Is VegasPro supposed to be for, um, professionals?

Lowtaxico wrote on 8/4/2009, 5:20 AM
Between the text corruption issue which can wipe out huge chunks of entire projects, to the fact that with 9.0 there are now somehow even fewer third-party plugins available, it seems to me that Sony isn't really taking Vegas Pro all that seriously. Perhaps my vision is clouded, but Vegas now kind of falls in a weird NLE limbo; that is, it's not professional enough to be used by professionals, it's not friendly enough to be used by consumers, and it doesn't have enough plugins or stability for prosumers.

Does Sony have some ultimate game plan that I'm missing here? I've been using Vegas since v4, and while I love its layout and ease of access, it seems like there's "always something" with each and every release. Is Vegas Pro just not popular enough for Sony to be all that dedicated to it? I don't want to go back to using, barf, PREMIERE, but this disappearing text bug wiped out hours of work, causing me to look back and view my Vegas experience throughout the years as a collection of bugs, quirks, and saving every 20 seconds.

Comments

daryl wrote on 8/4/2009, 6:34 AM
"barf, PREMIER"? So, you're saying that Premier is 100% perfection, but you preface it with "barf". I don't quite understand.
I've been using Vegas since it was just Vegas, and have never lost "hours of work". Could "user error" play a part in this? Just wondered.
Sab wrote on 8/4/2009, 6:40 AM
Perfect? Nope but very productive for me for several years now. I know some folks are having problems but I'm with Daryl here. Your experience with Vegas "as a collection of bugs, quirks, and saving every 20 seconds" is simply neither the norm or the majority. Sorry.

Mike
Lowtaxico wrote on 8/4/2009, 7:02 AM
""barf, PREMIER"? So, you're saying that Premier is 100% perfection, but you preface it with "barf". I don't quite understand."

I wasn't saying anything like that. Since I use Vegas (and by my own admission do not use Premiere), I obviously like Vegas over Premiere. I said "barf" because the thought of using Premiere makes me want to vomit. Unfortunately, I am afraid to continue using Vegas 9.0 thanks to the text bug, which has hosed my projects twice in the past day. "User error" does not play a part in this; look through the first couple of pages in this forum. Many other people are reporting the exact same bug.

While I'm glad your projects are not being corrupted by the widespread title bug, lots of other folks are (myself included), and it's unfortunately a real show stopper.
PerroneFord wrote on 8/4/2009, 7:11 AM
Agreed. I haven't had to do titling since moving to V9, but I will have to do quite a bit on my current project. We'll see how that goes, but honestly, I won't be losing work along the way because of it. Or at least not planning on it.

I grew up in the old school (CP/M, DOS), where we saved documents regularly. I don't like losing data.
[r]Evolution wrote on 8/4/2009, 8:37 AM
Don't be fooled into thinking that because you SAVE every 2minutes you won't be bitten by the Text Bug.

What happens is... you're editing away... saving every 2minutes thinking you're safe. Then you notice a Generated Text somewhere on your timeline that says SAMPLE TEXT. Upon further investigation you notice lots of SAMPLE TEXT throughout your project. At this point you have saved SAMPLE TEXT in your project every 2minutes. You try to revert to an older .VEG but remember, you've saved SAMPLE TEXT there also. Now you must re-do your Text. Saving does NOT Save You... it simply Saves SAMPLE TEXT into your project.

Now you must go back and redo your Text(s)... losing all that time it took to do your text in the first place.

Oh, did I mention; you're scheduled for a Client review in 30minutes.
My guess is... they do NOT want to see SAMPLE TEXT or hear any excuses.

ps - I personally like Premiere CS4 and for me it is Rock Solid... I currently prefer it over VegasPro 9 because of its interaction with Photoshop & After Effects. Premiere's Titler kicks the Crap out of Vegas'.
PerroneFord wrote on 8/4/2009, 9:28 AM
So does this bug affect ALL text in the project, or does it replace some selectively? Titling is generally the very last thing I do in a project so if it was crucial to my work, I'd probably either be saving iteratively (save 001, save 002, etc.) or I'd be using a dedicated program for it.

My work doesn't need After Effects though I know a lot of creative work can benefit from it. I've got a couple versions of Premiere I've never even opened. I migrated from 6.5 to Vegas years ago, and never looked back.

Hopefully, Sony will sort this bug out soon and release a fix. I can see how it would be quite frustrating.
ramirot wrote on 8/4/2009, 10:34 AM
I'll do whatever it takes to move to FCP,I've had it with Vegas, have a presentation tomorrow and can't put any titles.
Should have listened to people when they told me to buy FCP.
I just called and they want to charge me for asking a question to TS ???
See you guys and good luck,
R
ritsmer wrote on 8/4/2009, 10:35 AM
Of course everybody saves regularly.

In my case I saved during the afternoon - just so, even if everything worked fine - then closed for the day - and when I tried to open that project next morning the last saved veg just skipped all text.
I did not even get the "Sample Text" - I got nothing - and all colours, shadows, placements etc. etc. were gone.

There might many excuses and explanations and work arounds and, and ... but normally I would expect any program to be able to open its last saved file.
The happy DOS and CPM-days are history, and today customers expect more than that a program can start and write Welcome: on the Teletype.

However programming mishaps DO happen - absolutely NO shame - really! - it just takes a quick-fix-download to get rid of that error within a few days.


CorTed wrote on 8/4/2009, 10:45 AM
I think that may be the biggest problem with SCS.
I think Vegas is a great program, but it seems that they (SCS) will release a version then wait another 6-8 months to release an update. Even with what is described above as quite a show stopper for many.
I think if Sony would resolve these 'huge' bugs within days of releasing them into the wild many people/customers would be very happy. But I have not seen them do that ever!


Ted
Lowtaxico wrote on 8/4/2009, 11:03 AM
Also, I just want to make it clear that I didn't create this thread to attack Sony or anything like that. I was honestly curious to know how they view Vegas, to what demographic they are trying to aim it towards, and what goals they're ultimately trying to achieve with it.
blink3times wrote on 8/4/2009, 11:07 AM
"I wasn't saying anything like that. Since I use Vegas (and by my own admission do not use Premiere),"

Well I DO own Premiere. It's hard to say which program has more bugs and what it probably comes down to is.... same number of headaches but just in different places.

Whether you talk about bugs in Vegas....or fcp.... or premiere.... or.... the fact is they all have them.... same headaches.... different areas. The bottom line is that no matter what NLE you choose.... you had better be prepared to form some kind of work around some where

I will say that although I have not used fcp (and get sick at the mere idea of it) it is said that fcp is somewhat more stable..... merely because it has evolved very little over the last while and therefore no additional bugs have been created.

But Vegas (along with premiere) are constantly evolving, growing and changing.... which is a good thing except of course for the bugs which will show up uder such pretenses.

At any rate... Sony is aware of the text bug and as always will come through for us on the next patch. No sense whining about it now however.... find your work around and use it.
JJKizak wrote on 8/4/2009, 11:09 AM
Well they did fix 77 bugs in 9.0a. And they let one get loose. You can't say they ain't trying. Maybe if we stopped screaming at them the nerves can be better controlled and they will whip up some more fixes. I assume they are working 24/7 with everybody rowing the boat except one guy with the drum beating faster.
JJK
TimTyler wrote on 8/4/2009, 11:35 AM
Lowtaxico,

All software has bugs.

Why not just revert back to v8 until v9 gets fixed?

Or do what the real pro's do and do all your titles in After Effects ;)
Coursedesign wrote on 8/4/2009, 11:50 AM
I assume they are working 24/7 with everybody rowing the boat except one guy with the drum beating faster.

...and the guy with the drum says, "I've got some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that you will all get extra breakfast today. The bad news is that the captain wants to do some water skiing afterwards..."

:O)
winrockpost wrote on 8/4/2009, 12:14 PM
I have no idea if sony has 5 or 5000 employees in Madison, how many are code writers and how many are QA. Whatever the number they need another in QA
blink3times wrote on 8/4/2009, 12:20 PM
"Or do what the real pro's do and do all your titles in After Effects "

What the real pros do is stick with the tried-and-true, and very rarely venture out onto the bleeding edge for exactly the above reasons.

However if you're the type that likes to live on the bleeding edge.... then hey... what do you expect?

But I think JJ sums it up better than I have heard yet:
"Well they did fix 77 bugs in 9.0a. And they let one get loose. You can't say they ain't trying. "
gwailo wrote on 8/4/2009, 12:25 PM
Maybe to get back to professional stability, Sony will need to support only 1 operating system.

Supporting 3 different OS seems to have overloaded the developers.

I bet a lot of stuff broke from 8 to 9 because they now support XP and Vista officially.

To get a stable version of Vegas, I'd be willing to switch operating systems, buy new hardware... pay more for the software.

Anything really....

As a professional, if Vegas is stable, I make more money.

Features are nice, but they do not mean more to me than stability.

Again if Sony is listening. Please add the following Professional audio features if you can maintain stability:
OMF import, AAF export that plays well with others (especially Nuendo), real BWF support, rewire host/slave support

I love vegas and I hate Pro-Tools.

Thanks
Former user wrote on 8/4/2009, 1:23 PM
Why not just revert back to v8 until v9 gets fixed?

That advice is only good if you happen to actually have v8. I upgraded from Vegas 2->9 because I thought it was finally time.

I even asked SCS if I could somehow get a license for v8 until this issue is addressed - but they told me to pack sand.

So - good advice if you have that option.

VP
Marc S wrote on 8/4/2009, 1:32 PM
Wow... V2 to V9 that's quite a jump.

Have you considered downloading V8 trial version and running it for 30 days?
gwailo wrote on 8/4/2009, 1:43 PM
I feel sorry for you Vocalpoint

there was only 1 audio feature added in version 9 that version 8 doesn't have.

In version 9, you can create envelope shelves just as easily as you can in pro-tools.
Former user wrote on 8/4/2009, 1:43 PM
Wow... V2 to V9 that's quite a jump.

Yep...being following the action for years - used v2 for audio only primarily until I switched to Nuendo a few years back.

But the price was right and I figured I should get current.

With respect to a v8 trial...that may not be a bad idea - but Sony should seriously consider making their licensing backwards compatible. Steinberg allows me to run any version of Nuendo via my current license key.

Especially if you are a direct "upgrade" customer and purchased via the Sony Website...it would be so much easier to simply install v8 with my current license key and get to it until this issue is behind us.

Also - if a job or jobs rolls past 30 days...the trial does nothing for me if it runs out
mid job.

Cheers!

VP
farss wrote on 8/4/2009, 3:50 PM
I think your question is one we'd all like to know the answer to.
Years ago I'd have thought Vegas might have gained serious traction for audio post but the audio side has seen no serious work done on it in years. It needs OMF and BWF. It needs to support Rewire, it needs native VST. I suspect all the audio development is now taking place with Acid, maybe having Vegas handle vision as well as audio limits what can be done on the audio side. The again I don't see anything making a dint in Protools sales anytime soon. Still it'd be nice to have a lower cost competant tool for those without those kinds of budgets.

I'm kind of forced to say that I disagree with your initial comments. I've been with Vegas since V4, it was very stable until V7. All the bitching after a new release was over features that someone demanded and didn't get. Crash was never a word used here, it took seriously messed up hardware to get Vegas to wink out. The only serious bug that plagued the Vegas of old was the random black frame problem.

Bob.
blink3times wrote on 8/4/2009, 4:05 PM
"I've been with Vegas since V4, it was very stable until V7"

Yes... and V4 couldn't do avc, hdv... no protitler.... no mpeg smart render.... and a million other things. A COMPLETELY different program that has very little in common with V7, V8 and V9
TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/4/2009, 4:34 PM
I don't want to say "vote with your pocket books".... BUT!!! We're all using the same OS from the company who came out with Windows ME. And sold it. And didn't let anyone get free licenses to the previous versions when it sucked.

but I agree with bob: up till ~6/7 crashes pretty much didn't exist. i have no (or very very very little) issues with 8c, so I'm happy.

But vegas 2 to 9... if you've been with 2 this long, why not just use it until, hopefully, the bad parts of 9 are fixed?