I have to second Spots comments. After such a small NAB presence last year, it is so awesome to see Vegas in the light it is meant to be in. There should be no doubts left that Sony loves this product and it's engineering team and from my perspective has made every effort to make them a part of the Sony brand.

Thanks Jay and Sony and all of the gang for the great party tonight. Lots of cheers on behalf of many, many grateful Vegas users.

As for the show. So much to see and do. Lots of focus in the indie market and HDV / DVCPro 50HD seem to rule many of the arenas. Lots of streaming HD and equipment just keeps getting better and better. Sony's XDCam cameras rock as I also think Panasonic's P2 series coming forth will as well.

Sore feet, tired eyes and a wallet pounding to get out of my pocket. Let's do it again tomorrow!

mike

Yes, the Sony Vegas party at the Paris Hotel was a bunch of fun and Spot is right, Sony has made sure Vegas is everywhere. As for Vegas 5, it is a significant update with a slew of new features and DVD Architect v2 is now finally ready for "prime time." (End Actions and elementary stream import!!!) Anyone who had any fears that Sony's purchase of Sonic Foundry was a bad thing can now put those fears to rest once and for all.

John

Spot,

Is the Matt from Sony you mentioned "MattC?" mattc posted two very cool clips on the DV.com forums showing what Vegas can do.

One is this three dimensional title sequence that looks really cool. Another looks like rotoscoping, where he has his cat appear twice in the same footage.

Anyone who had any fears that Sony's purchase of Sonic Foundry was a bad thing can now put those fears to rest once and for all.

Glad you all had a wonderful time -- for myself I got up very early and hunted the feature paper and trial installer down. I spent about, I'd guess, five hours in all thumbing through the 63 page new features .pdf and clicking and pointing through an open instance of Vegas 5.

I'm likely not going to upgrade.

There's a whole list of things that seem suspiciously missing from Vegas 5, and with all the emphasis on features that are either unimportant, already available through Satish's work, or altogether demerits (the UI), I'm left with DVDA2 alone as the biggest reason to spend $200. I'm just not sure why I'd do that over grabbing DVDLab Pro.

There is such a lack of emphasis on every day essential editing improvements and so much emphasis placed on flashy gimmicks that I'm feeling pretty resentful that I may, in fact, have to finally start looking at PPro as an alternative with a more promising future.

We got network rendering, and I'm very pleased, but I can't help but thinking that, instead of all the time and energy spent on compositing (only to have these tools pale when compared to stand-alone apps) and a (IMO) terrible backstep with the UI, we could've had:

Superior capture tools and logging.

True nested sequences instead of Sony's sleight-of-hand "nesting."

Better EDL import/export, if only to quiet the critics.

Usable pre-render regions. This is ridiculous -- I can put a series of clips along a very simple two track timeline (one audio, one video). Pre-render clip 2. Then, if I move a clip five clips away, I lose my pre-render?!

Better preview from the timeline tools -- I hear Edius does 5 full res DV streams from the timeline in software only?! How about Vegas steps up to the plate and does SD over firewire? If it does already, why isn't anyone saying anything?

Better media management.

And, as an added gripe, a skin and look with more "Pro" aspirations evident.

Look around, I'm not the only one noticing what appears to be a lot of misguided energy in this upgrade. A user here sums up my grudge to a T:

Last time I checked EDITING meant cutting and reorganising. It has nothing to do with media creation. It's nice to have all these fancy tools to do what used to go off to another department in another building to get done but not at the expense of the basic functionality required for editing.

With Vegas 4, SoFo proved they were putting Pro editing first and giving us some fun toys secondly. Vegas 5 seems to have reversed that paradigm and it projects a doubtful future for users like me.

Similarly, from the dv.com forums:

I hate to piss on the Vegas parade, but I looked at the new features of Vegas 5, downloaded the demo and, subsequently, deleted the demo. I will not be upgrading. There is nothing here worth $199.00 to me - and I hate the new Toys-R-Us interface.

Missed indeed.

- jim

What's PPro?

vitamin_D,

I was going to write something in a week or so after the dust settles, but I don't think I will bother. You have hit the nail on the head. You should really re-post under a main heading so others don't miss what you've said.

I was attracted to Vegas because its UI was understandable and responsive. However, when looking at the overall workflow -- how long it takes to go from connecting the camera to burning the DVD -- there is huge room for improvement, and I am not sure yet whether this new version will improve productivity (I am still waiting for my update to arrive in the mail).

Also, will it attract new users? Will it entice anyone to switch from the competition?

Who exactly is the intended target for this new release?

For entirely selfish reasons, I very much want Sony to succeed with this product. However, according to M2 Research*, Adobe has over 50% of the market with Premiere (plus more, when you add in After Effects). It is my belief that Vegas probably has a market share close to single digits. Product managers should always focus on "relative market share." When the leader achieves 2x share relative to the second-place company, that company becomes very difficult to dislodge. Adobe has close to a 5x share advantage relative to Sony. This is a monumentally tall mountain to climb. The only way to have a chance to win is to have releases that are "laser-targeted" to specific market segments.

When you target product releases, you have a story to tell when you release the product. I don't see any story behind this release. It is a complete grab-bag of features. Everyone seems to find something they like, and everyone seems to complain about something that was left out. By contrast, a well-targeted release will almost completely satisfy a critical segment of the market, and will let everyone understand where the product is headed.

I think Sony product management needs to do much better in the future, or we all lose.
-----------------------------
* I only have information from several years ago, gleaned from an Adobe press release. Here is a paragraph from that release:

"Adobe leads the digital video market with an impressive 58 percent market share based on revenue, while the nearest competitor holds just 15 percent.” Said Wanda Melont, founder of M2 Research …" The date on this release was March 6, 2000. I am sure that numbers have changed since then, but I will bet dollars to doughnuts that my 5x relative market share estimate (especially if you include After Effects, which you must, since Vegas includes some of those features) is pretty close.

"Adobe leads the digital video market with an impressive 58 percent market share based on revenue, while the nearest competitor holds just 15 percent.” Said Wanda Melont, founder of M2 Research …" The date on this release was March 6, 2000. I am sure that numbers have changed since then, but I will bet dollars to doughnuts that my 5x relative market share estimate (especially if you include After Effects, which you must, since Vegas includes some of those features) is pretty close.

what is defined as "digital video market " is that just NLE or includes all adobe products that can be used in Post? .. does this include Professinal products ? or is it home desktop market ?

..58% based on revenue ?
is that just premiere revenue or all adobe related revenue ?

"The date on this release was March 6, 2000"
is there a newer release around ??

I concur with Vitamin D and Johnm-------------. I get as sense that the developers have their ears pealed to the voices over at the Audio forum--and yes audio is a very important part of the NLE. However, I think it time that the basic long-form issues be addressed. The wishes of documentarians and feature film people should be heard. Look at it this way, for many, DV has replaced 16mm film format for documentary and low-budget film making. Most of us have little use for fx, sophisticated audio features, and compositing.

db,

I have snippets of more recent market information. You are correct that one must define the market in order for the share figures to have meaning. For the past fifteen years, most market estimates have segmented the market into consumer, professional, and broadcast. Avid is the leader in broadcast; Adobe the leader in professional; and I don't know who leads in the consumer market, but I would guess that it would be Pinnacle (Studio DV, 7,8, & 9).

You also need to decide how to factor in Apple. Sometimes the market shares exclude Apple. Clearly Final Cut Pro is a major player (according to a Forbes article two years ago, Final Cut Pro has 30% share compared to Premiere's 53%).

Johnmeyer, and Vitamin_D,

Your complaints are a long time coming, and I personally love to finally see that. I think your viewpoints make you sound like a pompous selfish a**hole.

"Everyone seems to find something they like, and everyone seems to complain about something that was left out. By contrast, a well-targeted release will almost completely satisfy a critical segment of the market, and will let everyone understand where the product is headed."

I couldn't agree more with this, but this was not the direction of Vegas and you should have realized that if you would have had any background with the original Vegas and/or Sonic Foundry. Remember this was originally developed by "SonicFoundry". SONIC....you "hear" that word? Vegas was originally developed as an Audio ONLYapplication, then all of a sudden, took on Video editing features to open that market. Guess, what happened? For the last couple versions that you consider to be major upgrades ala v3.0 and v4.0, the audio side has fallen way behind all competing audio application software. Us audio users have been screaming since v2.0 for hardware control surface support and auto-input monitoring, with punch-in abilities, which every other audio app competing against it already had back when v2.0 was released. So we graciously waited in hope for these things in v3.0, then v4.0, and sat by and watched all these video features get implemented with a couple audio features thrown inbetween them. Most audio users considered v3.0 and v4.0 releases really a v2.5 update. So it's nice to finally see the video side users finally have the same viewpoint, we've had for years. Finally v5.0 comes out and puts Vegas back in the Audio competing market, and will lead more Vegas v2.0 and v3.0 users to upgrade. Did we get everything? NO!!! We still wanted Rewire support, Midi tracks, OMF support, tempo change based timelines and corresponding grid markers. All tools to make Vegas more musical for todays audio users. You guys mention Adobe as the leading market holder for Video editing products. Hey did you hear, Adobe bought Cool Edit pro an audio only application, because they had to compete on the audio side.....oh and it's sold as a seperate app "Audition" without Premiere. Guess what also? Digidesign is the market leader on the audio side and are owned by Avid. Why don't you go out and price a nice new Avid and Protools combination setup and then come back here and cry about features and the money you spent. You're crying about a $200 upgrade price now, how you going to afford a $150,000 Avid/Protools setup?

Please, continue to cry about the latest and greatest video feature that you didn't get in this version. All our hearts are bleading for you over in the Vegas Audio forum. From my count, I see 12 Video features added, 12 audio features, and 11 mutually beneficially features. I'm sorry to hear that the 12 video features you got, that you don't consider them to be a significant upgrade because you can already use Satish to achieve the same thing. I say Great, finally the score is even and us audio users FINALLY got a significant audio upgrade. And Welcome to the club, us audio users have been using a combination of Reason, Sound Forge, Sonar,Acid, EDL convert Pro, CD Architect, and Vegas for years to get one thing done. AUDIO!!!

Red

Rednroll,

I am not complaining about any specific shortcoming. As I said, I haven't yet received my Vegas/DVDA box in the mail. What I did say is that I don't want to see Vegas fall further behind in the marketplace, because then we all lose (by having the product development slowed or abandoned). Obviously Sony has put a lot of money behind this release, so they are definitely not abandoning it at this moment.

However, my main point is that if Sony's product management doesn't do a better job articulating their product positioning and direction, they will continue to get clobbered by Adobe, a company that -- despite having many flaws in their own products -- clearly "gets it" when it comes to understanding market positioning and also timing their new features to coincide with major market trends. For example, look at their NAB press release this week for native MPEG editing and their presentation (on the NAB streaming site) for HD editing.

Sony's market battle is OUR market battle. If they lose, we lose. Talk to any Wordperfect user: It is tough to remain loyal when every book written, every third-party plugin, every magazine user tip, etc. is about the product that you don't use. Most of the WordPerfect users eventually just gave up, bit the bullet, and started using Word.

I don't want to do that. I don't want to someday be forced to switch to Premiere. I want to use this product into my old age (actually that isn't that far away ...)

Thus, I am a big Sony supporter. Critical? Yes. But definitely a supporter.


Am I also a "pompous selfish a**hole?

Yes I am, and thank you for noticing.

The Matt he is talking about is our lead audio developer.

I'm mattc over on the dv forums.

Sorry for the delay on those projects, but the two-cat project should be up as a knowledgebase entry either today or tomorrow.

Rednroll--you are way off base here. Vegas, whether you like it or not is an NLE--not a dedicated audio program even though it carries the legacy of excellent audio tools that orginated with Sonic Foundry. By the way, the one thing that anyone, and I mean anyone has always said about Vegas is that it kicked butt when it came to its audio abilities--its obvious that the audio end of the application never fell behind any NLE--- (Again, I repeat, Vegas is an NLE).

Having said that, I am aware of all the pressure that was put on the developers from the audio forums. It is our perogative as consumers, and as the primary market for this product----to put the same pressure on the developers to address our needs. I doubt that more then 20% of Vegas users use the product strictly for audio.

By the way, in this forum, johnmeyer is highly respected. I think that he makes valid points and a knee-jerk reaction to his healthy critique is way out of line. Remember, Vegas is a product, not a cult.

When you target product releases, you have a story to tell when you release the product.

I think this is exactly what I was getting at earlier with the message of the new UI that so many seem to have misread -- it's not that the new UI strips Vegas of its functionality, it's what the UI implies about how endusers are supposed to regard the app, and from there you're free to make educated guesses about where Sony's going to push Vegas.

The Vegas story, as I see it told by the new UI and feature set, is that Sony seems more interested in making Vegas look like a clothing accessory with a lot of halfhearted bells and whistles than a real NLE. I think the figures you offer re: market share begin to fill this picture out, too – why fight someone who has 5x your market share when you can just coast along unnoticed, developing an app that will keep simple, endusers who buy your laptops and computers happy they can have the “Neo” look applied to their 3D transition.

Just to be clear -- I am a Vegas enthusiast, and have been since version 3. I've even been chided for being too enthusiastic in the past, but I've felt justified in my excitement -- for its shortcomings and in their times, Vegas 3 and 4 offered a surprisingly powerful and nimble package. Version 5, by contrast, gives me little to be excited about, and almost nothing that would offer respite against arguments that say that Vegas is not, and never will be, a pro app capable of long form editing.

As many are quick to say, the UI is incidental. Well, you're right -- icon shades and edges are the least of your worries – what they reveal about the company's intentions of how they want the app to be perceived, and what people they're marketing it to – I fear -- is pretty damning. Damning enough to make people like me – formerly so fanatically vocal about Vegas that I was accused of belonging to a cult -- take note of other apps.

I’ve just finished downloading the Premiere Pro trial – hopefully I can get used to its workflow because they seem to be serious about the “Pro” in their name.

- jim

For those looking for the movies they're talking about read this thread.

The cat trick looks like a simple use of the bezier curves, hats off to you for the text effect. Very clever....I look forward to getting my paws on that veggie.

looking forward seeing the cat veg file!

vitamin_D,

Let me know what you think after you've used the Premiere Pro demo for awhile. I was forced, two years ago, to use it for a brief time, and never warmed up to it at all. It never "clicked" for me. Couldn't wait to get back to Vegas.

As to the UI, there sure are a lot of people commenting about this. I don't have my version 5 yet, but I have two thoughts based on what I've read:

1. You can customize the UI somewhat now, and I bet there will be more customizations coming shortly, either from Sony or a third-party. I don't think you'll have to live with it for long (at least not the colors).

2. I think Sony HAS to create a UI like this. They are in a war for market share. Where are they going to get this share? Not by convincing hard core Premiere users to switch. Instead, they can capture the hearts and minds of every Sony camcorder user, every Sony Vaio user, and every person who loves Sony equipment.

That adds up to a BIG number of potential users.

This is why, I am sure, that their first priority was Screenblast, not Vegas. That product was updated and marketed way back in the late summer early fall, over half a year ago.

I don't think you should read too much more into the "skin" they chose to put on this release. (Of course I may feel differently one I install and use it in a few days).

(Again, I repeat, Vegas is an NLE).

Vegas has always been more than an NLE. It wouldn't have turned my head otherwise.

John,

I hope you're right. Actually, what I really, really had hoped was that Sony has something better waiting in the wings -- hah hah -- like Vegas 5 Pro.

I'll hold onto my discount coupon for a while before jumping at spending that money -- or spending it elsewhere, even. Let's see how quickly/if they address the frustrations expressed here and elsewhere.

Christ almighty, even if they just came out and said "Yeah, stick with us for a bit while we sort out the look and work on media management. We've got scripts in the works that adress a lot of gripes and we've got new skins that we'll be selling as a package soon, too." I couldn't spend my money quicker if they just said that...

- jim

Vitamin_D,

I've been using both Premiere Pro and Vegas 4 for quite some time - different reasons, different projects. Both are great applications. The difference is that Premiere Pro's upgrade path is going in the right direction.

The $99 Premiere Pro 1.5 upgrade actually addresses some shortcomings and adds important features:

Project management tools
Quickly remove unused material from your project and consolidate the project's media into one location for easy archiving with the Project Manager.

Panasonic 24P/24PA support
Capture the look of film with support for new Panasonic 24P/24PA format cameras.

Bézier keyframe controls
Create more natural, elegant-looking effects using sophisticated, spline-based Bézier keyframe controls.

Effects favorites
Set your effect parameters for a keyframe, and then save them as presets you can apply anytime to ensure consistency from one project to another.

Support for HD content
Meet the highest production standards with support for importing, editing, and delivering HD content.

Auto-color adjustment
Automatically improve image quality using Adobe Photoshop® style filters, including Auto Levels, Auto Color, Auto Contrast, and Shadows/Highlights.

Project-ready Photoshop files
Quickly create a new image in Photoshop with the resolution and pixel aspect ratio of your current Adobe Premiere Pro project (some features require Photoshop CS).

After Effects plug-in compatibility
Access the plug-ins from your installed version of After Effects directly within Adobe Premiere Pro for even more visual effects.

After Effects clipboard support
Simply copy and paste between Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

AAF and EDL support
Easily import and export project data with support for Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) and Edit Decision List (EDL) format.

Now, many of these things Vegas already had since v4, which is why it was kept around. When I used to do some light compositing, I would use Vegas because it was simple - and the job didn't require After Effects - and I could save effects settings. Now, with the copy and paste to PPro to AE and the ability to save effects settings, I won't be needing Vegas for that anymore.

It seems Adobe is more interested in addressing what its users want. We finally have AAF and EDL support in PPro, something that I really hoped for in Vegas 5.

Sony gives us trinkets instead of a better NLE.

Thanks Spot! And thanks to everyone for your kind and supportive words.

Is anyone else - still hungover?!!

Jay Mitchell

Yup! And I'm in London! Ha-hah we've had a ball .. all over the World!

Great to hear you Guys whooping it up!

Grazie