V4 on my ancient VAIO for field audio and capturing.
V5 for my audio work that pays for all the video 'toys'
V6 for video work, mostly on a dual Xeon rig. Sunk the best part of $10K into that for high end work, probably switch that setup to PPro, upgrade the CPUs and SDI interface, sigh, another $10K.

Bob.

Laurence? "I took a hit with Vegas 7 " really?

Where have you seen the list of Vegas 7 features? I see only a picture of a box on SMS site... I must say they don't seem in a hurry to promote this version.

As to the question, I'm still on 5. When the need for HD capability arise, I might upgrade or I might go with PP, I'll see then.

I'm using Vegas 6 and upgraded mainly to get DVDA 3 which had significant improvments over 2. Otherwise, I might not have gotten V6.

I'm using Vegas 6, it's worked real well for me. I'm very curious to try out Vegas 7 - one thing that I would be REALLY interested in is one of those "NLE shootouts" after 7 comes out. I'ts been a few years now since I've really used another NLE and I guess I'm just curous as to what is going on in the NLE world. Seemed like you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting an NLE comparison after the DVX100 came out, with HDV everything is kind of up in the air.

I'm using Vegas 5. I tried the demo of 6 and was really unimpressed. I actually took a performance hit with it. Uninstalled and have stayed with Vegas 5 since.

Ditto. I had a similar experience. I'm still with 5 and, from the looks of things, will be for another year or more.

Vegas 4.

I haven't upgraded because I keep waiting for them to address the long standing complaints about the basic editor and to improve the titler and credit roll generator. I don't need bells and whistles, just a good basic editor with a smooth workflow, fewer steps to complete basic tasks, and basic tools like a titler and credit roll generator. The biggest and most significant improvement to Vegas to date (IMO) has been the Color Correction tools, and they were introduced in Vegas 4.

Now DVDA 1.0.......................................................that's another story.

John

V6.0d & DVD-A 3c.
With DVD-A3c the only problem is burning other software created TS files which are spit out of set top players. If I change the prepared mpg file to another newer mpg file the length of the file is doubled in the project after I delete the first file and I have to start over. Any other change works ok with the smart thingy.
V6d won't let you drag large files from one end to the other. V6d also tends to be somehow sensitive to do an instantaneous copy and paste while trying to do other functions on the timeline necessitating using the undo when you didn't did.
After installing 4 gig of ram there was no trouble at all doing long renders using defaults. (1.5 hours)
With V6d opening Forge 8.0d "copy to forge" then selecting graphic equalizer then highlighting small section then preview then setting response curve after a time system hangs and Microsoft message appears saying an illegal thing has happened and do you wish to send to Microsoft? Then Forge is dumped but everything else is OK. I do not use media manager and using .net 1.1 only with sp2.
JJK

I found that Vegas 6 crashes/bsods on my computer, where V5 never did.. so my 14-DVD project this summer was a nightmare of two steps forward, one step back, as my 3-hour (!) renders would often lock up and reboot the pc.

Thanks to Spot and the Vasst.com crew's Ultimate-S for making success with this humungous project possible. All renders are complete and it's ready to go, coming Oct 4th (stocktradingsuccess.com)

I hadn't installed any conflicting new drivers, I was careful about that, and the drives were the same, internal 300-400 gig internals, defragged, to use on the project.

There were a couple of minor cosmetic improvements in V6, but nothing significant; and the render/crashing I experienced was pretty bad. I'm going to buy a dedicated render PC and try V6 on it, clean install, and see if I get an improvement.. hopefully it will.

My take on it is that V6 had insignificant improvements, and is more sensitive/finicky than V5 or V4. Vegas 4 is still the "standard", the last major real software upgrade, and that's thanks to Sonic Foundry, not Sony.

I'll bet the guys at Sonic Foundry are disappointed with what Sony did to "their baby", and the lack of resources allocated to make significant improvements to the platform.

To any Sony project manager reading these threads: please WAKE UP and print some of these honest user feedback complaints/issues, along with sales graphs, to whatever management meetings you attend, to help drive decisions to allocate BETTER PROGRAMMING RESOURCES TO VEGAS so we can see some REAL improvements in the software.

Make us proud, and make it easier to evangelicize Vegas. We all win. Better NLE for us, higher sales for you. Capish?

Ken

I use Vegas 6d and DVDA 3. I measured v6 as 10% faster than v5. I use a lot of HDV, so I need the better support. Even though v5 is still on my machines, I don't think I've actually launched the program for over a year. I can't wait to compare v7 with my v5 and v6 HDV render measurements. I have only had v6 encounter a render error once, but never a BSOD. One of my recent renders was 30+ hours, nesting, masking, cc. It just chugged right along.

good to hear it! I'd be interested in seeing your render calculations for V7 when it comes out, re comparing vs V6, much appreciated. Good to know re bsods, it's probably that I have so much installed on my pc, V6 had a conflict w/some program..

ken

I started with 4 and upgraded to 5 and 6. I will upgrade to 7 as well. The nested veg files in 6 made it worth it to me and I have created movies for a PSP. A lot of the young people like them. In fact they were amazed that an old guy like me could provided them movies for their PSP

I started on 3 and--well--I'm still on 3. Mostly because I'm still using WIN 98SE and P3 500MHz.

But I will be upgrading to 7, following an imminent upgrade to WIN XP and Core 2 Duo. Just because.

Tim

6.0, but I should have stayed with 5.0 and I certainly won't buy 7.0 unless it includes a professional titling application. HD means nothing to me yet.
Vegas' titling application is easy to use, but the quality isn't there.
We use Gayman Graphics, but it I find it awkward and it has crashed Vegas several times.

Where have you seen the list of Vegas 7 features?

It's been posted on this forum two or three times in the last week or so. Scroll through the list of subjects and you'll find them. They were briefly up on the page you saw, but Sony took them down the same day. (It's likely a partial list of new features. Sony usually keeps some of their cards well hidden.)

I must say they don't seem in a hurry to promote this version.

They almost never "promote" a new version until the day it's released. This is a common practice among software publishers -- they don't want the competition to know what they've got coming up. Microsoft is, of course, the most obvious exception given that they haven't got much competition. ;-)

As to the original question, I'm on Vegas 6 & DVDA 3, and have no complaints. Most of the new features so far listed for Vegas 7 are beyond my needs, but the new features for DVDA 4 look spiff. I will have to put off upgrading for monetary reasons, though.

Rob

Started with 3, moved to 4, then stopped with 5. incl DVDa.
I have no clients interested in HD, just local TV & Radio spots, I also do a far amount of stage and event recording which all winds up on DVD. I do a little documentary work to keep me amused, but still does not justify HD at this point.

Phil

Heres an in depth list you are looking for.

http://dv411.com/vegas7.html

Upgraded from 4 to 5 immediately it was published. Couldn't justify upgrade to 6 but now after I bought Sony HVR-A1E HDV miniDV-camera I'll get 7 if its not complete failure.

Vegas 4+5 for learning to edit, when they came out.

Bought V6 for m2t files, knowing we'd get Z1U cams.

We bought Z1Us and are very very happy.
Will go to Vegas7 in a heartbeat.

By the time our first feature movie is out, HD will be in.
Our target market is the 50in screen home theater, and the 5in pocket. We have a team member with a 8ftx4.5ft projected HD home theater with 5.1 Surround for our proof-screening. Kinda convenient, and once one watches in that format one realizes that anything else is a *major* step backwards (except for portability). 50in 1680x1050 DVI LCD widescreen panels just dropped below $1k wholesale yesterday, will drop below $1k retail by Christmas. Folks, that's only 20 tanks of gas and a no-brainer to the under-30 crowd (and the over 50 crowd) to put on a store's zero-interest 2 year payment plan)...

We do not expect our products to transit the Hollywood distribution system. We expect them to go straight into homes or pocket devices. Thus V7 and HDV is the perfect combination for us. We shoot and produce in 60i, because our primary target market "broadcasts" in that format.

For interim CRT-TV use, we render from V6 out to SD widescreen only (no pan-crop problems), render same (by bandwidth-compressed) to the 'net, and will shortly render to IPod (via V7).

We always have the matching DVA.

David

> Here's something I'm wondering about after seeing the very poor
> feature list of Vegas 7.

I think the feature list of Vegas 7 is impressive. Important for me: given the limitations of Vegas6 for HDV, improvemens will be important especially for HDV.

I'm on 6.0d. Version 6.0 was a solid upgrade for me, and the "d" update fixed all bugs and problems I'd had with 6.0a-c. I don't do a lot of F/X work, mostly short and long docs, so probably wouldn't have noticed a performance hit. The must-have features in 6.0 for me included:
- A/V synch tool;
- Nested veggies (working perfectly for me in 6.0d);
- Embedded source project filepath in rendered files;
- AAC and MP4 export (I use these for website clips);
- Ripple edit improvements (if Sony would just make the ripple edit button flash while its activated to remind you to turn it off, it would FINALLY be just about right.)

As you can see, I care much more about workflow refinements than spangly new features. Most of the stuff I want fixed in Vegas doesn't make for good advance ad copy. Somehow, I can't see Sony plastering their new release announcements with statements like "This feature doesn't suck anymore!" or "New, less frustrating!"

So, I'm waiting until I get a chance to play with the V7 demo before I pass judgement.

Using Vegas 7, here. ;-)
I sure wish you guys would allow yourselves the opportunity to work with it before you criticize it so much.
It's sorta like watching a bunch of football fans ripping on a player they've never seen in action before. Those that saw it at WEVA were pretty impressed with what they saw.