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Vegas Pro 9.0 vs FCP if starting from scratch
Looking to radically upgrade my video editing skills, and debating the issue of VP 9.0 vs. FCP. I already have a new dev box running W7 w/6 GBs RAM, single quad core, 500 GB hard disk,etc. that I paid very little for, compared to Apple. I’ve downloaded VP 9.0 trial and my initial reaction is, ‘nice’. I use a Panasonic HMC-150 so I’m using the AVCHD format, and my current test rendering time is acceptable (1 for 1 rendering speed, it seems with no layering, is that fine?).
I’m not penny wise pound foolish, so I’m willing to pay the Apple premium if I can find a used machine and pickup FCP, since my goal is to get much better at this, but I’m not planning a future in Hollywood (much too old for that dream). I just want to have the best tool kit to produce video that I can. My previous experience with Windows based editing, though, was not good, and the tuning to get things to work, as you add custom tools, was horrible, which is why I switched to the Mac. Now that I’m looking at higher end tools, and have the quad core for other reasons, I thought I’d ask revisit the question.
My needs are to continue to make 4 to 10 minute shorts, not a lot of special effects, and rendered to smaller screens, but with the ability to show some of these in a festival setting on a larger screen, once in a while.
It seems my investment in Sony VP is worth making at this point, and won’t limit any further investments in the future, such as buying a Mac in a year or so and switching if I feel I need to? Any downside in that? (i.e. lockin?)
Or is the general feature set in FCP so superior that it’s worth making the investment now, if I think I might later? Is the third party add on situation with Windows now better than it was? Plug and Play was never as good as I’ve found on the Mac.
I own both this Windows box (very fast, low Windows 7), and a Macbook Pro (dual core, 2GB, no memory expansion left), so I understand my MBP is somewhat underpowered for the AVCHD and rendering that’s needed with it.
I also understand I’m posting to a Sony forum, but figured some of you might be working with both platforms.
Thanks in advance, and I hope I don’t start a religious war! I really don’t care to debate whether Mac is better than PC, (heck I use both!) just how the toolkits on both stack up!
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11 Replies
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Good questions. I’ve edited on both systems and I had a choice for my personal system and I went with Vegas. There are some features on FC that I miss, but Vegas makes up for. Audio editing in Vegas is a snap. Adding layers of media in general is super easy compared to FC. I like the preview better in Vegas. With raw HDV footage, I can view it in real time high quality. Accessing my plugins is quick and easy. I’d say I edit a lot faster in Vegas than Final Cut. I had so many issues with FC. I worked for the news video dept and we used Windows with Edius Grass Valley news editing programs. These machines were bare bones. I don’t think they even had 1g of memory. I believe they were configured for the program and they ran spot on always. This is what sold me on Windows. I could rely on the system with deadline material. With Vegas, starting out was a little tricky, because I was new to Vista 64 bit and I bought the 8.1 version and it was a nightmare. Since then, the new 9.0c 64 bit version rocks. Everything works as it should. I edit on it regularly and I trust it. Program yourself to use the save function frequently though, because it doesn’t auto save every 30 secs. I think it’s like every 5 mins and I can edit a lot in 5 mins. Vegas is cheaper, more user friendly, and can do just about anything you can think of. If it can’t, get some plugins and you’re set. There is a lot of good things to be said and there’s some bad as well. Final Cut has issues too. I like them both personally, but I can’t afford the FC 4000 dollar or more system. I went with the equally stunning 1500 dollar setup. That’s why Vegas wins me over. Great system and a good price to boot.
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Thanks for the great write up. In reading a lot of the reviews for the latest VV 9.0c, it seems that a few downsides show up:
- Batch rendering is available in FCP (do I really need this now? Is there a way to do this via command line in Windows for VV?)
- Accessories – Are there as many accessories for simplifying the editing as on FP, like I see the ads for Euphonix…etc.
- Background rendering – I assume I know what this is, but is the workaround on this to setup on maybe another Windows box? I have a newer Dell laptop,and could concieveably use that to help render if this is distributing the load. Does that realistically lower your rendering time signficantly enough to make it worth doing?
“alf”
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I took a course in FCP to gain a better understanding of it. I was not impressed, and found nothing that would justify the substantially higher price. To the contrary, I found a lot of limits that Vegas does not have. For example, our instructor wanted us to download some mpeg-2 files for use in FCP editing. Big surprise! FCP did not have the ability to use those files. FCP’s support for input and output formats is quite slim. I think it is Apple only.
FCP also has quite primitive audio abilities. There is very little beyond basic volume control, and nothing like the range of audio tools in Vegas. I routinely use noise reduction, compressors, equalizers, etc. You have to add something like Garage Band to get access to more advanced audio controls, and those are not accessed from within FCP.
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That reminds me. FCP frequently requires you to render segments of the timeline before you can see them in a preview window. Change the controls, and another render is needed. Vegas simply plays what is on the timeline.
Another aspect of Vegas is that it supports parallel processing of the final video render. Thus, one machine on a network can do one portion of the render while another machine performs another portion. I have not used this feature, but it has been present in Vegas for a long time.
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Thanks. These thoughts by you and Kris certainly make me feel better about not spending the extra money at this point. I’ve been working through basic video training on it all day, and my initial explorations seem pretty good. I think i need to get seriously stopped by some limitation that I know that FCP does not have before I’d put out the extra money. At least for now. But the seamless way that my SD card files were brought in, edited and rendered back out was pretty convincing. Now to try something harder.
Is there any specific add ons that you two think are, or might be, ‘required’? Ease of use tools, special keyboard, external box (beyond my 500 GB external USB drive)?
Alf
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well, plugins that most people swear by include Excalibur & UltimateS – both have trial versions, so you can play before you pay. They certainly speed up various tasks in Vegas even more.
The Vegas Production Assistant is another tool that has a particular application, which can really help producing a series (ie automating repetitive render/edit tasks)
Batch rendering is easy with Vegas, tho one can extend it with either the PA mentioned above, or the Veggie Toolkit (google it).
background render: Vegas doesn’t render the current project while you work (which is what it normally means), but at the same time, you can open multiple copies of the program, and render in one while editing in another. VERY useful feature. Can obviously also copy/paste between open instances of vegas.
Vegas isn’t perfect, but we know no NLE is. It certainly is a fast editing tool, and usually requires less clicks to get something done that the competition
HTH
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I have used both Vegas and FCP.
The biggest problem with Vegas is that is has less overall-compatibility testing than FCP. Because windows naturally has more programs, drivers, and hardware to contend with, it has an increased potential for such issues. Mechanically, more moving parts mean more potential problems (Although in battle I’d rather have a machinegun than a musket). If you wish to avoid any issues, install all the programs and drivers you think you will need and then install Vegas. Afterwords, keep updates and new installs to a minimum. Go through the process of editing a few small projects and if nothing bad crops up, you should be set with a solid system which won’t fail you when you start to work on something important.
FCP suffers from terrible audio editing, mediocre typography, and a high cost. Even still, it is rapidly spreading itself within small business and younger prosumers. This is due mostly because of Apple’s past and present marketing push towards younger generations, because it is being taught in schools within film programs, and because people want to buy what everyone else uses because that must therefore be the best. This can be compared to how the iPods marketing scheme worked and how even now people will express opinions without having ever taken the time to look through a side-by-side comparison of specs between an iPod and a similarly priced MP3 player.
You can go far beyond the editing basics with both FCP and Vegas if you have the knowledge. Addons are great to have available, however if you repeatedly need complex effects it will be well worth your time to learn Adobe After Effects.
If you haven’t seen this forum already, spend some quality time here and you will see the light. https://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=148
Personally I think FCP is a fine editor if you are a fine editor. Still, whenever I use it and it forces me to “prerender” after making a simple audio edit, my left eye starts to twitch, my mouth tightens, and somewhere, thousands of miles away, Steve Jobs feels a cold shiver run down his spine.
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I almost forgot about the audio prerendering. That in itself has killed the vibe for me countless times. Yes FCP is a nice editor, with some really good features. I really like how you can crop and resize within the same window, without opening up another, but they make the keyframes so dang microscopic, it’s tedious to perform simple things, like crops and movement. One thing that Vegas doesn’t have is the option to copy and past selective effects, including speed changes, crops and so on. You can copy and paste attributes, which is nice, but not practical if you have a bunch of effects that you don’t want to paste along with it. All in all, I think they’re both pretty good, but for me Vegas satisfies me, where FCP has frustrated me and left me totally ticked off, not to mention embarrassed. Working on an hour long project and having to rerender the entire timeline because you tweaked the audio is just plain ridiculous. Now I remember why I didn’t go with Final Cut.
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The notion of being able to open multiple versions of VV (I noticed I was able to do that, and wondered what advantage that gave me over just opening it once), is really important. If Sony rewrote the code for 64bit correctly, this should make background rendering quite a bit more useful if you have a ton of RAM in your machine (looks like I’ll order more now!). RAM is cheap enough on desktops to make that worthwhile. (Just ground yourself before inserting the RAM!). The fact that you can batch stuff is great news.
And yes, I’ve been in the computer business long enough to know that, especially on Windows, that if you have a machine primarily working on one task, set it and don’t change it! Computers are cheap enough in the Windows world that creating a single purpose machine or something close to it, and not upgrading every time MS or someone wants you to, is worthwhile. That’s one of the beauties of the Mac, in that the underlying OS handles multiple addons with much better plug and play. Protools was my learning experience there, on both platforms. I would never try using it on Windows again. Just too much hassle.
So I’ll continue to push forward with this dedicated box to VV, push in more RAM and get these plug ins. Thanks to everyone that posted on this, and others feel free to add to this thread. Maybe we could push it over to “basics” forum (where I thought I published it originally), so that new folks considering entering this area could better understand the real choices.
Alf
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Regarding the Vegas vs FCP argument, here is my two cents.
I absolutely love Vegas. Not only is Vegas very user friendly right out of the box, but I love the way that Vegas handles audio. I’ve had friends who have actually tracked entire CD’s with Vegas because of that. The basic transitions and effects built into Vegas are also very useful and look very good.
The two things I really don’t like about Vegas are the title packages and the color corrections.
Because of the way that Motion integrates into FCP, creating good looking titles and other compositing effects is very easy. I will say that I really dislike Motion for most compositing, I’d rather do 99% of that in After Effects, but I love the way that Motion handles text.
As for color correction, I just seem to have an easier time correcting in FCP than I do in Vegas. Maybe it’s just a personal thing.
As far as price goes, it’s very true that you can have a very decent Vegas system up and running for under a grand, a very difficult thing to do with an FCP box.
If you are happy with what you are doing, than just stick with Vegas. I think Vegas and easily do 90% of what FCP can do for most people.
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