is that if you want to make money as an editor here in Europe you need to learn AVID and/or FCP. AVID and FCP are the industry standard here. If you are a Vegas editor you will not make much money in Europe __________________ Remember, that English is my second language.

August 16th, 2007, 02:31 PM	#27
Josh Bass Slash Rules! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 5,472	It also has a somewhat silly name and most pros have never touched it, in my experience. Plus I've heard the GUI described as "Fisher Price". Apparently the key to winning hearts and minds is overly slick graphics and tiny tiny fonts that no human can read (looking at you FCP). :-) __________________ The Bass' camerawork The Bass on IMDB

July 29th, 2007, 09:33 AM	#18
Richard Zlamany Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Hamden CT Posts: 470	I've seen the same where jobs ask for editors with Vegas experience. It can go all ways.

July 29th, 2007, 01:57 PM	#22
Richard Alvarez Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: San Mateo, CA Posts: 3,840	The more you CAN do, the more you WILL do. Use what works for you, and develop the 'eye' necessary for being a great editor. Learn the tools you need to get a job in the area you need to get it in. (Might sound silly, but it makes sense.) FWIW, I just checked Mandy.com for FULLY PAID post production jobs across the US. An 'unscientific' quick thumbnail snapshot of what it looks like RIGHT now. 26 Job postings looking for FCP editors 18 Job postings looking for AVID editors 5 Postings looking for Editors with BOTH Avid/FCP experience 1 Posting for FCP and Premiere experience 19 postings for 'other' sucha as Shake, Maya, After Effects, ProTools, Photoshop or the unspecified "Professional editor needed" category. So doing the math, if you have experience in BOTH FCP and Avid, there are a total of 50 jobs open to you.

July 29th, 2007, 02:51 PM	#23
Laurence Kingston Major Player Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Clermont, FL. Posts: 941	By the way, Vegas does do frame accurate edits. I wouldn't use it if it couldn't. My latest project would be an abosolute pain in the but with FCP. I have 16 HDV tapes and to use FCP and it's intermediate codec would take gobs more hard disc space rather than the little $129 500 gig WD MyBook that I'm using. I have been working with an FCP guy lately on a bunch of real estate virtual tour projects. When working in FCP, he insisted we capture with the SD downconvert because "it would take too long to render all the transitions in HD". I don't know how accurate this is, but I do know that I always work in HD on my older P4 laptop which is a fraction as powerful as his top of the Macbook Pro and I don't really find it any more cumbersome than working with SD downconverts. As far as audio goes, I can't imagine having to export and import into ProTools. It is so much easier to just work in Vegas. I routinely use Sound Forge for fine edits of individual tracks and I have quite a few audio plugins which all work beautifully in either Sound Forge or Vegas. To me, going to Premier or FCP would be a huge step backwards. Since I do documentary style production, I end up taking video from quite a wide variety of sources. Vegas is by far the best editor at handling multiple formats within a single project. I use photo animations with pans and zooms quite a bit as well. Vegas is better here as well. I use Vegas's scripting options all the time. Scripts like Ultimate S allow Vegas to do things incredibly quickly that would take ages on any other platform. Vegas's titling capabilties are a bit lacking, but once I added Heroglyph, I found that I could make text dance around as well as anyone. As far as the 8bit limitation goes, yeah, I wish Vegas could do ten bits. Not that it would make much difference to me right now. I am using HDV which is an 8 bit format, so it wouldn't buy me much. I do documentary style stuff so I don't do the sort of heavy color correction where working with a higher bit depth than my source material would make much of a difference, but, yeah it would be useful for those who do. I wouldn't be going on like this except that I hate for anyone casually browsing the forum to get the idea that Vegas was limited compared to other editing platforms when that really isn't the case.

July 29th, 2007, 05:31 PM	#25
Laurence Kingston Major Player Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Clermont, FL. Posts: 941	As I see it, Vegas has a certain niche that it fills really well: that is the small independant project. For someone like me working by myself, it is just "the bomb". I can do everything that is usually done by a bunch of people in different suites by myself and I can do it quite well. I like working on small projects. I like being a camera guy, an interviewer, an editor, a musician, writing and recording voice overs, etc. The idea of being an editor working in a room with no windows endlessly on comercials for things like fragrances and automobiles leaves me cold. I can see where Vegas wouldn't be the best thing for somebody working in a regular commercial environment where they cut a video and send it off to another room for audio sweetening for instance. For me though, I really need the all-in-one approach. As a Vegas user it is easy for me to see why people on the list that Spot referenced would all use Vegas. For anyone who wears many hats in a production, Vegas is by far the easiest way to tie everything together and get it all done quickly easily, at high quality, and in a way that is (most of all) actually fun. The guys in the big post production houses use some of the best equipment and software in the world and yet they work on some of the most boring content imaginable. I don't at all feel that I need to use the same tools that they use and I wouldn't change places with them for anything.

August 16th, 2007, 01:01 PM	#26
Robert Wheeler Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Hertfordshire Posts: 118	I am about to make a bold statement: Vegas will be the industry standard within 10 years. They just need to a 10bit support and decent integrated titled and effects packages, and maybe a paint box, and you have by far the best all round package. I have this sneaky feeling that most of the prejudice against Vegas is because it is a PC product, and it is also a Sony product. It's the only camera maker who have their own editing platform. And it is simply the best for performance, work flow and flexibility. Rob,

August 17th, 2007, 03:08 AM	#30
Robert Wheeler Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Hertfordshire Posts: 118	Another thing I've just discovered they could do with adding (if it is not in version 7, I'm still on 6) is some more clocks like VITC and LTC that sit in the vertical blanks for broadcast on the BBC. In fact an opening clock generator and presets for BBC compatibility would be most welcome. I had to brow beat my editor/director into using it, but when he got a hang of it, he realise how much better it was in terms of workflow, performance and reliability than any other platform. To a video editor the setup may not immediately make sense, but to someone like me who has had a background in audio applications such as Cubase and Cakewalk, it makes perfect sense. I guess those who referred to Vegas as Fisher Price were doing the same to FCP when they moved from hours of developing and cutting film in labs. The more the tools move into the hands of the average person the better if you ask me. Even now, if you have the storage, it is perfectly feasible to edit a full 4k cinema grade movie in Vegas on a machine bought for under £500, by using the incredibly useful "replace" feature to edit dv reductions. Its a powerhouse. p.s. Is Grass Valley a descendant of GVP (Grass Valley Products) who used to produce mainly Amiga peripherals and I think a few PC clones? I thought they had gone bust, but i wondered if the name got picked up by somebody else...