Sony Vegas Pro 10

Hidef1080 said:
You can't generate bars in Vegas.... or did you mean HD bars and tone Premiere?
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Yes, I know you can do bars. But you can't do tone. Nor is there a countdown leader, nor any provision to create a title card. I just consider those things fundamental to a "Pro" NLE. And which bars can Vegas generate? REC601? REC709?
 
I think you misunderstood my question....

But to your point I think Vegas is missing some things that I would like to have however it really is a good NLE and it does come down to user needs.
 
You can add me to the list of people who love the Vegas interface but can't use it daily due to stability and performance problems. I absolutely love the interface but native AVCHD footage is much slower in Vegas 9/10 Pro than in Premiere. Also, the menus seem dated and it crashes quite a bit.

I'm not a huge fan of Premiere but I have no choice but to use it in this situation.
 
Hidef1080 said:
I think you misunderstood my question....
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Yes, it didn't really make sense to me, so I guessed at what you meant. Care to clarify?

Hidef1080 said:
But to your point I think Vegas is missing some things that I would like to have however it really is a good NLE and it does come down to user needs.
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I think it is a good editor. Which is why I stayed with it so long. Sadly, my needs outgrew the program. If I was advising someone who is jumping into doing this for a living, and they had needs to prep for broadcast, collaborate with others, needed to work with Panasonic media, or had more than basic cutting needs, I'd strongly advise they have a look at other packages.
 
After trying really hard to like CS5 I went and downloaded Vegas 10. A couple observations:
1. It seems much more stable than v9. I initially kicked off my current project in 9 and it crashed withing minutes. v10 has been moving along very nicely, not one crash.

2. For actually editing Vegas is a much better NLE than Premiere. Premiere does not do simple things like :
a. Show audio waveforms while moving tracks - this makes precise track alignment very difficult
b. Have track level or Master level effects (you need to set effects on *every* clip!)
c. A less flexible UI that forces a weird seperation of Audio & video.
d. more convoluted editing - most things require more steps to accomplish than in Vegas.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
Overall I found CS5 to be a much slower process to accomplish things.
 
Perrone--
I am pretty amateur at video editing (thus the reason Vegas probably suffices for my needs but not for others like yourself), but help me understand some of your comments/critique of Vegas.

You said Vegas lacks captioning ability, but I see that Vegas Pro 10 has Close Captioning functions including importing and exporting that in a number of formats; am I missing something here, doesn't Vegas support captioning?

You said Vegas can not lock tracks. That surely seems like a useful feature in an NLE. But you did say there was a script for that, and I see from the Vegas 10 Tools menu there is a Scripts submenu for running all sorts of scripts, so perhaps indirectly Vegas can do track locking and I suspect many other extended feature by way of the script extensions; if so, I am okay with that, seems like a good way to add extensibility, though as you point out it seems like a no-brainer that Sony should have just included that in the software to begin with.
 
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I am running two instances of Vegas Pro 10, currently rendering a 1080p two hour video, and have at the same time been running Firefox and playing Unreal Tournament (hehe!). Been doing that sort of thing lots the past couple of weeks, no problems, no crashes, just runs smooth. Windows 7 64bit, 16GB, Vegas Pro 10. I have to say I had all sorts of freeze up and crashes before when I was using Windows Vista 64 bit Ultimate (hey Microsoft, how about a refund on that piece of &#% operating system?).

Phil1076 said:
You can add me to the list of people who love the Vegas interface but can't use it daily due to stability and performance problems. I absolutely love the interface but native AVCHD footage is much slower in Vegas 9/10 Pro than in Premiere. Also, the menus seem dated and it crashes quite a bit.

I'm not a huge fan of Premiere but I have no choice but to use it in this situation.
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Perrone-- I also just checked, I can add effects to HD video and play back the video project in real time and see the effects operating on the video at full resolution preview mode, so I am not sure what you mean when you said something about that not being possible? Unless I misunderstood you.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Perrone--
I am pretty amateur at video editing (thus the reason Vegas probably suffices for my needs but not for others like yourself), but help me understand some of your comments/critique of Vegas.
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Randall_Oelerich said:
You said Vegas lacks captioning ability, but I see that Vegas Pro 10 has Close Captioning functions including importing and exporting that in a number of formats; am I missing something here, doesn't Vegas support captioning?
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They hinted at this in later versions of Vegas 9, and only made it truly work in Version 10. It's been a federal mandate since before version 7 was out. I waited three years. Those getting into the program now have the benefit. Although you still cannot do open captions which I am forced to provide from time to time when we cannot guarantee the viewer will have provisions for captioning.

Randall_Oelerich said:
You said Vegas can not lock tracks. That surely seems like a useful feature in an NLE. But you did say there was a script for that, and I see from the Vegas 10 Tools menu there is a Scripts submenu for running all sorts of scripts, so perhaps indirectly Vegas can do track locking and I suspect many other extended feature by way of the script extensions; if so, I am okay with that, seems like a good way to add extensibility, though as you point out it seems like a no-brainer that Sony should have just included that in the software to begin with.
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Yes, that script is available now. But 3 months ago it was not. It seems so fundamental. You can lock tracks in the consumer versions of other NLEs. Not having it in a Pro app is just beyond silly. And as shown with the little script, it wouldn't take much to add it. But what about the thousands who buy it and don't know about the script? How are they to know? They'll just have to walk on eggshells like I did for so many years. That's crazy when you've got work to get out the door.

I am currently editing a movie on the other machine here in my office. I dragged my music score onto a track. And locked it. Now I am adding clips to the video and audio tracks above it and playing with them. No need to worry about anything with the music. It's not moving anywhere. I can just FORGET them. That kind of peace of mind is just invaluable when you're working on a film with 17 shoot days, and 21 scenes. I can't be worried about "nudging a track out of sync". This is my first big project in Avid, and so far it's been amazing. I REALLY thought hard about doing this one in Vegas, but decided it was time to make the jump.

Again, Vegas IS a good NLE. I just ran out of patience with some things, and had to move on.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Perrone-- I also just checked, I can add effects to HD video and play back the video project in real time and see the effects operating on the video at full resolution preview mode, so I am not sure what you mean when you said something about that not being possible? Unless I misunderstood you.
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How many tracks are you running? And what effects? Drop Magic Bullet on one of those tracks and tell me how it works...
 
I might leap to FCP or something else when I do an indie feature. For shorts, Vegas suffices. But I can see where FCP or Adobe might need exploring at that stage if I reach it. I recall back when I got Vegas 7 though, Adobe and FCP looked more powerful, but when I dropped two hours of HD (one video track, one audio track) into all three, FCP and Adobe royally SUCKED and could not play back the video in the NLE, scrub through it ,etc where as Vegas ruled, rocked. That is what sold me on Vegas starting with version 7. Maybe things have changed since.

I have Cubase 5.5 full pro version, if and when I score music to video I will likely pull the video into Cubase to score it in that sequencer, but I can definitely see how impt locking tracks is. I know my first short I was all over the map with accidental clips moving around, edges not tight against each other, caused all sorts of issues.

I might have to give the trial version of FCP and Adobe a look in the near future for when I might crossgrade after using Vegas for short films.
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I found this on the web, from years back, a simple solution to lock a 'track' in Vegas. Not as elegant as could be, but looks like a pretty simple lock track solution:

"Right-click the first event on that track and select "Select Events to End". Now right-click that first event again, choose "Switches", and then choose "Lock". This locks all events on the track - not specifically the track."
 
altarvic said:
http://vegasaur.com/text-generation-wizard
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Hey, and only $80. Too bad it doesn't import any industry standard subtitle formats like you might get from a captioning company. But I can use Belle Nuit, or one of my other programs to convert.

This is really one of the things about Vegas that's frustrating to me. Yes, if you need open captions, you can buy something that works with Vegas to do it from a third party. If you need to work with Panasonic files, DVFilm has your plug in. If you need titling, Boris has an answer. If you need keying, Red Giant has Primatte... etc.

The problem is, by the time you get all the third party tools you need, you could have bought an integrated suite with all that built in... and that is all designed to work together. For those not ready to jump into that right away, Vegas offers a nice base that will let you grow into things. And it's getting more capable all the time. I just wish they'd spend less time fooling with stuff like 3D editing, and more time shoring up the basics.

I did use Vegas tonight for a few minutes to prep something for encoding. I need to learn more about manipulating basic audio in Avid.. and SOON. :)
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
I might leap to FCP or something else when I do an indie feature. For shorts, Vegas suffices. But I can see where FCP or Adobe might need exploring at that stage if I reach it. I recall back when I got Vegas 7 though, Adobe and FCP looked more powerful, but when I dropped two hours of HD (one video track, one audio track) into all three, FCP and Adobe royally SUCKED and could not play back the video in the NLE, scrub through it ,etc where as Vegas ruled, rocked. That is what sold me on Vegas starting with version 7. Maybe things have changed since.
r
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Nah... Vegas still lets you do this. As long as it's not a .MOV. And as long as you've got one layer or just a couple. Otherwise it holds up just fine. Programs like FCP and Adobe don't manage things like feature films well all on a single timeline. That is why you see a GREAT many features cut on Avid. When you can put the likes of Avatar on a single timeline (VFX, sound track, dialog, etc.) and just play it out... that's why Avid is what it is. In the others, you typically open up a project per scene or whatever, and mange things that way.

All of them have different ways of working...
 
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Originally Posted by Randall_Oelerich
You said Vegas lacks captioning ability, but I see that Vegas Pro 10 has Close Captioning functions including importing and exporting that in a number of formats; am I missing something here, doesn't Vegas support captioning?
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PerroneFord said:
They hinted at this in later versions of Vegas 9, and only made it truly work in Version 10. It's been a federal mandate since before version 7 was out. I waited three years. Those getting into the program now have the benefit. Although you still cannot do open captions which I am forced to provide from time to time when we cannot guarantee the viewer will have provisions for captioning.
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Well, three years ago, I did not even know Vegas exists. Closed Captioning is usually done outside of NLE. Captioning software MacCaption costs much more than Vegas. However, as far as offline Closed Captioning goes, Vegas is doing great. CC create, import, preview, edit, export and print are all there now. Since previewing CC is there, Open captions is just a ready addition. I am so proud to achieve this within 12 months from scratch. Well, be honest, I am not happy that MPEG CC support is held back
due to 3rd party codec issue (fixed now though), otherwise Vegas is already a perfect offline captioning software.
 
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nancy said:
Closed Captioning is usually done outside of NLE.

...Vegas is doing great. CC create, import, preview, edit, export and print are all there now. Since previewing CC is there, Open captions is just a ready addition.

...otherwise Vegas is already a perfect offline captioning software.
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Here is what I wanted...

We have a program that needed captions. I sent off that information off to our captioning service, and they sent me back a transcript and a caption file in the format of my choosing. What I wanted to be able to do was open that file in Vegas, and create either closed captions to go to broadcast, or to create open captions for special users, or encode that to a .WMV/MP4 that would format those captions to play along with the online viewers. As of last spring when I made the choice to leave Vegas, that was not possible. Now, much of that is possible. I applaud Vegas for doing it, sadly, it took 3 years too long for me.
 
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