PPro Vs Vegas?

[Aanarav Sareen]

I have tried and tried hard to use Vegas, but for some reason I just can’t use it. I have used a lot of different NLEs, but using Vegas has been a big problem for me, because of the way it works. I don’t like its timeline feature and it just takes too much time to make the most simple cut.. But, that is my opinion. You may also want to post on the Vegas forum to get the other side of the picture.

[Tim Kolb]

Kind of Apples and Oranges there…uh, make that Apples and Studebakers.

Vegas is a powerful program that shows just how elegantly an NLE program can be written. It does amazing things on relatively smallish systems…less real-time, but lots of things you can do.

The interface is the challenge, that’s for sure. I re-open it every now and then to marvel at what can be done and also puzzle at how one would go about doing some simple things.

Edius is also a great NLE program…I actually find Edius a little more challenging to learn in some respects.

TimK,

Kolb Productions,
Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net

[John Baum]

I actually started out editing in Vegas and found the switch to PPro difficult because of the workflow differences.

I was forced to switch from Vegas to PPro because I bought a new system based on the Blackmagic card. But I found Vegas 6 to be very buggy when using this card so I switched to a copy of PPro I happen to have had and stayed with it because it was so much more stable.

As far as, is it worth the effort to switch, I’d say over-all Vegas is faster for editing if you can change your habits to work the way the program was designed. Its very timeline oriented and the scripting capabilities can work wonders on repetitive tasks.

If you adapt to new interfaces quickly or haven’t been editing long then I would suggest trying Vegas, theres a good chance you’ll like it better.Otherwise it will take a fair amount of patience to unlearn old habits and benefit from its workflow design.

[Steven L. gotz]

One issue that needs to be addressed is the new Dynamic Link between Premiere Pro 2.0 and After EFfects 7.0

If you are going to use After Effects, I highly recommend staying with Premiere Pro. If not, then it really is a coin flip. You will need to play with Vegas a bit and decide if the workflow meets your expectations.

Steven
http://www.stevengotz.com

[Carlitos]

I find the Vegas interface weird, non-standard and clumsy, is different than any other NLE I’ve ever used (and I have used a lot).

If you get acustomed to Vegas, I think is gonna be hard for You to easily switch to any other NLE.

To make a simple subclip is hard labor.

Personally, I don’t like it at all.

It doesn’t have a Source monitor, only that is more than enough for me to not like it.

It looks more like a modified Audio Editor than an dedicated and genuine NLE, like Premiere.

Thumbs down for Vegas.

[Lance Bachelder]

The single monitor defeault screen for Vegas confues most folks – it’s very non-standard. But, if you are working with dual monitors, you have limitless ways to set up the interface – it’s completely customizable based on what you do most – cut picture, mix audio, compositing? Very cool and very fast once you set it up the way yo want. You’ll find applying effects, color correcting and sound designing and mixing are extremely fast once you get the hang of it.

On the other hand, Premiere Pro uses the industry standard Source/record interface that is easy to use and has true bins like FCP and Avid, which Vegas does not. The good news is you don’t have to choose – with AAF import/export you can cut your picture in Premiere Pro then export the project via AAF and do all your multi-track sound design and mixing including 5.1 surround mix in Vegas – then output the finished job to tape, DVD, web, whatever right from the Vegas timeline – very cool workflow that I just did on an HDCAM indie feature.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California
Cow Forum Host- Magic Bullet

Apple Dual 2Ghz G5 ATIx800, 2.5GB RAM, OSX Tiger FCP Studio
Intel P4, 2GB RAM, PNY 6600GT XP Pro – Vegas 6 Studio

[George Loch]

First of all, I would not be making any major decisions until after NAB as all of the major NLEs will undoubtedly be updated or the intensions to do so will be announced (Adobe has shot a premptive strike).

The main two ‘challenges’ with Vegas for most experienced editors are the interface and the rendering times. I say experienced because most of us have been brainwashed into the source/record mode of thinking. I find that new users come to the Vegas gui without any problems so, I am now starting to admit to myself that the interface isn’t neccesarily flawed – just different.

The rendering speeds are just long. It’s a good quality render but it takes too long. They helped it a bit with version 6 and dual CPU/Core machines but, it’s still far too long in my opinion. Over-night renders are the norm.

Adobe brought PPro up to speed on a lot of things with 2.0 and the integration with the other Adobe tools are a major advantage to a workflow. You just have to weigh what”s most important for the work you do.

-gl

[Brian Deviteri]

I work with a guy who swears by Vegas. He’s still using Vegas 4.0 on a desktop and laptop and he loves it. For the work he does on it for personal use, it’s great. For more professional work, I’m sure that is not the route I would go. I’ve never liked the interface, but it does get the job done if you can get past that. Its integration with Sound Forge is great from what I hear about Vegas 6.0, but I can work with Sound Forge and PPro with ease as well… or Audition which supports multi-track audio, something Sound Forge has yet to do.

I’ve messed around with Vegas, as well as MANY other NLE systems and applications. I was “trained” on an Avid (MCXpress at first, the old version of Xpress Pro, now use an Xpress Pro HD 5.1.6 quite often), then I did a lot of work on Premiere back when it was Premiere 5.1 and then 6.0 and 6.5 (now using PPro 1.5.1). I always found the Premiere interface, interaction, and overall feel to be just natural to me (and almost all Adobe products for that matter). It works the way I think and it’s a great fit. Avid systems are a close second, but they don’t allow me to be as creative and flexible with ease… they act a lot like an old linear editor on a computer if you ask me. I spend a lot of time with the technical end of things in Avid rather than just creating – and I find that this is the case with many users. I find it so funny how so many companies out there have an Avid for the name but then end up doing all their work on Premiere or Final Cut, then import it back into Avid for “finishing” in front of the client.

If you want my two cents, I’d say you’re really better off comparing Adobe Premiere, Avid Xpress, and Apple Final Cut rather than throwing Vegas into the mix.

If Flash is a concern of yours, why move out of the Adobe/Macromedia family?

Audition is an awesome audio utility if you ask me, just as powerful as Sound Forge if not more so since it does multi-track. BTW, if you like Sound Forge, all the plug-ins are DirectX compatible, so they will all work in Audition if both the Sound Forge and Audition software is installed on the same machine.

As for DVD authoring, I’ve never used DVD architect before. I’ve heard good things, but the end products that I’ve seen from Architect are mediocre if you ask me… but that could definitely be the “user” instead of the software. I can’t say for sure.

Good luck with your decision.

[Number_two]

i ve been using both for quite a few years now.I use premiere for straight forward – simple projects and prefer vegas for more music videoclip kind of things.
I love the interface.its amazing how fast you can do things in vegas.Moving around,zooming,crossfading and effects are really easy to use.I sometimes use vegas instead of after effects becase it feels more “realtime”, i just press play on a loop and mess around with settings,effects and motion, something that cant be done on any adobe program.
On the other hand, i personally dislike (or rather hate) avid s interface.I cant do anything on it.I dont like FCP either, feels something between avid and premiere to me.
The integration part of adobe sounds intriging, but i m not sure how useful or usable – or frequently used can be.Working with clips that are not rendered can be superslow.
And yes, vegas render is slow but the previews are fast.
The dvd quality render of vegas though is the best i ve encountered.Dvd Architect is kinda simple, but that means fast interface too.
Most important:Try some demos first before deciding anything!

[Perry Cheng]

Well, thank you folks for all the input. I have been using Prem for years, to make a switch is really a difficult decision. But, aside from Adobe sometimes driving me crazy on their policies, I like Prem Pro. Contrary to what ‘mrbb’ stated in his post, Prem does display things (e.g. filter applied) in Realtime for most effects without me having to render them for preview. (He might have his setting mixed up to render every time?)

Anyway, the main reason for consider upgrade are:
1. PPro’s ability to import flash files (ironically after acquiring Macromedia, PPro 2 does not state it can or not to import swi or swf.)
2. PPro rendered quality is not very clean and vivid! It takes a long time compared to other Rendering Codecs
3. Vegas include: Boris Grafitti Ltd, Boris FX Ltd for Vegas, and Magic Bullet Movie Looks HD50, 5.1-channel AC-3 encoding, Copy-protection tools, Multilangual DVD, Elementary stream import… (Filters…)

4. NOW, the competitive upgrade is only $299 for Vegas6 + DVD Architech (After $100 rebate) while PPro 2.0 upgrade is $199!!!!!

I have couple more days to think about!!!

Thanks again folks.
Perry