I’m really afraid that Vegas 4 is going to be out of my price range. Like you, my video is just a hobby with no form of income to justify purchases. It would be great if SoFo offered a VV4 upgrade to existing users for $149 like they did from VV2 to VV3 regardless of its street price. This may be just wishful thinking though. If they can’t do that, it would be nice if they priced it as a collection of professional plug-in’s so you can buy just what you need. I don’t know what I would do with 5.1 surround sound, so if it was a plug-in I could save money by not purchasing it.

I feel bad because SPOT is considering offering VV4 training as a possible $99 DVD but I can’t sign up for training on a product that I don’t know if I could afford. Some people over at the Cow suggested that SoFo should charge a lot more for it so that professionals would take it seriously. That’s a really sad thought for us hobbyists that enjoy doing multitrack composting a chroma key but can’t afford $1000 NLE’s. It’s depressing to think that VV3 might be the last copy of Vegas that I can afford.

~jr

I'd be very, VERY surprised if there weren't two different pricing tiers.

1) I'll bet that there will be just the straight upgrade to V4. I'm betting that will inititally fall in the $99- $150 range.

2) I'll also bet that (judging by the pics) V4+ Dvd upgrade path will also be available, but much more pricey. I'll bet around $400- $500, which may be scaled, depending upon which products you own-- for example, do you already own Vegas 3 AND the 5.1 encoder? Although it's not a 'true' upgrade, as they do different things, would owning and 'upgrading' CD Arch make a difference in upgrade pricing for V4 & DVD Arch?

And eventually, I have no doubt that there will be a straight upgrade path from V4 to V4+ DVD... it depends on your needs, I guess. Although I don't have a DVD burner, you'd better believe that I'm debating it, depending upon what DVD Arch. has to offer.

As for the worries about overpricing the app.-- I doubt it. SoFo's not known for taking people over the coals with their upgrade prices. Of course, I may be wrong... but it's the new users that I imagine might have something to fear, price wise.

David.

Hi Dave,

I trust SoFo as well. They have always been fair to their existing users and I think that the community that has formed around their products speaks volumes in testimony to that fact. For example, the upgrade to 6.0 of SoundForge for current users was very fair. The same was true of VV2->VV3. I'm not sure what the pricing will be, since no one here knows at this point, but I have a lot of confidence in SoFo as a company and it's the reason I haven't sweated this whole ordeal at all. At the end of the day they always take care of us. You can't say that about all 4 letter NADQ symboled companies...

Tom

I would expect that V4, the surround encoder and DVD Arch will be three modules. That way they can offer an attractive upgrade for V3 users to V4. The surround is available already at $279? DVD Arch could be in any price range but will probably be competing with the $250 - $500 competition.

While you may consider these things to be esential tools for a hobbist, they are in fact high power professional tools. The cost of the encoding is the cheapest fully liscenced one that I know of. It is a bargin. As for DVD authoring, I do not know what they intend to include so I can not tell you what level of app it is. I do consider your expectations unreasonable. The cost of developing these apps is very high. The cost of liscensing the technology is very high. In the end we have to pay for it if we want good tools. There are lower cost alternatives, but they are not near the SoFo quality.

I suspect that SoFo will be good to the exisiting user base as they always have, but please be reasonable with your expectations. You could go get FCP and DVDSP from Apple and pay more than $2000 for the package. Don't expect SoFo to add the DVD and encoding for small change. I am sure it will be the best price for function available though.

K

Clarification: "Essential" in my first post should be interpreted to mean features that would need to be present for me to justify the expense of an upgrade. When it gets right down to it, VV3 does so many amazing things that it is a challenge to imagine how it could be improved from a functional standpoint (short of 'instant rendering') without one or more of the features I mentioned earlier.

The reality is the Sonic Foundry is in a cash crunch and I'm sure they have mulled over either bringing in cash by attracting the masses (more volume/lower price) or go for less volume and a higher unit price by marketing to the pros who use some other product.

I'm eager to see how this one shakes out.

I can agree with you there. I am glad I am not in their position of tring to establish price point and position the product in the market.

Thank you as well for the comment about V3. It is hard to imagine that it can get that much better. Obviously the new color correction is a big leap forward. The multichannel audio is a big step, but of no use unless you can afford to buy the encoder and a DVD authoring app that will support it. Of course we forget that Windows Media 9 supports the multi-channel audio! I believe it has been said that Vegas will support WM9 in version 4. That will make it the only app that I know of that really does that. Others have to set up their audio in ProTools or the like.

K

What I wonder is, will DVD Architect essentially do everything CD Architect does too? I own the original version of CD Architect, and I was considering upgrading, but if DVD Architect will do the same thing then I might as well just wait for it. Does anybody know?

[The multichannel audio is a big step, but of no use unless you can afford to buy the encoder and a DVD authoring app that will support it. Of course we forget that Windows Media 9 supports the multi-channel audio! I believe it has been said that Vegas will support WM9 in version 4. That will make it the only app that I know of that really does that. Others have to set up their audio in ProTools or the like.]

Woowww! I didn't think about that! that would be extremely cool to be able to create surround 5.1 sound with a codec that is available for free like WMA9.

Hope VV4 will be able to export WMA9 natively :)

One slight problem though is that there's probably very few DVD players that will play Windows Media files. Standard DVDs use MPEG with PCM or AC3 files, so if you want to create standard DVDs then Windows Media 9 won't help.

Bins in tbe Media Pool! Bins in the Media Pool!

Yes I want bins too.

Bins are there...

What's it going to take? I hope we won't have to buy VV4 to get winmedia9 support, but if we do that's enough. 5.1 is cool, but they're talking about 6.1 & 7.1, so by itself it would depend on the cost premium.

DVD capability is almost required now days, but there are so many solutions out there now, I probably wouldn't consider it make or break. Then again, the ability to set chapter points based on index markers created whilst editing in VV would be most welcome. I'm surprised that Sonic isn't offering a DVD edition of VideoFactory to get their feet wet first. Maybe they'll go the route of Ulead and offer the plugin first, then a standalone.

For what it's worth, I think everything about DVD is kind of fluid, again. Just about everyone is already on the DVD authoring bandwagon, and prices are dropping (just saw one deal where you get minimal capabilities, but after rebate you also get paid to buy the software). I wouldn't think development costs would be that high, or the low end software wouldn't be that cheap, & the differences between the low and mid range capabilities aren't that remarkable.

If wm9 takes off, could make a big difference in the market. Winmedia9 is a valid file format with some DVD authoring software & at least a few players, but I think the biggest hurdle they crossed was making editing of winmedia 9 files without recompression possible. If DVD/wm9 compatibility becomes more widespread, the whole process, in to out, could be done completely without leaving the format -- could be pretty cool. Playing with wm9 for a while now, the quality definitely seems to be there at *much* lower bitrates then mpeg2, & more content for less cash could spark demand, from business rather then hollywood.

Existing (non-pc) players have a pretty dismal compatibility record already, depending not only on the format of DVD you burn, but on the brand of media (a new quasi standard addresses compatibility for most formats), while the base price has dropped to $50 US & game consoles are emerging as real market competition -- they have to do something to ramp up demand & prices, so wm9 could be a real option.

mike

I'll chime in here from the perspective of a hobbyist user. VV3 is my first and only NLE, and I agree with some of the earlier posts that it meets just about all my needs. Like many casual users, I would like to create DVDs for my home projects, and have read the posts here and at COW about which DVD authoring program to buy (if I bought today, it would be the Ulead product, based on SPOT/DSE's recommendations). However, if Vegas 4 has built in DVD authoring, I'd be willing to upgrade to VV4 for around $200-$250, given I think is the cost of Ulead's DVD workshop. I wouldn't be interested in paying for 5.1 (and to be honest, I don't know anything about AC-3 encoder and DVD Architecht).

So, Sonic Foundary, please don't price us hobbyists out of the upgrade path...give us options. We want to support your fine work.

"So, Sonic Foundary, please don't price us hobbyists out of the upgrade path...give us options. We want to support your fine work."

I think you have to admit, SoFo has always been generous with us hobbyists. I mean c'mon, we're hobbyists and we're working with very powerful software. It's because of SoFo and their upgrade options and special pricing that we've been able to use VV3 instead of Video Factory, which is their hobbyist software.
Same goes for Acid and Sound Forge. I started with Acid Rock 2.0 and with the upgrade deals ended up with Acid Pro 3.0. I also have Sound Forge 6.0.
SoFo has always been more than fair as far as pricing goes.
We just can't start asking too much for very little. I'm a hobbyist also, and I know about limited funds. Right now I'm debating on getting a few more loop CDs, or saving up for Noise Reduction, because I can't afford both.
Whatever the pricing, it'll be fair. Now, it's only a matter of whether or not we can afford to pay a fair price for a professional app.

¢¢

I purchased VV3 from SoFo in the latter part of 2001 for $199, so I'm not exactly in the hole on what I have spent. I would pay a fair price, even full price, (if it is reasonable) for VV4 but it will be more important to me to first know that the people who wrote it will also be around to support it and perfect it.

first of all---i love sofo
secondly--i have purchased all their products
thirdly--i beleive many many many people are getting cracked versions of it---
the reason i beleive this is because it is a great product and sales should be off the charts
4) i know a lot of pro videographers and they have heard great things about vegas--but they hate the fact that final rendering is NOT IN REAL TIME
i beleive they use canopus for around $1,000
5) if people are getting cracked versions of sofo, then i wouldn't mind paying extra for vv4 so they can spend extra $$$ like microsoft and make sure people can NOT share their software.
i must have had 10 people ask me for my version of vegas---free of course--and i refused !!
anyway, i really hope they have dvd authoring and bins on vv4--that would rock!!
good luck sofo, and keep the faith
sbsbsbsbsb

Would it be such a bad thing to have SoFo products run only if you have a dongle?
Would that help against piracy?
I have one here at work for my CAD software.
I'm just asking out of curiousity. Some have said they don't want a half dozen dongles piggy-backed on the back of their PC. However, if you buy more SoFo products, the dongle could be reworked to accept all the SoFo software on that one dongle. No?
Is it unreasonable to ask for software sold in these quantities?
I don't know...I'm asking.

M

USB dongles aren't bad at all. They can "live" anywhere up to about 15 feet away from your computer on one thin cable, and you can have up to 128 (minus your other USB devices) of them.

The way mine works is if I want to add a module to the module I have, I just contact the software company, place a P.O. and they send me a new password to unlock that module. I don't know if they're all like that.
But it would seem to me like a good idea. You buy, Vegas Video and receive a dongle with a password for Vegas. If you decide you want Acid Pro 4.0, you call up SoFo and buy the program. SoFo supplies you with a new password that will unlock Acid.

Sorry, kind of going off topic here.
I'll start another thread.

M

Have you seen the screenshots on DSE's site? 5.1 sound, Bins, DVD authoring, and it looks like some very nice new filters too.

Check it out: http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/vegas.htm