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Vegas vs Final cut Pro, are we losing the war?
I’ve been a long time user of Sony Vegas since version 4. I now have version Pro 9 and think it’s a fantastic piece of software. I’ve produced and cut many broadcast commercials and corporate videos, short films etc. But now I feel that I’m losing the battle and I’m ready to wave the white flag and surrender to the enemy! Yes the enemy, Apple! Every client, producer, agency, designer hands me FCP disks! I start to either lose work or make my life twice as hard trying to reedit already edited footage. Is anyone else out there experiencing the same issues? I’d love to hear from someone professional who has used both pieces of software to tell me how good is FCP? Does it work on 64 bit? Does it render or play in real time as quick as Vegas on a similar PC? Any help who be greatly appreciated. Fight or surrender?
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6 Replies
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Well, I hate to say it, but you have really identified the problem: If you need to collaborate with other professionals, you’ll need FCP and a Mac. Collaboration is an utter pain in the butt, not just for Vegas users, but for anyone on a Windows system. My biggest hassle has been the fact that QuickTime on Windows lacks DVCPRO HD codecs. You think it’s a coincidence Apple doesn’t support that on the Windows end? (And, no, the $30 QTPro version doesn’t have them either, so don’t bother wasting money on that.)
Yes, yes, I know, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you cut your film in Vegas or with razor blades. And I don’t for a second believe that FCP is inherently “better” than Vegas: it’s not. But facts is facts, and unless your shooter is sending you raw tape, they’re gonna send you a drive with QT MOV files Vegas won’t read. And you are going to need to pay attention to edited footage you send off for finishing, because the Mac is even pickier about what files it likes.
Now, that said: FCP is also a great tool. It ain’t perfect (far from it) and despite what the Macheads tell you, it’s got it’s own set of quirks, frustrations and (yes) it hangs and (gasp!) crashes. But if someone offered to buy me a new $30,000 dual-nehalem Mac workstation with FCP, I’d take it in a heartbeat.
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People who realize that time is even more valuable than money, or people who are forced to place a much higher dollar value on their time (a la Hollywood video editing professionals) jump at the chance to purchase a ‘closed’ system such as a Mac, precisely because it promises (however falsely) to take away the ‘hardware headaches.’
If Sony Vegas were to actively maintain a list of ‘approved hardware configurations’ (as Avid does), and update it once a month, then the lower price point for Vegas might be worth it to them (provided they start providing the basics, such as P2 support). But until busy professionals can be assured of getting a hardware/software package that is even more stable than Apple, and at a better price point, you can bet that Apple users will not find any reason to switch.
Until Sony does that, Sony will continue to lose the war.
Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org
servant@nazareneisrael.org -
Hey Joel,
I can’t help you with your question but perhaps you can help me with mine! 🙂
I’m looking at picking up Vegas Pro 9 and I have a quad core PC with 3 gigs of ram running XP Pro 32bit.
I’ll soon be producing professional training materials for a corporation. Each vid could be 30 to 60 min in length.
Right now I am TRYING to render a WMV file that’s 1 hour long using Windows Movie Maker 2 (I know I know.) Tt’s been like 2 hours and it STILL says 0% done and like 60 THOUSAND minutes remaining and counting.
Like “What the Heck???” Is it going to be THIS hard rendering video? What do I need? A 100 core Mac? Just PLEASE tell my all get the company to fund it!
I am rendering it to a separate HD from my C drive as well. Still no go.
Any tips on how to render PLUS what the heck DO I NEED for hardware etc. to make this rendering process a WHOLE lot faster!
Jamie
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something wrong with your situation. wmv is a slower render than mpeg2 IMHO, but never that kind of figure you’re describing. Your machine is PLENTY fast enough.
just download a trial copy of Vegas Pro from sony, and give it a bash with your media files. That would at least allow us to determine whether the problem lies with WMM or your source files.
🙂
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Hey Jamie,
Rendering lengthy files can be a time consuming lengthy process. If you are rendering two or less video tacks it shouldn’t take too long, but if that’s how long your system takes then there’s not much that can be done. If you are using many layers, effects, HDV etc in your projects then it will take considerably longer time. The best way I get around this is to first render everything into an AVI file and then bring it back into the timeline and render out again into your WMV file. A double render but it works much faster. Hope that works for you, and I’m looking forward to the 100 core Macs! I get my Final Cut Pro suite next month but I still love Vegas!
Joel Mielle
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