Flipper - how appropriate - don't take our word for it. Download the Demo, and give it a spin. As BB says it will work on most pcs >windows '95 etc etc etc.... Haven't been able to run it on my Panasonic Micro wave, pity! If you don't like, well there you go. . . .

Tell you what it's "Flipping Brill!"
Grazie

I used Premiere 6.0 and was always getting crashes and loosing stuff. the interface was awkward to me. I then went to Pinnical studio 8 deluxe what a disaster that was, back to Premiere then someone told me about Vegas and I fell in love. Easy to use intuative interface lots of help on these and other forums. It is a straightforward editing tool are there some things it does not do yes but I have never found anything I needed that was not there. The DVDA section is basic but I like it. There is a constant stream of tutorials and add on's coming all the time. I have come to realize that buying Vegas allows you entry to one of the finest and friendlest communities ever and you cannot place a value on that.

I was not extensive user, just playing with premiere for a while and found out that Vegas is much easier to use and have more "power" when goes to control the clips(FX,pan/crop). No A/B roll, just single timeline, but you can have many of them(timelines) what give to you more option the way to control you clips. The chroma keying is more flexible and so other FX. While Premire use a lot of plug-in in Vegas you can do most of your tasks. I use simple graphic program (MGI PhotoSuite v4), for some fancy text I use LogoMaker and import to Vegas for final editing.
I would compare Premiere as Basic and Vegas assembly language.
Will take some time to figure out all the power, but when you learn you can accomplish allmost anything.

You would think with Adobes Photoshop and After Effects domination that
a video editing program made by the same company would dominate as well.
Premiere is now low on the list and probably at the bottom now. Given that
Adobe basically gives it away to any OEM that will take it. I would think that
Adobe labs have a Vegas set-up and every other editor in this range.
And I am sure Adobe monitors this forum as well as many others.
So I am wondering when Adobe will roll out the killer video app?
Maybe - Maybe not. I have been monitoring the FCP forums and for
awhile I was ready to jump but after hearing of the same old crap
and worse about FCP - I just hope I can retire and fade out before it
gets really interesting!

We used to TEACH Premier here. Not any more. Vegas all the way.

I suggest you go to the top of the page and do a SEARCH on Premier. You should find PLENTY of people who switched.

I still use Premiere and probably will for some time to come. But I have different needs than a lot of people in these parts. :)

You need to consider some important things - do you need an EDL? Do you need to go online? Do you need to both capture and output to tape in HD? If the answer to any of these is "yes" than VV probably is not going to work for you.

As for other issues - back with older viersions (4.xx) of Premiere I had problems and really didn't use it all that much. However with version 5 and especially with version 6 (and now 6.5) Premiere really came onto it's own. Since version 6 I have never had a Premiere crash at all, the closest I got to a crash was when DX9 came out and I installed it - there were some issues with that so I just uninstalled DX9 and all was well. It was fixed with the release of DX9a. (I have come to feel that many people whose systems crashed so much got Premiere bundled with Pinnacle products. I never used any Pinnacle boards so maybe that is why I never had crashes) Premiere has excellent real time mixing and automated audio, with VV you have to add keyframes, but other than that VV does have far superior audio for mixing, including 5:1 ability.

VV has nice CC built in so you wouldn't have to get Vixen or another plug-in. VV supports 24P but currently only reads and writes the headers from the DVX100 - Premiere really doesn't support 24P, but please keep in mind that VV only *just* started to support it and with Premiere 7 just around the corner who knows what tricks are up Abobes sleeve. Many people feel that the VV interface is a lot easier to grasp than Premiere's but some old time editors, like me, find some of the extra key strokes and uncommon names not as intutative as Premieres. In Premiere you can do cuts only by simply dropping takes onto the timeline and "butt" them up to on another - In VV there is no "butting" as the take either automaticly cross fades/dissolves or 'overlaps' depending on the settings. Some people love this, other find it annoying. People, myself incuded, have found sync issues with VV once you split a track - Premiere does not have this issue. (BillyBoy pointed out that the sync options in VV are the most complex because there are so many options. I question if that is a good thing or not)

VV has a basic title program - Premiere now has, essentially, Title Deko built in. Premiere supports the plug-ins that come with Quick Time - VV does not. Premiere allows for garbage mattes - VV does not. Premiere supports HD via hardware - VV does not. Premiere allows for export of common EDL formats - VV does not. Premiere can do online - VV can not. Both VV and Premiere can do basic compositing with VV being a bit more 'complex' however most people would use a dedicated program such as After Effects for doing really complex work. Both VV and Premiere allow timeline playback via firewire however VV will not send any audio via firewire - Premiere allows for many 'real time' conversions on the timeline audio wise (Drop in an MP3 file onto the timeline for example and it will playback via firewire in real time) while VV does not allow *any* audio output via firewire during timeline playback. VV has to render all audio to the *.w64 format before it will playback via firewire for a print to tape.

Both VV and Premiere allow for "real time" preview. However with both program "real time" depends on your system. VV *will* out put some of the basic effects via fire wire in *real time* but Premiere won't. (IE - Slow motion/Fast motion plays out via firewire with no problems with VV) many people have talked about scrubbing - Premiere does it well, VV does it - sort of kind of well depending on what method you use. the J,K,L keys are the same so if you use them in Premiere that part of the shuttle method will be more of less the same.

Bottom line is to just try it out with the demo. As I said to start off with if you need EDL support VV is not for you. If you need to recapture footage/go online than VV isn't for you. if you need to work in HD and output it via VV than VV isn't for you. But don't rule it out - just use both.

thanks filmy, you told me what i needed to hear. i believe i will stay with premiere. seems the things i need to do, i cannot do with vv.

thanks

The reason I switched to Vegas was that Premier 6.0c drove me nuts.
First problem was I had over 800 fonts and had to delete to get below 800
or Premier would not open. Next problem was multiple hangs for no reason
and timeline operation slowing down to a crawl with a 1.5 hr. project.
Several crashes with lost data really torqed me off. The manual needed an
electronic engineer to decipher it and they did not cover many shortcut methods
and the forum would not share the information. The desktop was full of
tiny little triangles that were hard to click on because they were so small
and sometimes things would pop up that were a wonderment. The desktop was
assembled like some automobiles that have the starter in the oil pan or in the
intake manifold. My impression was that it was a "tack-on" desktop where
they just kept adding little "dinguses" for options. Stability was a problem
and the playback would hang and you would have to reboot. The stability problem
was even apparant in the $26.00 tutorial Video. If it wasn't for Vegas, Premier would
still be selling 6.0c. My impression was that Adobe Premier was not designed for
windows and was strictly junk software. After installing Vegas I kept waiting to
see it crash and I waited and I waited and I am still waiting. You may have your
Premier as I will never use it again.

JJK

About HD-Vegas does support HD. I do have a copy of premiere 6.5 in my desk.Will not take it out.

While they probably won't admit it, me thinks Premiere like Photoshop were written for the Apple platform. While they were successful in porting both over to Windows, anytime you do that its more or less just a cheap imitation of the original.

Another reason I like Vegas. It was written for Windows from the ground up and if I remember right (paraphasing) I think it was Sonic EPM that said when asked some time back will their ever be a Apple version of Vegas, and his response was more or less when hell freezes over.

Rebel44 said "About HD-Vegas does support HD. I do have a copy of premiere 6.5 in my desk.Will not take it out."

I did not say that VV did not support HD, I said what the SoFo team has said - there is no way to "print to tape" using HD and it is a question if VV can capture HD yet. I also have said, as have others, that with HD you are talking expensive hardware. If you have Premiere 6.5 and want to use it for HD *and* have several thousand you might want to get the HD|Lust PCI card. it supports Premiere and if VV supported this card, or a card like it, you would be able to get HD in and out of VV. SoFo has been silent on other threads asking if support was forthcoming for the BlueFish cards, or any similar card.

BillyBoy I do agree with what you say - for example on the Mac side Premiere uses OCR to read burned in timecode windows. This may be a quicktime issue or it may be an adobe issue - or it may be both. I thought it was an awesome feature but it is not availabe on the windows platform. I am not a Mac user really...but I like to tinker. I have a friend that is a total Mac head and loves them - he loved to always say that macs never crashed or froze up like windows. I remember the time one of the Macs froze up and he was dumfounded and asked me for help - I was like "Ok...what do I edit? Where's the ini file?" LOL.

Hehehe! Know what you mean. I got a couple Mac freak buddies, and to see the look on their face when their beloved little Mac locks up... is priceless. They almost go into cardiac shock and start to babble mindlessly. Its... itttt..., ahhhh ah Apple, it, it, duh, I mean it ain't suppose to, it, it, ah... it can't do that!

Instant realtime preview, all the time!!!!!! Plus too many other features. You'll find them as you start to use Vegas. I just bought Primere 6.5, when I tried Vegas. Bought Vegas and never looked back.

I am a former Premiere 6.0 user and although it took me awhile to learn it and get accustomed to it I found I was able to get around pretty well with it, as awkward as it seemed (especially when doing multi camera mixes) so when a friend suggested giving Vegas 3.0 a try I went kicking and screaming but downloaded the demo and played with it for an afternoon and fell in love with it, so easy to use yet so powerful. I bought the retail version and have been won over by Vegas. I was out at the WEVA Expo last year in Las Vegas and saw a Intro to Vegas lecture that just blew me away, it showed me how much more Vegas can do that I had no clue about. Afterwards I went to the SoFo booth and said i have a 2 word review for Vegas, the guy says ok, what is it and i replied "F*CK PREMIERE", they all laughed and said they wished they could use that for a marketing campaign. I have since got 3 fellow Premiere users to check out Vegas 4 and all of them dumped Premiere shortly after working with Vegas.

I have used Premiere and several other editing systems. Premiere was the worst! It crashed constantly, would not accept several popular video formats, took over 1 week (with tutorials) to do what I could do the first two hours with Vegas, still does not have effective previews, could not turn the graphics on within the timeline without it taking "minutes" to update the screen each time I wanted to zoom in and out... and this is all I can remember. I had many more gripes with Premiere that I noticed when I first made the switch.

Vegas is also faster, has MUCH better audio, allows more free-form movement throughout the interface, is much quicker, rock solid stable, uses more industry standard formats (I had Premiere bundled with the Pinnacle DV500 and the formats were proprietary), the 5.0 version would not export to a single mpeg2 stream (it required Minnerva's application (bundled, but still junk) to combine the strings. The list goes on and on and on.

Whenever I see Premiere do good in a review I cringe. I realize that the reviewer has not "really" used the program--but must be swayed by a good PR reviewer's guide, or is already a Premiere user so doesn't learn the other apps well enought to notice the difference. Having won dozens of PC Mag editor's choice awards--I realize the review often goes to the best managed review, not the best product. This forum is FULL of former Premiere users who feel Vegas is the best product.

i have been playing around with vegas the past couple of days. i am not quite sure if i want to switch. i am not sure if it is the learning curve, or what. i do so many things in premiere, and wonder how i will ever learn them in vegas. i do multiple camera edits, sync up audio from different sources, do color replace, create black and white scenes and show only one color, slow motion, etc. etc. etc. are these things possible in vegas??? it appears as if everyone is very happy with this. i don't know if i want to take the time to learn these things, and find out i cannot do things in vegas that i do in premiere.

multiple camera edits: You should definitely check out the multicamera wizard in Excalibur. However, there is a free script available too. I do multicamera edits all the time simply using opacity envelopes. Just sync up your tracks using the waveform in the audio (see next tip), add opacity envelopes to the top video tracks, and bring them up or down as needed. But the scripts may be more to your liking.

sync up audio from different sources: See those pretty waveforms when you import audio? Line them up by eye, then zoom way in to the frame level, and sync them up perfectly. Takes five seconds.

do color replace: Look into the secondary color corrector FX filter. Very easy.

create black and white scenes and show only one color: No problem. Check this thread or search the forum some more. Vegas has extremely powerful compositing capabilities.

slow motion: Three ways to do this. 1) right-click your clip, choose properties, change the playback rate to .5, .75, or whatever you like. 2) Place your cursor on the far right edge of a clip, hold down CTRL, and click to stretch your clip (you'll find the new speed reflected in the playback rate). 3) Add a velocity envelope to the event, add points to the envelope, move them up and down, and watch the video gradually change speeds between your points. You can even pull a point all the way down and play your clip backwards. This is easily one of Vegas' coolest features.

etc. etc. etc.: go on.... :-)

Everyone always says things such as "VV is easy to use!" "VV is stable!" "VV has lots of nifty extras!" but what about someone who needs EDL support? What about someone who needs to do an online session? Now with HD coming into the forfront what about an editor who needs to not only edit HD material but also capture and output? What about editors who need to provide a list for match back for a negative cut? Issues like these *I* bring up and still VV lovers just pass them by as if they really don't matter.

I love VV and have used since the start - first to play around with so to speak because it was interesting. Than I used it for web work and then with version 3 I cut my first music video and output to DV. Each version gets better and with Version 4 I asked in the premiere forums if VV 4 was a Premiere killer because I felt, and still do, that it could be. While I believe it *could* be I also have to remind myself that SoFo is more of an audio company and that Vegas seemed to start off as Vegas Audio with the video part tossed in as an after thought. Thusly some of the 'basic' items for a 'professional' NLE were overlooked - EDL import/export being one of them. I bring this up in many of my posts for a few reasons - one is people are dumbfounded that VV isn't a more "professionally" accepted NLE and because of that I feel it has to brought up that certian basic functions are missing. That also has lead me to feel that SoFo may never have intended Vegas to compete with 'higher end' NLE's. Like Ulead Video Studio or even MS 'Windows Movie Maker' they are not trying to be a full on NLE...they cater to people who do not need online and EDL's and true 'real time' among other items. Also keep in mind that Premiere really only started to be considered a "professional" NLE when Version 6.0 was released.

I think discusions such as this are important but I also think a certian amount of reality needs to be remembered. Telling people that Premiere crashes all the time and VV doesn't may be important but if you need a compatable EDL , crashes or not, VV is not for you. A lot of time I think this is sort of like "Meaning of Life" - VV is the fancy machine with all the flashing lights and the little bells that go 'ding' and it is clear lots of people are impressed enough to buy it on that/those fact(s) alone. VV can back up it's bells and whistles to be sure and it is really an excellent piece of software...DSE has said that no NLE beats VV at "any price" yet, again, I go back to the basic things that I have mentioned. What good is buying the best car ever if it has no engine? What good is VV if you need the EDL/TC portion? About as good as that car with no engine. However chanes are you can go out and purchase an engine for the car - currently you can't go out and purchase any sort of plug in for EDL support. Ok - Audio EDL conversion - yes. Video wise - CMX, Grass Valley, etc - NO. And the fact that there is a plug-in for VV to allow audio EDL conversion to and from other Audio DAW's goes back to how solid VV is with Audio.

Can Premiere do things that VV can't? Yes. Can VV do things that Premiere can't? Yes. Is there a learing curve with VV? Oh Yes. Is VV easier than Premiere? If you never really used Premiere, or other NLE's, yes it is. If you have used Premiere, really *used* it - not tinkered with it, than the learning curve is a bit more. Bottom line it that, with any NLE, it depends on your needs. On another thread SonicEPM I believe told someone to use an Avid Symphony to edit with because the posters needs were to do a negative cut after the edit and they needs that EDL/match back list. Even SoFo has the understanding of what VV can and can not do. Basic editing needs is what it boils down to at times.

Premiere 6 has always been stable for me and I've run it on at least 5-6 different system. Of course, I'd never use a Pinnacle card. Proprietary codecs aren't Adobe's fault. Waiting years to support modern AVI formats is.

Just because a reviewer has a positive opinion of Premiere doesn't mean he knows nothing. Premiere is widely used with a great variety of hardware configs, so its stability varies and that should come as no surprise.

It only took me minutes to find things VV couldn't do that I use in Premiere. Doesn't mean I won't switch since I find VV editing is easier for the way I edit. Still, I'm under no delusions that VV is more powerful than Premiere. Hopefully as VV matures it will gain those capabilities.

I'll ultimately use which ever one edits and ouputs HD the best. Considering Adobe's slow update cycles, they don't look too good but at least they have broad 3rd party support.

I find the only thing about VV really easier is the automatic crossfades. If you do mostly cuts then that's a problem. I like the option of transitions in every track, but allowing nested tracks, as Premiere does, is much more powerful than that. The color correction and scopes are better than the Abobe builtins and that's important for me because I shoot underwater.

I just picked up the May issue of Digit, for the US it is the 'new' issue but probably in the UK it is last months. There is a review of VV 4 +DVDA. The review gives the NLE portion 5 stars but one important thing the review does point out that "it isn't up to taking on Avid Xpress DV or Final Cut Pro yet - those tools still possess high-level features such as three-way color correction that Vegas lacks - but Premiere had better watch out. For speedy editing for those who don't need high end frills and extras, Vegas is hard to beat. There's no support from or for capture boards, but as software this impresses." (The DVDA portion faired less high praise in the review)