I'm thinking of switching from Vegas to Edius

Kit Hannah

Kit Hannah

Veteran
Hey all,
I'm thinking of switching from Vegas to Edius here pretty shortly as we have decided to go with the P2 native workflow. I'm not really interested in converting all of our footage to some other format before I can edit it. Time is money.

Can you guys weigh in on a few things?

1. What's the learning curve for Edius if I'm a former vegas user?
2. How are the transitions and effects in comparison?
3. How does the workflow compare?
4. Can we edit from the timeline?
5. Does Edius take advantage of dual and quad processor systems?


Any other info that anyone has would be great.

Thanks!
Kit
 
Kit -

I've considered doing the same, but I have a pretty good investment in time and experience with Sony software so I hate to switch. I use Vegas 8 Pro, Sound Forge 9, Cinescore (plus all theme paks), and Acid. They all have similar interfaces and workflow and interact seamlessly together. I also use Boris Red 4.2 for compositing and titling (and Blue for 3D).

Why not use DVFilms Raylight? You can natively edit mxf's in Vegas, plus it allows you to convert the files you need to self contained AVIs that can be used in compositing programs. It also gives you other tools such as 2:3:3:2 pulldown removal of 1080p/24 or 30 footage; writes back to P2 cards; and gives you DVFilmmaker for making 24p footage out of 1080i footage (such as from an HDV camera - very helpful for matching footage to HVX material).

Costs less than $200 and no new workflow to learn and it enables you to use a variety of computers without any special cards. I have a DuoCore laptop with 2g ram and an inexpensive workstation I built with QuadCore Pentium, 4 gigs ram and a Quadro 1500FX gfx card.

My workflow is to store the mxf files on input on one hard drive, and then convert all footage with raylight to AVI and have Raylight store them on the hard drive I'll be working from. That way I have backup of the source and have already done the work to have all the footage for use in other programs as well. I've also started shooting in 1080p so I do the pulldown removal at same time. Also, the AVIs are viewable in thumbnails as well in any explorer window.

I'm still learning this business so I'm far from an expert. But I do think Raylight with vegas is a solid platfrom. And both are very easy to deal with as far as updates, support, etc...

Let us know if you make the switch. I'd certainly be curious!

Mark G
www.newmediadevcorp.com
 
Ducatimark said:
Kit -

I've considered doing the same, but I have a pretty good investment in time and experience with Sony software so I hate to switch. I use Vegas 8 Pro, Sound Forge 9, Cinescore (plus all theme paks), and Acid. They all have similar interfaces and workflow and interact seamlessly together. I also use Boris Red 4.2 for compositing and titling (and Blue for 3D).

Why not use DVFilms Raylight? You can natively edit mxf's in Vegas, plus it allows you to convert the files you need to self contained AVIs that can be used in compositing programs. It also gives you other tools such as 2:3:3:2 pulldown removal of 1080p/24 or 30 footage; writes back to P2 cards; and gives you DVFilmmaker for making 24p footage out of 1080i footage (such as from an HDV camera - very helpful for matching footage to HVX material).

Costs less than $200 and no new workflow to learn and it enables you to use a variety of computers without any special cards. I have a DuoCore laptop with 2g ram and an inexpensive workstation I built with QuadCore Pentium, 4 gigs ram and a Quadro 1500FX gfx card.

My workflow is to store the mxf files on input on one hard drive, and then convert all footage with raylight to AVI and have Raylight store them on the hard drive I'll be working from. That way I have backup of the source and have already done the work to have all the footage for use in other programs as well. I've also started shooting in 1080p so I do the pulldown removal at same time. Also, the AVIs are viewable in thumbnails as well in any explorer window.

I'm still learning this business so I'm far from an expert. But I do think Raylight with vegas is a solid platfrom. And both are very easy to deal with as far as updates, support, etc...

Let us know if you make the switch. I'd certainly be curious!

Mark G
www.newmediadevcorp.com
Click to expand...

Yeah, I definitely considered Raylight, but I'm not really interested in a "workaround". Time is money, so if that means changing my editing workflow to better suit my application, I will be happy to do that. Most professional editing systems don't have that much of a learning curve when coming from other systems. Kinda like trading in the Mercedes for a BMW - even though things may be layed out in a different manner, and have a few different features, you'll get used to the drive. Hell, you may even like the drive better.

I want to be able to edit natively, so I will either be going the Edius route or Newtek Speededit. It should save a lot of time in the long run.

I will keep everybody updated and post some feedback in a few weeks when we're rolling.

Thanks
Kit
 
Kit Hannah said:
Yeah, I definitely considered Raylight, but I'm not really interested in a "workaround". Time is money, so if that means changing my editing workflow to better suit my application, I will be happy to do that. Most professional editing systems don't have that much of a learning curve when coming from other systems. Kinda like trading in the Mercedes for a BMW - even though things may be layed out in a different manner, and have a few different features, you'll get used to the drive. Hell, you may even like the drive better.

I want to be able to edit natively, so I will either be going the Edius route or Newtek Speededit. It should save a lot of time in the long run.

I will keep everybody updated and post some feedback in a few weeks when we're rolling.

Thanks
Kit
Click to expand...

Raylight IS native dvcprohd and the plugin is fully integrated with Vegas. It's not a workaround but lets you edit MXF files directly in the timeline.

Also be sure to consider the audio mixing capabilites of Edius vs. Vegas or the other program.
 
mvb said:
Raylight IS native dvcprohd and the plugin is fully integrated with Vegas. It's not a workaround but lets you edit MXF files directly in the timeline.

Also be sure to consider the audio mixing capabilites of Edius vs. Vegas or the other program.
Click to expand...

So, are you saying that Raylight instantly lets me drag and drop my files into Vegas directly from the P2 cards? No waiting or encoding or anything? Because with Edius and SpeedEdit, that's what you can do. From what I have gathered, it looks like there are different levels of raylight and you must render or transcode the video to... I didn't think you could just drop things on, but I could be wrong. Wanna explain how this works? Because if I can't just drop my P2 media directly to the NLE and start editing, I'm going to a program that can. But if raylight does in fact allow you to drag and drop onto a Vegas timeline, I would not be switching programs.... Raylight is much cheaper than either of the 2 programs and I know Vegas pretty well....
 
By the way, I just did some research on raylight and what other people have been saying. It would be perfect for us, but no 1080/24pA pulldown removal? That's a deal breaker. That's THE deal breaker. It means that we have to go to an interm codec and that's the whole reason of this post - dropping Vegas because of it.

We will be shooting, editing natively and outputing full 1080 24p & 30p for display in their native formats for advertising purposes. I don't want an extra step in our workflow. There are times that we have projects that have 8-10 hours of video times 5 cameras and I am not going to spend the time transcoding everything before we edit. That just won't work for us.

Excuse my language, but interm codecs I think are Bull $hit. Might as well capture tape. Just another way to get money. And if Vegas is not going to support DVCPRO HD, that's totally fine, but they just lost my business. For Sony not to support a MAJOR format just boggles my mind - they are alienating way too many people. Just my opinion. I think Raylight is probably wonderful and I know Cineform is great, but IT'S JUST ANOTHER STEP. More steps = more time and that is not what I want to be doing - having a whole day of transcoding and having to double the hard drive space. We're a business, in business to make money doing what we love. Extra steps don't fall in to that category.
 
I don't know about 24pa pullodown or not. They bring update pretty often, so that might be old information.

I made the switch from Vegas to EDIUS a little over a year ago before raylight was a "viable option" for me.

Now, with Raylight, you can take full advantage of the P2 workflow in Vegas as Marcus said. The only difference between it with Vegas or Premiere, etc. and EDIUS would be the speed (unless this has changed). EDIUS is known for it's speed, and since native support is built into the program that is also going to make a difference, of course. It's just going to take more of a computer with a Raylight/Vegas setup to get the same kind of realtime performance you could expect from EDIUS.

I've thought often about switching back to Vegas and getting on the Raylight bandwagon.... But, I might wait until I can afford a hoss 8 core machine or something :)

but, Raylight is the bomb from everything I've heard from people using it.

Later,
Jason
 
Thanks for the info, Jason. Do you find that there is anything that you can't do in Edius or miss about Vegas? Are basic cuts, fades, transitions, motion, etc. easy enough to learn compared to Vegas? How about effects and color grading?

Thanks
Kit
 
EDIUS is pretty capable when it comes to CC, but it appears a lot of it's functionality is buried in White Balance.

Truthfully you are asking the wrong guy, as I am a novice editor and was just getting a little proficient with Vegas when I made the switch.

Vegas is super intuitive, and I loved that about it. I also loved the drop anything on the timeline and edit in realtime, but that wasn't the case anymore when it came to using it with p2, so I chose EDIUS where that was the case, and the single most important factor in my NLE choice. To allow me to take full advantage of the workflow and to edit in realtime.

Things work a bit differently in EDIUS than in Vegas, but it's certainly capable. Not as robust as other NLE's, but I think that is starting to change since 4.5 and as we move forward under Grass Valley ownership... time will tell though.

If you haven't tried the demo of EDIUS, you should. It's a hefty download though at like 460 megs or so, but it will let you have full functionality, including the broadcast features (which you will need for the HVX).

You could also download the Raylight demo from www.dvfilm.com and try it out. I believe their demo has no time limit... It just watermarks the video.

For EDIUS demo, check at www.canopus.com

I'd elaborate, but I don't think I'm qualified. Intuitive? Vegas all the way. Powerful, fast, and capable? EDIUS. Keep in mind, I think the last version of Vegas I used was 5.... or maybe a little of 6. And, back before it was Sony owned is when I got my first introduction to it.

Later,
Jason
 
Kit Hannah said:
1. So, are you saying that Raylight instantly lets me drag and drop my files into Vegas directly from the P2 cards?

2. No waiting or encoding or anything? Because with Edius and SpeedEdit, that's what you can do.

3. From what I have gathered, it looks like there are different levels of raylight and you must render or transcode the video to... I didn't think you could just drop things on, but I could be wrong. Wanna explain how this works? Because if I can't just drop my P2 media directly to the NLE and start editing, I'm going to a program that can. But if raylight does in fact allow you to drag and drop onto a Vegas timeline, I would not be switching programs.... Raylight is much cheaper than either of the 2 programs and I know Vegas pretty well....
Click to expand...

1. Yes

2. No

3. It works by allowing you to drop MXF files into the timeline and edit them directly. There is no intermediate. By the way it also removes pulldown. I suggest you read the documentation and try it for yourself, you seem to have gotten a lot of bad information. http://dvfilm.com/help
 
Kit Hannah said:
So, are you saying that Raylight instantly lets me drag and drop my files into Vegas directly from the P2 cards? No waiting or encoding or anything? Because with Edius and SpeedEdit, that's what you can do.
Click to expand...
Yes, it allows that. In fact, every major NLE now allows that -- EDIUS, SpeedEdit, Avid, Liquid, Premiere Pro CS3. The only ones that don't allow it natively (Vegas and FCP) can have that same functionality with Raylight.

Raylight for Vegas is great, but it's not 100% perfect. It doesn't allow for using the metadata within the editor, for example -- not Raylight's fault, it's Vegas' fault, but EDIUS and PPCS3 allow it. It doesn't let you encode an MXF file for output directly within the app, you have to do a two-step process (render out to a Raylight AVI, and then convert that file to an MXF using P2 Maker). It works, but EDIUS lets you render out directly from the application. Minor things.

I've got EDIUS, Vegas, and PP CS3 all installed on my laptop. I reach for Vegas/Raylight first, every time. Why? Because I know Vegas the best, and I'm too busy (and yes, lazy) to really learn the other apps. Vegas is a tremendous editor, becoming more and more hampered by Sony's xenophobic approach to non-Sony formats (meaning... they'll support Sony stuff, but if it's made by someone else like Panasonic or Canon, well, maybe they'll support it, maybe they won't, maybe they'll support it later, etc.) They still don't support DVCPRO50 or DVCPRO-HD natively, and they don't support Op-Atom MXF as used by Panasonic, Thomson, Avid, and others. And they didn't initially support AVC-HD from any camcorder other than Sony; Canon and Panasonic users were left out in the cold. And while they had HDV support for the Canon HV20, apparently they "broke" that support in V8. Those are the kinds of things that never happened in the old pre-Sony days, but they're happening now, and it doesn't take a political genius to figure out that Sony products are being favored and non-Sony products are being treated less-equally.

So -- if you're going to stick with Sony-only for the rest of your life, Vegas is probably the perfect editing platform in all ways. It's really very good. But if you plan on using other manufacturers' equipment, other platforms may prove to do a better job with those. And on EDIUS' behalf, they're always first -- they have native support implemented quicker than anyone else.

I love Vegas. I hate the philosophy that's guiding it. That's why I have CS3 and EDIUS and SpeedEdit now; I'm looking for a new home. I've heard someone say that VEGAS stands for Virtually Everyone's Going Away, Sony. I don't know how accurate that may be, but EDIUS, FCP, and PP CS3 definitely have a lot of new converts. Avid seems the big loser in the end-user market share, and I believe I read that Liquid is slated for being discontinued.

From what I have gathered, it looks like there are different levels of raylight and you must render or transcode the video to...
Click to expand...
No, Raylight can on-the-fly interpret your camera-original footage into a lower-res version for faster playback. The camera-original MXF is always available (blue), but Yellow and Green can be created on the fly. You have the option of creating a low-res Red proxy which'll play in realtime on even a pig of a system, but modern laptops are plenty fast enough to handle Yellow and I think mine can even deliver realtime performance in Green, which is 90% of original quality.

Because if I can't just drop my P2 media directly to the NLE and start editing, I'm going to a program that can. But if raylight does in fact allow you to drag and drop onto a Vegas timeline, I would not be switching programs.... Raylight is much cheaper than either of the 2 programs and I know Vegas pretty well....
Click to expand...
Raylight makes that possible, yes. The only editors that don't allow that are FCP and Vegas, and Raylight overcomes it for both of them.
 
Kit Hannah said:
By the way, I just did some research on raylight and what other people have been saying. It would be perfect for us, but no 1080/24pA pulldown removal? That's a deal breaker. That's THE deal breaker.
Click to expand...
Then you'll love Raylight. It's supported 1080/24pA removal has been part of Raylight since day one. It's always supported removing 24pA pulldown, and it supports it two ways: you can drop an MXF file onto a 24p timeline and it'll strip out 24pA pulldown on-the-fly, or you can render out a pulldown-free .AVI file, your choice.

We will be shooting, editing natively and outputing full 1080 24p & 30p for display in their native formats for advertising purposes. I don't want an extra step in our workflow.
Click to expand...
Then you'll love the Raylight workflow. But just be aware that the direct import doesn't support things like User Clip Name, so if you're dealing with that much media then media management might be more of a hassle than it would be on EDIUS.

There are times that we have projects that have 8-10 hours of video times 5 cameras and I am not going to spend the time transcoding everything before we edit. That just won't work for us.
Click to expand...
Agreed. That's my biggest beef with the FCP workflow too (but at least Raylight gets around that as well.)

Excuse my language, but interm codecs I think are **** ****
Click to expand...
Agreed.

Might as well capture tape.
Click to expand...
AGREED! If you can't edit the camera originals, you're not getting the true benefit of a tapeless system. That's why I never understood why people aren't screaming at Apple for full native support. But that's a fight I apparently lost long ago. I'm just glad that every other editor on the market (except, of course, for SONY Vegas) has recognized and implemented true native tapeless editing. And for those who just don't get it, Raylight rides in to save the day.

And if Vegas is not going to support DVCPRO HD, that's totally fine, but they just lost my business.
Click to expand...
I think I can confidently say that they will never support it natively; they instead will rely on third parties to support non-Sony formats that they don't bother to support themselves.

For Sony not to support a MAJOR format just boggles my mind - they are alienating way too many people. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...
Not just your opinion, but the opinion of lots and lots of us.

I think Raylight is probably wonderful and I know Cineform is great, but IT'S JUST ANOTHER STEP.
Click to expand...
Cineform is, but Raylight isn't. Just install the plug-in, then there are no intermediary steps. Drag the files from your P2 card right onto the timeline.

More steps = more time and that is not what I want to be doing - having a whole day of transcoding and having to double the hard drive space. We're a business, in business to make money doing what we love. Extra steps don't fall in to that category.
Click to expand...
Preachin' to the choir, my friend. I also think that introducing those steps defeats the whole purpose of shooting tapeless in the first place. Why "digitize" an already-digitized format? Just edit it. That's where the power and beauty of a tapeless system can come into its own. If you don't want to work that way, you don't have to -- but to use a system that PREVENTS you from working that way? I don't get it.
 
Jason Ramsey said:
Now, with Raylight, you can take full advantage of the P2 workflow in Vegas as Marcus said. The only difference between it with Vegas or Premiere, etc. and EDIUS would be the speed (unless this has changed).
Click to expand...
Not strictly true. You get all the benefit of native instant editing, yes, but the difference is in media management. EDIUS has full support for all the camera metadata, including the oh-so-useful User Clip Name. Raylight can't support that in Vegas (well, I don't think it can be supported; all I know for sure is that it isn't yet supported). You can view all metadata at all times in EDIUS, and you can export an MXF directly from EDIUS, including setting metadata right from within the program. EDIUS has superb P2 integration, perhaps the best integration on the market. From what I've explored PP CS3, it has all the same integration except for one bit that I don't remember right now. The very best integration is from Premiere with Axio, where the Matrox drivers actually integrate P2 support into Windows so you can see metadata and icons and such right in your Windows Explorer.
 
Thanks for your comments, Barry.

But I guess I just need a little clarification...

Vegas with Raylight WILL support DVCPRO HD 1080p on the fly? No extra steps?

Also, you mentioned about rendering.... For the time being, we'll most likely be rendering to something like an avi file or something as lossless as possible. Are we able to do this directly from the timeline?


So here is what I want to do:

1. Pop the P2 cards straight into the computer.

2. Transfer over my 1080 24p & 30p footage to Hard Drive (possibly skipping this step if we need a fast edit)

3. Drag and drop those 1080 24p & 30p files straight onto the timeline.

4. Edit, add effects, cc, blah blah

5. Render to avi or mxf and be done.



Is this a realistic workflow with Vegas & Raylight? Because this is what we're looking for. If Vegas can deliver this without a hitch on our fast editing machines, I'm all for it. But if there's going to be a problem or more steps, we'll be switching.

Thanks everyone for your help!
 
One thing I didn't mention is that I use Boris Red 4.2 from Boris FX directly in Vegas and outside of Vegas. It is a great titling and compositing program that sometimes gets slighted because of older versions that had a less than intuitive interface. If you are working in AE, you would have to make AVIs regardless.

Boris Red is applied as a video FX or as a media generator and it will work with the P2 mxf files in Vegas without converting them to AVI first. The only time you have to convert to AVI is if you are using clips outside of Vegas (Boris Red is standalone as well). Because of the Vegas internal structure, you cannot use the time/motion filters (i.e tracking, chroma keying, de-shake) but the other filters are excellent and titling is fantastic. When I need to work outside Vegas, I just make a Raylight AVi and I'm in business.

Boris Red also works inside of Edius if you were to invest in that system as well later on.

Mark G
www.newmediadevcorp.com
Check out my digital signage clips done in Vegas and Boris Red under samples. Vegas also offers the ability to turn the screen 90 degrees while working. Don't know if Edius or anyone else is doing that. But it works.
 
Shooter said:
Why are you not considering Premiere CS3?

P2 workflow is simply drag and drop.

Just curious.
Click to expand...

Well, when I first started editing, I used Premiere. have not used it since the first CS because I didn't care for it all that much. I like the way Vegas does things. I typically edit directly from the timeline and it's so quick and easy.

So I have been playing with Edius. I think that I decided I don't like it. I have been trying to get used to it and cannot seem to wrap my brain around the workflow and how things are layed out. Maybe it's because I am so used to Vegas. I edit about 1000 projects a year and I really don't want to change, so I guess I will bite the bullet and buy Raylight. I think the user interface is "cool looking" on Edius, but that's about as far as it goes. I don't like how the timeline is handled, I guess I just want everything to look like Vegas, work like Vegas, etc. So I'm just going to stick with Vegas.

Thanks for your comments everybody.

Kit
 
It's always difficult to learn a new editor, word processor, OS, etc, and it's because we get "used to" what we first learn on, or use the most.

Heck, I still run into problems switching between programming languages every now and then... Of course it doesn't help that the same function is strcmp in one languages and strcomp in the next, heh.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top