I'm confused: Vegas has the look of the windows UI. I don't see apple making their program look like windows. Or do you mean the layout of the windows/etc? Does that mean someone else will, smartly, turn off the "uber-cool-dark-UI" color scheme & make it brighter so you can see things clearly & they'll also put the TL on the top where is should be? :)

Yeah, i've never understood the "anti-windows-UI" bias that some creative folks have. It's been my experience over 20 years of using Windows and teaching/helping/supporting others to use it that the more a program looks like "Windows" the easier and more straightforward it is, while the less it looks like "Windows" the more difficult and confusing it is.

I can't understand why anyone wants an interface, no matter how modern, cool, and artsy it may be visually, that makes controls less obvious and harder to find. I'd hate to think that artists are UI-masochists, but sometimes that seems to be the case.

Posted by: Chienworks
Date: 2/27/2011 11:16:51 PM

I can't understand why anyone wants an interface, no matter how modern, cool, and artsy it may be visually, that makes controls less obvious and harder to find. I'd hate to think that artists are UI-masochists, but sometimes that seems to be the case.

- - - - -

Oh you mean like Lightwave or Bryce?
They both have multiple WTF functions and buttons scattered throughout their UI. ;-)

The main features of Vegas I would like to see in the new FCP would be the snappiness, the responsiveness of the timeline; the format agnostic approach to materials, and a move away from trying to replicate the A/B roll approach to editing.

This whole belief that editing moving images should still feel like we're assembling a film from bins of 35mm film is archaic. Vegas from day one, because it was originally a sound editing program, eschewed that paradigm. It's time for other NLE's to do so, IMHO.

Nahhh, i disagree. Let all the other NLEs keep their outmoded workflows. People should just stop using them and move to Vegas! ;)

" Vegas from day one, because it was originally a sound editing program, eschewed that paradigm. It's time for other NLE's to do so, IMHO. "

As someone who has been editing and mixing just the soundtrack for a feature length movie using Vegas I would disagree most strongly. I currently have over 2,000 audio assets on the timeline, that could very easily have been around 5,000. If I'd been the vision editor as well that number obviously would have been much higher. It also isn't hard to push the track count to over 100.

Even as a sound editor I'm afraid to say Vegas's lack of inbuilt asset management and timeline control makes it dead in the water for this kind of work. The flexibility works very much against you. If I was ever to contemplate doing this kind of work as a serious venture I'd be investing in an Avid and Protools system. They are both arcane compared to Vegas that is for sure however as things get way more complex and you've got the producer looking over your shoulder the landscape changes.

Just for the record that isn't a venture I'm at all likely to contemplate. Without sub editors to do all the leg work it'd have to be one of the most most unappealing tasks I could contemplate regardless of the toolset at hand.

Bob.

Bob, I'm going to show my lack of understanding (or something) here. Not even in my wildest nightmare could I see myself working with 100 tracks. Could you give a short explanation of what you do with that many tracks. And how do you keep track of the tracks? I've used multiple tracks many times, but not to that extent. Never had the need to.

Lynn

" Could you give a short explanation of what you do with that many tracks."

Sure. Composer gives me music as instrument groups, say percussion, strings, brass etc. Now that's 10 tracks routed to a buss I'd call "music".
Producer decides he wants some changes to the score so composer sends me another set of 10 tracks to replace part of the music, that's another 10 tracks. Why, another 10? Well the producer would like to quickly compare the new score with the old.
That's just the music. Then there's dialog, ADR, SFXs, foley. I've managed to keep this project quite sane compared to others I've seen. V10 has some new features that do help. Track level meters make it easier to see where some sound is coming from. Folder tracks help control T/L clutter...if only you could lock the folder, darn you SCS, 90% there :(

All of that said looking at a movie like Deuce of Spades where one person's dream is being shot, edited and scored by them it's very, very different. You can then build your story on the T/L in Vegas and I think you'd do OK. When it's someone else's story and you get involved after the cameras stopped rolling it changes.

Bob.

..inbuilt asset management and timeline control...

Could you describe what you mean by this? I'd like to understand the workflow you want.

Peter

"Could you describe what you mean by this? I'd like to understand the workflow you want"

Sure, I'll give it my best shot but please keep in mind I've only scratched the surface of working on a very large project. What I know of other systems is mostly from hearsay, watching others work and demos at NAB.

Asset management: Better bin management and searching. For example being able to add tags to a clip that link back to the script. Ability to search for words and phrases as spoken by the talent. For those moments when someone says "You remember that scene where Jim says...?". Would be nice to be able to have everything logged so the phrase could be searched for.
Version tracking of clips. I've found myself bouncing an audio event into SF several time, might end up with many different takes of it, would help if I could annotate the takes so I'd recall what each one was about.

Timeline Control: Ability to lock tracks and folder tracks would be a huge plus. I find myself spending more time checking I haven't bumped something I didn't mean to than doing the actual change. A lock everything but one thing function would be great.

Return cursor to previous position. You're in one place on the T/L and go off to look elsewhere but then where were you before. Sure there's markers but unless you remember to delete them you end up with a lot of them and then they become confusing. Perhaps having several different kinds of markers would be good.

One thing I must admit might be a failing of mine on a project of this scale is not using keyboard shortcuts, instead I've been using the GUI as per the much smaller scale projects I normally do. With the T/L just solid with tracks, clips and envelopes it's way too easy to miss click something. If I'd ever bothered to learn and use all the keyboard shortcuts I feel I'd not be so nervous. Hm, maybe the ability to disable the whole GUI and only use KB shortcuts would be something useful for those tackling such projects.

Would be nice to see a tutorial or some feedback from you guys on how you see Vegas being used on such large projects.

Bob.

Here is just a bit more on the upcoming FCP:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/23/dramatic-and-ambitious-new-final-cut-pro-to-debut-this-spring/

By the way, the FCP project manager is Randy Ubillos, who conceived Adobe Premiere and was responsible for it through version 6.

Bob, what I don´t quite understand is why you don´t use a dedicated DAW like Nuendo or Cubase for all the sound work. As lomg as you can work with timecodes, why not use an app made and laid out for this kind of work?
I do all my scoring in Cubase, simply importing the video I finished in Vegas.

So, anyone at NAB who saw the Final Cut Pro X announcement want to comment on the similarities to Vegas?