[Norman Willis]

You may be right, but I wrote Sony, and they were very nice about it. They said that (at least part of) the issue is that it costs money to develop and purchase rights to support third party hardware and software; and that cost would (of course) be passed along to the consumer. They said that they wanted to keep costs low, which I also appreciatel

After praying on it for a day, I wrote the rep back with two possible suggestions:

1. Create an SxS camera line for ‘beginning professionals’ about the $3,000-4,000 dollar range, with SxS (and not XDCam), for those who cannot afford an EX1 or higher. That way they can capture the beginning professional market, which can only help them in the long run.

2. Possibly create a ‘Vegas Pro Ultra’ Edition (or something). It would possibly cost a premium, but would have increased third party functionality.

I can very much appreciate that Sony is trying to keep costs down so people can afford the software, but I would gladly pay for increased functionality, if I did not have to transition outside of Vegas. And if they make yet a ‘premium’ version, then those people who are happy with VPro the way it is, won’t be touched/hurt.

And then what you suggest about third party manufacturers stepping up to provide this support is also excellent. It would just be a blessing if Sony would remember to include the drivers from previous versions in the initial release.

[Norman Willis]

Don’t want to pirate anything.
Just want to capture original footage incompressed.
Shorter is better. Got it.
Thanks,
Norman

[Norman Willis]

Perfect.

Thank you, Brian.

Norman

[Norman Willis]

Hi Chris.

That’s great news!

Thank you for telling me that.

Norman

[Norman Willis]

Hi John.

I appreciate you letting me know that. Though I have written to Sony several times, I never did get any response. In fact, you are the first person who has bothered to articulate the problem for me.

However, as I see it, it is far more than just Panasonic and the P2 cards. You yourself are suffering from lack of Boris support in V9. As you say, a lot of that particular issue may be Boris’ fault, but what about the MX.O2, Cineform, much of the AJA line, Black Magic Design, and all of the other wealth of stuff that Sony Vegas does not support?

What I do not understand is how is this NLE going to come to maturity when there is such a huge gap in between the AVCHD format cameras (starting at about $1,200.00) and the XDCam format (starting at about $6,000.00), and Sony does nothing to support it, and nothing to fill it. Why?

What does a guy do if he cannot afford an EX-1 yet (or if he really wants an AG-HPX300), but wants more quality than AVCHD supplies, and does not want to throw away $20.00 a pop on XDCam media? Even if SxS is a superior format, P2 is the only thing that fits the bill right now…and Sony does nothing to support it.

I can understand that Sony and Panasonic are vying for market dominance, but Sony has effectively shut off support for all entry-level professional cameras that use the P2 format, while providing nothing to replace them. How smart is that? How do you get to be the market leader that way?

And aside from the wide-ranging lack of support for third party hardware and software, what’s up with Sony’s ‘Memory Stick’, and all that kind of proprietary stuff? Is there some technical advantage of the ‘Memory Stick’ over SDHC that forces them to adopt a non-compatible format?

Please don’t get me wrong: I love Vegas. I am just frustrated because I got turned on to Vegas because everyone said it was “the wave of the future.” Wave of the future? Why not wave of the present? Why is it not the dominant NLE in the marketplace right now?

The only answer is that Sony does not want to provide a proper range of cameras, hardware and third party support for professionals and beginning professionals in this industry. They want it to be the dominant NLE, but they don’t want to give #1 support.

Am I wrong?

[Norman Willis]

Hey John.

Would you feel like writing Sony directly, and asking them for better third-party hardware and software support?

https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/productsuggestion.asp

I have been writing them, asking them to improve third part hardware and software support, and I think it would really add some weight if they knew that other independent producers also wanted that.

[Norman Willis]

From Sony’s point if they wish to promote an even wider acceptance of the XDCam file based work flow and help sales of XDCam hardware the more complete Vegas becomes Sony can only benefit. To help towards that end uncompressed support of SD and HD is important. We shoot almost exclusively with XDCam and edit native MXF, have done so now for the last two years. Yet for network delivery we still have to deliver on Digi-Beta for SD and HDCam for HD. This requires SDI / HDSDI uncompressed I/O.

I look with a certain amount of envy towards Premiere and FCP with their wider range of hardware interfacing. Sad when you stop to think that Vegas is as good and in many ways far better than either of those as a craft editor. Without further hardware interfacing Vegas as good as it is will float around on the edge of the Pro market and sadly will never quite fulfil its true potential.

I agree with that 100%. I really like Vegas, and I think they are sitting on a winner. I just wish they would quit sitting on it, and develop it instead.

I wanted to get an AG-HPX170 (P2 card), but Sony won’t support it. The camera I want after that (AG-HPX300) is also a P2 card machine. Does Sony they think they are going to force me either to go P2, or go XD-cam? They are wrong on both counts.

I have started writing Sony directly, on their Product Suggestion line. https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/productsuggestion.asp
Hopefully they can figure out that when they fail to give their customers good third-party hardware and software support, they are just shooting themselves and everyone else in the foot.

[Norman Willis]

Also this:

https://www.dvinfo.net/conf/what-happens-vegas/98261-vegas-intesity-hdmi-card-2.html#post1159938

Picked up an Intensity Pro on ebay and so far it seems to work properly with the latest drivers. So it seems it works with Vegas, but is not officially supported. It may be a hit or miss thing depending on the OS or other factors. I’ll post updates if I come across any issues. Win XP 32bit, Vegas 8.0c, Intensity Pro drivers 3.1.2

[End post]

So apparently the two drivers from v8 need to be loaded into v9, and then it should work.

[Norman Willis]

May He heal you, and recover you fully.

[Norman Willis]

Hi John.

Reprinted from:
https://www.dvinfo.net/conf/what-happens-vegas/98261-vegas-intesity-hdmi-card-2.html
________________________________________
I’ve successfully used the Intensity Pro HDMI card with all versions of Vegas Pro 8, i.e. capturing via HDMI and preview via HDMI to a HD LCD during edit even though Blackmagic Design maintains that it is only Beta drivers available for Vegas Pro 8.

ONLY INSTALL THE INTENSITY DRIVERS AFTER VEGAS HAS BEEN INSTALLED!! If for some reason you had to un/re-install Vegas Pro 8, uninstall and reinstall the Intensity Pro drivers.

I’ve installed both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vegas Pro 9. The Intensity Pro drivers do not get installed in the appropriate Vegas Pro 9 directories, for the Vegas Pro 9 32-bit version do the following (these .dlls will be found in the corresponding Vegas Pro 8 directories):

Copy BMDDecklinkVideoProperties.dll to Vegas Pro 9.0 directory
Copy DeckLinkVegas.dll to Vegas Pro 9.0Video Hardware Drivers directory

Thus far I have not had any problems with Vegas Pro 9 32-bit using the Intensity Pro card. However it appears that the 64-bit version of Vegas Pro 9 does not “recognise” the Intensity Pro drivers, as far as I am concerned, looking at the Vgeas documentation, it is rather a Vegas issue than an Intensity Pro issue as the only ather device apart from Firewire that Vegas will recognise is the AJA card or device.

It is a real pity that Sony actually launched the 64-bit version with many shortcomings, e.g. I can’t open any .m2t files captured with Cineform with Vegas 64-bit version. This is discussed elsewhere on the forum. At this point in time the quote “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is really applicable. So far tests done with footage captured directly with Vegas 64-bit and editing/rendering seems to work well.

[End quote]

I hope that helps.

Norman

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

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