Forcing software to require an expensive hardware card in my opinion is a mistake. Sure you'll get faster renders, but your wallet will suffer a big hit. I'm like that Ron Popeil guy on TV... 'set it and forget it'. So what, how long a render takes. In a few years or so CPU times will be around 6-8 Ghz or higher and then render times won't be that long.

I know I'm repeating myself but, maybe its worth repeating...

If you're a hobbyist, it should never matter how long a render takes. Start it, go to bed. In the morning it usually is done. What's your problem?

If you're a "professional" you should be able to afford a 2nd and or a third PC and use external drives to do two or more things at once. Even starting up a second instance of Vegas on the same machine doesn't cause that serious a hit on overall rendering performance.

I think some judge Vegas only on rendering speed. You need to look at the whole picture. Some alternatives are much faster rendering. Yes, but if you factor in all the time for hangs, stalls, and fighting with a clumsy interface, more often than not the TOTAL project time start to finish is shorter in Vegas, because it is designed much better. In my opinion. :-)

Rendering does take a time a specially on slow computer like mine(1G CPU 256M PC133). The faster system you have the less time to render.
The good think about is that I am not worry about final output what I could not said with other software. Never ctrash on me-that is a plus. I just let it run and do something else( like having a sex with my wife after days of editing). It does improve familly maters.

Then it wouldn't be "Vegas." It ain't broken. Why try to fix it???

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I think i agree with Billyboy on this one. Tying Vegas to a specific hardware card or interface would be a huge mistake. THis is the only modern NLE software program that i can run on my meager 350mhz laptop to do rough cuts and then dump the project onto my faster Dual Xeon for final edits. In all honesty Vegas will never have enough "professional" market penetration for it to compete with the likes of Avid or Preimer (you can search this forum to pull up threads with regards to this statement.) That is fine with me, because they have focused on their target demographic, listened for input, and delivered a superior product time and time again.

Sometimes superior technology doesnt always win out in the end. I always think of BeOS when i make this statement. Great UI, Stable, able to run on low end systems but had a hard time finding developers and penetrate a certain demographic.

Tying software does have advantages which most people agree would be rendering speeds and fx. But with the increasing speed of modern Cpus and Ram prices that are affordable, the inherient need to tie a specific program to hardware device seems like a bad business desicsion. Coupledd with the fact that hardware devices cost a huge amount of R&D i think that SOFO has made the right choice.

Ah... another BeOS fan! Me too! Dream system BeOS (its 64 bit) with a 64 bit version of Vegas with a super fast CPU. I did say it was a dream. I know it ain't going to happen.

Marc:

I too come from a Canopus and Premiere background. Since, I've moved to Newtek Video Toaster and now also Vegas because my friends love it so much. I had thought Vegas had real time capability and have since been dissappointed that it doesn't seem to have it. I think a hardware solution including a breakout box would be nice. I think Sonicfoundry has a great product in terms of software but I think even the best written software needs all the edge it can get from a great piece of hardware.

Paul

I love the fact that VV is non specific with hardware. (Ok - other than the minimum specs) But I think that VV should 'support' higher end cards, and vice versa. This is not the same as saying it will only work with one type of card - such as D/Vision when it would only work with the Intel ActionMedia card. When Intel stopped making that card D/Vision has to rethink and try to make it NLE more open ended but by then things sort of bounced around- now it is part of the whole Discreet suite.

Right now VV seems to work with a lot of things - any OCHI 1394 card, USB capture devices, capture cards such as the ATI 'All in One' cards - so yeah, why not with a $20,000 HD card? Because the card manuafaturer would need to create drivers to wotk with VV for one, and the other is that SoFo seems to like being non-hardware biased overall.

Just to clarify... I'm not asking for SF to make it so that Vegas must be used with hardware. However a hardware option would make editing in Vegas even better than it already is and for me the cost would be absolutely worth it. People that want to stay software only could do just that. And people that need faster output and are willing to put up the cash could do it. That's what Avid is doing with Xpress Pro and Mojo, you can go either way.

Certain effects I really need to see in true realtime to tweak properly and rendering interrupts the work flow. In my opinion... many people would come over from the dark side if this were available.

Marc

I suspect a few issues are being overlooked here.

From my limited experience it would seem to me that a hardware based render engine would impose serious limitations on a NLE or be able to provide RT rendering in only a restricted set of circumstances.

1) Would probably only be able to support PAL and NTSC at DV res.
2) Limited to those transitions it was programmed for.
3) How many video tracks could it support
4) What about composits.

Certainly if you only need to do basic DV editing there are probably faster solutions than VV but if you want a product that handles anything that you throw at it, at any price then VV is all there is.

Even if I could afford an Avid Symphony suite I'd still need VV to handle WMV files etc.

At the moment I have VV rendering from a WMV file at 328x240 at 30fps to 720x576 at 25fps. 1.5 hours of material is taking 15 hours to render. I'm not complaining because I appreciate the number of calulations involved. The client is impressed because the result is the best quality they've ever seen.

If I need faster output I can just buy a faster machine or more of them, both of those solutions speed up everything on the PC.

I'm sure I could buy a magic box that will do the same thing, I just don't want to mortgage my home and the client will never pay enough for me to recover the costs.

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but the real issue is would/should SoFo be willing to put up the cash for such a major rewrite that would benfit at best a tiny percentage of users? I doubt it.

I'm thinking maybe in the $250,000 ballpark, just for starters. I don't think its going to happen. Then again Sony got deep pockets, but I don't really see a demand. So I would think it isn't that some wouldn't be willing to pay for it, rather what kind of a return would SoFo get for developing it?

You're basically talking "old" technology. Also there is the time element. I would think at least 9 months to maybe 15 or so. By then technology may have already leaped past and it would be a white elephant.

I predict Vegas will support hardware real soon - I think well see something like what Pinnacle are doing with Edition 5 - tapping into the graphics card for real time play back...

I mostly write software fo a living and your dead right billyboy, except I think your cost estiamtes are about an order of magnitude out.

What would they do, write support for an existing card or develop there own?

The only thought I've had would be to use the smarts found on the newer video cards via even openGL or ActiveX but that would probably only benefit CGI type renders not video rendering.

Wow, that much? Then it seems that much more unlikely. Its not that I'm against speed, I like everyone else would like shorter render times. I just don't see SoFo going in that direction. Remember they don't even put their "boxed"software in a box it comes in a nice padded envelope. <wink>

i would not even care about hardware rendering if I can have network rendering ..

writing addtional software for that is a lot easier than for supporting hardware.

Other apps can do it for video - (DFX Fusion is a good example) and do it very well ..

setting up a render farm these days is pretty cheap -- even 5 x dual cpu systems (since they dont need anything more than basic video and no sound - just cpu power and memory and a single smaller hard drive) doesnt cost all that much and as time goes by you can upgrade or add more -- a lot better than being stuck with a expensive hardware card (which are a pain in the a** more times than not) ..

Vegas is built on a plugin based architecture, so adding NLE hardware support shouldn't be that difficult. Someone just needs to write a plugin for whatever NLE hardware is being used. For example, Bob Tasos wrote a realtime Premeire plugin for the Newtek Toaster 2 on his own and sells it for $150 (www.toastergarage.com). The same can be done for a DV storm (Canopus has a free storm SDK available for download), etc. It doesn't have to cost a load of money, just takes time and prgramming....

Mike

I think BJ M suggestion of network rendering is a more reasonable request. I know that is something i would use more than i pinnacle or matrox or whatever card. Most of the realtime effects cards have really cheesy settings. There were a lot of discussions on this awhile back and the general consensus (sp?) was that fade to blacks and some simple transitions make more of an impact than Starwipes and Vertical BLind transitions. As far as a broadcast card or breakout box, Vegas has not focused enough on the Broadcast demographic for this to be a concern, and probably never will. That is not to say that Vegas cant do broadcast work but rather their product is aimed toward users such as myself. Tying software to other peoples cards opens up a whole new set of problems and customer service calls. It will always be the back and forth blame game of who should fix a problem when an issue arises.

I think Sofo should improve on what they have with network rendering instead of trying to be everything to everyone.

PS> Billyboy's comment about the padded envelopes has been filed under funny.

Thats a dual edged sword. As a user of Matrox DigiSuite and Speed Razor I know.
Those companies are not talking to each other. Upgrading is a major pain.
Most of the time after upgrading the system won't work. The companies point fingers
at each other (And not the index one). And for what? So I can see what the video looks like? I can do this in Vegas. I use Vegas on my laptop for portable edits and you could
not get a card for that. What needs to be developed is a MOJO for Vegas.

Network rendering: I'm not familiar with DFX Fusion, but most apps that support network rendering are 3D apps, and there's a reason for this. All they need to transmit over the network is mathematical equations and the results. On the other hand, transmitting DV video to and from a networked client machine would require massive amounts of bandwidth, and isn't really practical as a time-saver.

Personally I would love to see an optional hardware card that would offer true real-time preview for a number of Vegas effects. As StormMarc says, it's not an all or nothing solution. Software Vegas would continuet to exist as it does. No one would be forced to use hardware.

As for the question of how many effects or composites would be possible, the way I understand it works with Premiere is anything within the limits of the card is produced in real-time, but add one effect more than it can handle and you have to pre-render an AVI file. Simple.

So, yes. Somebody take a look at that Canopus SDK. Make it so.

Playback, indeed I/O hardware support is different from rendering accelerators.
Ultimately DirectX libraries will solve this using the GPU of graphics cards aswell as the general purpose CPU of your PC. Until then I just hope for continued support and development of 8-bit;10-bit;16bit per plane; RGB and YUV vectors; Standard Def, High Def and custom def frame sizes; MOV, AVI and signpost-based import media. I wouldn't mind capturing video in whatever comes with my "better than DV" hardware. However I would like SoFo to advance the preview output formats that they support.

Today we have Vegas-Preview-Window, clipboard and DV-out preview. I'd like to see uncompressed (8-bit RGB, 10bit RGB and 8bit YUV) directshow surface writing initially. This would support some uncompressed cards native software which can hook into directshow and share that viewport to standard video interfaces (Parhelia and NewTek VT namely). Further to this SDI card support for BlackMagic etc.

Taking Vegas to the mid-2000s. Even though PC performance is going up nicely. I'd like to see the manual explaining how straight forward initially editing with DV or SD-uncompressed versions is, and then swapping the clip bin out for HiDef-equivalent sources is for the final render. This is a seriously important feature of software based NLEs that really is difficult to justify anything more than a directx accelerator for needing anything extra on your desktop.

The trouble with helping add too much to the wealth of DirectX is that you also indirectly help the competition NLEs. So the user interface can win, in the end.

I would like a hardware based solution too. A "Box" like Avid Xpress Pro and Mojo. It would be great.

4 or 5 real time layers is enough.

SF (Sony) listen your customers as always you do !

5 layers is NOT enough. Hardly ever work with that few.

Having read all the other comments, I can only say this: I don't see Vegas trying to be everything to everyone. SoFo created a product that filled a void. They created a product like no other. Its ever-growing user base is evidence that they've done something right.

If Vegas isn't doing what you want, go buy something that does. If you want Vegas to be like ___________ (fill in the blank), then go buy ___________ (fill in the blank) and allow Vegas do what Vegas does best.

I'm not being critical, I'm saying I well understand that one size doesn't fit all, as should we all. Vegas fits me just fine. ;o)

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