A thought about why some audio features cannot be implemented

Spheris wrote on 4/21/2005, 2:40 PM
I'm going to preface this as conjecture and give Peter and Dave their chance to clear up any of the details that might or might not pertain to this but a few things are fairly clear as to why some things aren't yet implemented and possibly can never be in the current vegas architecture. All of this is happening out of an outdated and now useless "wall of silence" policy that cannot continue and is alienating the customer base. I'm hoping this can break the tension and get some useful dialogue going and maybe clear up some of the nagging questions/misconceptions/etc about why certain things in vegas are constantly called for and never implemented.

1. Rewire:

Think about this. Vegas imports and translates a wide variety of video audio sources and internally resamples/resizes and retimes them to fit, on the fly and can even attach transforms and dsp functions to their output. Based on an abstracted timing from their sources. And somehow manages to do all this and reassemble the output that we see - synchronised and in the shape we define in near realtime in some cases etc..That's a hell of a hat trick for software. Gentlemen take a bow for that.

rewire is midi and audio stream timing based and always has been.

How likely is it that the two could not only not co-exist well but would likely break one or another vying for dominance in the project. It's about streams and timing and more than that - time bases and I somehow doubt even with 4Ghz and all the ram a machine could take it might be likely or even possible to juggle that many simultaneous threads and functions outside of a larger and dedicated hardware basis. Good lord, even our best DV cameras have limited sync and transform options and their hardware. I'm not saying its impossible. But it may very well be the case that it CAN and WOULD break a fragile balance already pushing the limits of the technology as Peter has already put forth previously. I'm betting the timing mechanism they rely on to make the internal magic happen is probably hopelessly incompatible with anything rewire could offer at the moment. Hopefully Peter can expand on that and give an answer that we can be satisfied with and we can move the dialogue on that to alternatives to rewire and midi syncing

2. Bussing:

it may be entirely possible that the reasoning behind the bussing being changed/adapted/thrown out from previous versions is that Microsoft or some other specification or available technology made it necessary (I suspect ASIO is at fault because its such a limited and ill defined specification but people demanded it - god knows why)

It's time we got a clear answer to the why and even clearer answer to why the replacement for the previous bussing system is to our advantage and how to best make use of its merits over the previous - or acknowledge it as a broken workaround that has survived two generations and how long before a more workable arrangement will surface. Vagueness is not an option. Not that anyones looking for a - to the second countdown (at least I hope not) but a few month to a few releases down the line is not working for anyone anymore. Some kind of attempt to be clear has to be made.

This one is particularly close to me. And I'm going to give Hill my compliments for the first round with it. But it was also predicated on the idea it would be fixed in 6 and (well...it's not or seemingly not) what adaptations we should make to accomodate an already entrenched working method that we seem to now be required to adapt to the change in the system. Throw us a bone here, I'm sure put in the right context - probably a majority can get on board with it.

3. I've heard alot about no new features but damned little in the way of what those features would be. SO lets hear a loud clear listing of them and put our heads together on making a presentable and compelling case for them. I do not believe its just a matter of SOFO sucking up to the video end. It's that they are getting what they are demanding in a professional and use day aspect that they are making themselves explicitly and clearly a requirement to Sony for their continued support and purchase of the product. Something that is not materialising on the audio end. Not to say they're off the hook. But if they don't get it - we have to break out the crayons and draw them a picture every now and again. It's what customers do for companies when they've fallen down. Or they move onto other vendors for their needs. I do not know about everyone else - I'd rather not

We've bled enough collective rage and heads are rolling for all this (there's just simply no way they couldn't be for 3 collective bad releases in an 8 month time frame)- the point of it now is to decide if we're just content with the heads of a few people that work at a company that we're pissed off with rolling and missing the point that ours will follow with them when development either stops altogether or completely curtails because the perception of their viability in a market segment becomes not worth their pursuing. It really is upto us, it's our money and they want it. But for now, let's get at the root of this problem and that might be somewhere to start. Better to engage in a dialogue with concensus than spear the enemy after they're dead. Only to realise we just cost ourselves possibly more in a complete retool/retraining cycle in order to keep in the game ourselves while we were taking such glee in killing the "bad corporate giant"

Dave/Peter I really am counting on you to sit this one in.

Comments

Rednroll wrote on 4/21/2005, 5:04 PM
deleted by moderator
Spheris wrote on 4/21/2005, 5:34 PM
Good deal Red, like I said, I was tossing conjecture and theory out there - hoping we could get a clear/concise answer to it and put it to bed and start the next question - if not rewire: then what are our options? It's not a cure all and not instant gratis but it's a start and I think it's fallen apart because the perception is that Peter lied to us with the whole "it never stands still" bit.

I'm hoping Peter will jump in here and give us the insight to put the idea behind us and maybe even field some backrow ideas to alternates.

Spheris wrote on 4/21/2005, 5:45 PM
BTW, I think Midi Forge is GREAT idea :) I REALLLY REALLY DO
Weevil wrote on 4/22/2005, 12:53 PM
http://www.grantedsw.com/revision/

Those guys don’t seem to be having any Rewire/Video sync problems...

And golly gee...check the quotes on the right from the Video guys saying what an awesome feature Rewire is.

Reading stuff like that just makes you feel sick in the guts.
drbam wrote on 4/22/2005, 1:10 PM
"http://www.grantedsw.com/revision/"

Amazing! Seeing something like this makes me wonder if Sony hasn't somehow locked themselves into some sort of "sorry, it can't be done because. . ." mentality. That kind of attitude only has a self-fulfilling outcome. I wish they had one of those kind of innovators on the development team that responds to "it can't be done" with "oh yeah, watch me!!"

drbam
PipelineAudio wrote on 4/22/2005, 6:52 PM
they have seemed to have a vision or philosophy from vegas 2 on. They will not stray from it, or will they? We have ASIO and VST now and those two items were almost unmentionable way back when.

Trouble is we can only guess at their philosophy, and get no clear answers on the vision.
Spheris wrote on 4/23/2005, 12:37 PM
Well, I guess we have what we paid for. Dead silence and the words of John Lydon ringing in our ears...

Disappointing, to say the least