Switching from Vegas to Premiere CC

M

mitteg

Active member
Hello,

I would like to know if anybody made the switch from Vegas to Premiere. I have been using Vegas since version 4 when, in my opinion, Vegas was far superior to other NLE's like Premiere which kept crashing all the time. But now things have changed. There are some things that I like from Vegas but others that I hate and lead me to try another NLEs. Here are my thoughts:

Things I DO NOT like about Vegas
- I always have to right-click clips and select "disable resample" in order to avoid ghosting when rendering
- Cannot move markers along with the clips, they stay fixed on the timeline and not attached to clips
- There is no native intermediate codec (Have found Avid's DNxHD or Cineform not reliable on Vegas). There is no "easy way" to render to/from intermediate codec like Premiere or FCP. Something like ProRes and FCP.
- No integration with After Effects like Premiere does
- No Mac version. Would love Vegas to be cross-platform. Would love to make the complete switch to MacOS and get rid of windows (virus, updates, slow downs, formats...)
- Slow rendering (compared to adobe media encoder)
- Occasionally freezing when rendering
- No Industry Standard (like avid, premiere, grassvalley, fcp). Not taken seriously. This really does not bother me, but certainly it is that way and means less plugins, less resources, etc.
- Codecs diversity (compared again to Premiere).

Things I DO NOT like about Premiere
- Love the zoom in, zoom out through the wheel mouse of Vegas. Can't find any similar shortcut in Premiere. Or at least that useful.
- When I hit play (spacebar) and the video actually begins to play in Premiere is too high!!! It may be miliseconds, but Vegas responds much faster. Maybe it is a subtle issue but I find it annoying.
- The way transitions are made. Vegas autocrossfades with just overlapping clips is so straightforward!! Why other NLE do this so complicated???!!
- Are the audio editing tools up to par with the ones in Sony Vegas?

Would love to know your opinion about it and if you really made the switch tell me the pros and cons.

Cheers!
 
I am a long time Vegas User ( I started using it back when Sonic Foundry still owned it ) and I have Premiere CC along with After Effects CC, though I rarely use Premiere. ( I am still getting up to speed with After Effects )

I've been using Cineform as my editing CODEC for 6+ years now and have not had a single issue with Cineform, it's performed flawlessly for me in Vegas.

I've never had Sony Vegas freeze on me either, though sometimes complicated renders can take a while to process.

I"m not sure what CODECs you feel are missing from Vegas Pro, but it's only recently that some Panasonic CODECs have been supported.

Sony is developing a Mac version of Vegas Pro, though it's anyone's guess when it will be finished. ( Sound Forge Mac has been out for a year now )

I still mainly edit with Vegas Pro because I like the interface better than Premiere, though I know that Premiere has more features than Vegas.
 
> "Cannot move markers along with the clips, they stay fixed on the timeline and not attached to clips"

use Post Edit Ripple shortcuts or Auto Ripple option
 
I used Vegas since version 1 when it was only an audio editing program until version 12 after which I switched to Creative Cloud. I did this because I bought a Mac and also because I use many of the other CC products like Photoshop, Indesign, Dreamweaver and Lightroom daily for work.

I would say amount of crashing and errors have been pretty much the same in both Vegas and Premiere.

What I think is better in Premiere is rendering and Adobe Media Encoder especially. Being able to easily render Prores has made my switchover worth it on it's own (of course that's only Mac specific). I was very surprised about this but Prores seems to be even more of a standard in the industry then I ever imagined. During my Vegas years I had a situation where I sent a professional facility a DNxHD file. They had never heard of it and requested I send a Prores files instead.

Once you get the hang of projects and sequences in Premiere it's really a pleasure to create alternative edits and keep everything tidy and neat within your project. Importing, creating bins and the like does take a bit of getting used to though.

Almost all of the plugins come to Premiere before Vegas.

What I find way worse in Premiere is audio editing. This is the one thing that I miss very much from my Vegas days. Doing crossfades by dragging clips on top of each other, being able to see so much more of the timeline, applying effects to a track... The list goes on and on. Premiere is really not created with audio in mind and one can tell. In general everything about the timeline is better in Vegas really.

Overall I'm happy to have changed once I caved in and embraced the Premiere style of editing.
 
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Very honest and useful opinion. As you said, ProRes for me would be a must have.

Thank you very much Essami.


Essami said:
I used Vegas since version 1 when it was only an audio editing program until version 12 after which I switched to Creative Cloud. I did this because I bought a Mac and also because I use many of the other CC products like Photoshop, Indesign, Dreamweaver and Lightroom daily for work.

I would say amount of crashing and errors have been pretty much the same in both Vegas and Premiere.

What I think is better in Premiere is rendering and Adobe Media Encoder especially. Being able to easily render Prores has made my switchover worth it on it's own (of course that's only Mac specific). I was very surprised about this but Prores seems to be even more of a standard in the industry then I ever imagined. During my Vegas years I had a situation where I sent a professional facility a DNxHD file. They had never heard of it and requested I send a Prores files instead.

Once you get the hang of projects and sequences in Premiere it's really a pleasure to create alternative edits and keep everything tidy and neat within your project. Importing, creating bins and the like does take a bit of getting used to though.

Almost all of the plugins come to Premiere before Vegas.

What I find way worse in Premiere is audio editing. This is the one thing that I miss very much from my Vegas days. Doing crossfades by dragging clips on top of each other, being able to see so much more of the timeline, applying effects to a track... The list goes on and on. Premiere is really not created with audio in mind and one can tell. In general everything about the timeline is better in Vegas really.

Overall I'm happy to have changed once I caved in and embraced the Premiere style of editing.
Click to expand...
 
I used Vegas 4, 5, 7, and 9 before switching to CS6 and now CC. I switched because I was getting more VFX heavy in my work and have been quite happy so far
 
Everyone does what's best for themselves, of course. There really is no wrong choice. Certain software is better at some things than others, but it comes down to what you're going to be the most comfortable and productive in.

I, personally, would not switch from Vegas to Premiere for FX purposes, and have not.

You can do a LOT more FX than you think in Vegas, a lot more than anyone thinks.

But no, it isn't After Effects. Clearly, using AE and Photoshop and Illustrator are fine and good choices; they are the best at what they do. But the only advantage to using Premiere in that equation is for the timeline integration with AE, and that's not enough reason for me to switch.
 
mitteg said:
Is there any chance that Vegas will become multiplatform in the next version?
Click to expand...

Sony released Sound Forge for the Mac about a year ago, and I've read in the Sony forums that they are working on porting Vegas too, but it's a more complex app so it's more work to port.
 
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