Pro 11…S.N.A.F.U. at Sony…My Epic Adventure!

[Mike Kujbida]

Chuck, I know it doesn’t help but I get this when I try to go to the Sony Vegas site:

The Sony Creative Software web site is temporarily undergoing scheduled maintenance. The product pages, forums, and online registration systems will once again be functioning properly by 10PM CST on Tuesday, March 13.

[Dave Haynie]

Try Guinness… I have yet to have a Vegas 11 crash with Guinness.

In all seriousness, I have on the overall found it more stable than Vegas 10. Maybe I’m the lucky one, or maybe I just got unlucky with Vegas 10. Last fall when I first got Vegas 11, I bought both AMD/ATi and nVidia cards, each around $300. At the time, the AMD card was very stable, the nVidia card slower and with some very obvious card-relased crashes. So I kept the AMD. But if you know the weird world of video driver releases, that situation could flip around overnight.

Some of that may be simply learning to work around bugs. Vegas 10 totally and completely broke Cineform for me, on several levels. It was DOA on release, forced an upgrade to the latest, which still crashed on any Cineform video (Vegas 9 still worked, either version of the CODEC). They finally fixed the reader, but it still wouldn’t write without crashing. By 10e it did, but the video levels were always screwed up… and this seems to remain the case in Vegas 11. And this was a totally avoidable problem… all they needed was a single switch to disable the use of the “special” API between Vegas and Cineform, and just drop back to VfW like Vegas 9. So in Vegas 11, I’m using RAW or DNxHD depending on the situation, for the most part, and so Vegas 11 is more stable… not for good reasons, though, it still has problems with Cineform.

I have hit only one major problem in Vegas… naturally, working on a 24 hour project that was supposed to be a 48 hour project, animation and custom music in there as well. I hit a full on crashing bug in some plug-in, only during a render, no diagnostics other than a good idea just where it crashed. I was able to remove that effect and all was good.

So recently, no complaints. It’s sad, though, mainly because there was a time when Vegas was the single most reliable piece of software I used in several industries, including $10,000 electronics CAD software. No longer, not in a few revisions.

-Dave

[Dave Haynie]

[Chuck Pullen] “So I just uninstalled 11 and reinstalled 10…Guess what??? Registration server is down, can’t use the program without it…THANKS SONY, YOU’VE COST ME ANOTHER DAY OF EDITING!!!!”

With pretty much ANY professional-class piece of software that permits it, I keep the last version or two installed, as well as the most recent. And if this isn’t permitted, I seriously question the “professional” monikker. Applications don’t eat all that much space on disc… and given the crashiness, and in particularly, Cineform issues, I have kept Vegas 9, Vegas 10, and Vegas 11 installed… but I am finding Vegas 11 better in my use than Vegas 10. Clearly, mileage varies, and unfortunately, no one’s effectively isolated any predictor of success or failure, far as I know.

-Dave

[Chuck Pullen]

Can you just imagine for a second if versions of Windows operated like Vegas?

“I just purchased Win 7 64-bit, and it works great, but crashes every time I go on the internet, so I have to use 32-bit for that. It also doesn’t support Office, so I keep a copy of Vista around for that. Oh and I have these other programs that I really like, but they only work with XP, so I keep that around for those.”

There would be downright public outrage, and they would be called out by every media outlet and blogger in the county, but when Sony does it, we just sit back and say “Well I hope the patches come out soon to fix the problems…Maybe after I spend another $200 for the next upgrade it will work”

Chuck

[Dave Haynie]

[Chuck Pullen] “Can you just imagine for a second if versions of Windows operated like Vegas?”

Actually… I remember very vividly when it did… or worse. So, there was this new thing called Firewire, and you could buy a very expensive proprietary interface for Windows 95 to be able to hook up your shiny new digital camcorder… often for more than the camcorder cost.

So Microsoft put out Windows 98, and aside from all that “desktop = internet” nonsense, it had real, dedicated, built-in support for industry standard Firewire and USB interfaces. Only… once you bought it, installed it, etc. not so much. It crashed, it dropped frames, it didn’t work with some cameras, etc.

But hey, a little while later, ALL THIS STUFF was fixed in Windows 98SE, and the upgrade was only $20 or whatever… Cheap. And while that actually did help with USB, it didn’t actually do much of anything for Firewire.

But hey, a little while later, ALL THIS STUFF was fixed in Windows 2000. Ok, this time, it actually was….

-Dave