Why should I get a Vegas?

[Charles Avanti]

Because it whitens as it brightens, and removes all those nasty stains. Besides, it will make you smart, thin, young, and beautiful.

And if you don’t buy it I will send Guido to break your legs.

Charlie

[Marc Istook]

I use FCP and Vegas both heavily. I find pros/cons with each. The following are listed randomly as they came to me……

I love FCP’s power and the fact that it renders very clean DV video, even with text overlays, etc. Vegas tends to want to resample that footage, giving the rendered product a progressive look sometimes.

I love Vegas’ ability to play video while you’re working in the timeline — something you can’t do in FCP. For instance, I enjoy watching my timeline while I save, move tracks around, etc., and Vegas keeps on playing. FCP doesn’t – it stops playback when you do just about anything other than simply watch it. And Vegas’ playback is much closer to Real Time (in my opinion) than FCP.

FCP’s interface for resizing/moving video is much easier to use (in my opinion) than Vegas. It uses percentage to scale video and seems much more intuitive than Vegas’ interface, especially to people that have used Premier or After Effects for moving/sizing video.

Vegas has envelopes to control video speed, audio levels, etc., that are much easier to use than FCP. And if you want to slow-mo footage that is already in your timeline — Vegas is much easier.

I find FCP’s user interface somewhat clunky and their capture utility unpredictable. Color correction is great though.

I like Vegas’ transitions more than FCP.

Overall, staying in the PC environment and utilizing some of the “right click-ability” makes Vegas a better choice for me. They’re both great products and FCP (obviously) is one of the industry standards. But you get amazing bang for your buck with Vegas — it’s worth a look.

[Sada]

Its usually a function of what you feel comfortable with (all of the ones you mentioned are very good). Also, what format will you be editing in—DV—DVPRO50, HDV, HD, and so on.

[Harold Brown]

When I bought it one of the criteria was the sound capabilities. For the money spent you get great sound and that makes the movie. You don’t need to spend extra money for it. Saw the demo of FC at NAB and thought gee, I have been doing that all along. My films always have 7 to 10 tracks of sound and music and all controlled several ways. Drag, drop, done.

[Stylz]

Cuz the rock said so.

[Jerry Waters]

I also watched a FCP demo the other day and the “new” features they were showing were things Vegas did in version 4 and 5. I switched from Premiere. It crashed and every effect was a plugin from a 3rd party you had to buy. All of it is in Vegas. Download a copy and try it.

Also read the forums. Vegas users ALL generally love the program.