Vegas 6 Features -- It's That Time Again...

vitamin_D wrote on 11/12/2004, 1:21 PM
Hey,

Just writing to see if we can stir up some talk about the next major Vegas update before it hits code freeze, as complaining after it's been released didn't seem to get me far last time :D

My personal wishes include:

A skinnable UI, or a button to revert to the Vegas "classic" look of versions 4 and under -- as it stands, I'm generally not one for needing a skinnable interface, but then I can't say I like the choice Sony made for me with the 5 UI, you know, the Hello Kitty Interface...

Better media management -- something I'd assumed was a given for 5, especially all the word play it gets on just about every Vegas related forum, or has gotten in the past. And now I see Frank Capria at DV Magazine cites it as one of Vegas's glaring cons. Take some cues from the better capture and logging utilities out there and go from there.

AAF/OMF/EDL support -- I know it's not going to happen, I just figured I'd put it down for the sake of posterity :) Another Capria con in the recent DV review, incidentally.

Network Rendering -- I can't imagine improvements to the net rendering services will be easy, but at the same time I think it's safe to say they're necessary. While we're on the topic of rendering, something to speed it up in general for Vegas would do a lot for its professional reputation -- hardware support for a proprietary codec, for instance, might not be a bad idea. Again, I'm betting the reason it hasn't happened isn't to a lack of interest from the programming and design team at Sony -- moreso a limitation with the Vegas architecture -- still it's something of a needed area of work.

Official, well documented and easy to understand Decklink support and integration -- I know this has been something on the burner for a while now, but I can't easily get a clear answer as to how well Vegas supports the DL cards, their proprietary rendering services/codecs/etc. This goes for HD support in general -- it's the new buzzword, and while people like BJ_M seem to be happily working with HD and Vegas, the rest of the world needs to know what Vegas can do.

Higher bit rendering engine -- is this at all realistic? Avid has 10bit codecs; AE has a 16bit engine; Is a higher bit render engine in the works, and if not why?

That's it for starters -- anyone else?

- jim

Comments

Nat wrote on 11/12/2004, 1:49 PM
I don't think they should waist their time on the UI. I think it's great now, pretty easy to tweak it so it doesn't remind Hello Kitty.
I'd rather see them work on nestable timelines, better media managment and such.
vitamin_D wrote on 11/12/2004, 1:54 PM
Well, I agree with you for the most part -- it's a "wish," not a need, but like you say "I don't think they should waist their time on the UI". This is as true as it was for 5 -- I wish they hadn't done anything to the UI :D

Some of my other requests lean further to the "need" side, though.
David_Kuznicki wrote on 11/12/2004, 2:18 PM
I'm of the opinion that we NEED to be able to nest other Vegas projects within a timeline, similar to precomps on AE. It makes it so darn difficult when you're working on a large project right now...

Move away from the effects! That seems to be what Sony (and Sonic Foundry) kept trying to push Vegas towards-- do we need 3D space in an editor? Do we need god-knows-how-many effects? Not in my opinion. AE does it better, but then, AE doesn't have a split personality.

(and I'm not a huge Adobe fan, btw! Photoshop & AE are just very good at what they do...)

And since Acid now has host/slave capability, give Vegas ReWire capability. I'd LOVE to be able to open Acid & Vegas and be able to edit & score concurrently. It's the same thing as with nested timelines-- you have to rerender every time if you're taking it out to Acid to score something.

Not that I'm down on Vegas, mind you. It's still my editor of choice. I started Final Cut training at work not long ago... and walked away pulling out my hair!

David.

Red96TA wrote on 11/12/2004, 2:51 PM
How 'bout some nice titling additions ala BluffTitler...the program is only 3mb and puts out some GREAT titles that includes an alpha channel.

Next is a chromakeyer that doesn't look like it's an afterthought. I have Serious Magic Ultra and it runs circles around anything VV5 could ever hope to imagine.
winrockpost wrote on 11/12/2004, 3:33 PM
presets for track motion, save for tack motion, a little more work on media management and get back to editing instead of 3d bull sh$%. Plenty of 3d programs out there faster,easier ,and more powerful.One program cant do everything well.
my humble opinion
BJ_M wrote on 11/12/2004, 3:39 PM
get rid of the 2000 pixel limitation ... it is a real pain as i need 4k resolution a lot and at times 5160 ...

net rendering working pretty good - but stitching slow as heck .. rendering like dfx fusion or renderman would be the bomb (1 or more frames per cpu - per network render engine, but less than 1 gig memory , dont even apply) .

10 or 16 bit color space (or floating).

better matchback.

decklink support (now!) .

possible support for using hardware rendering using the graphics card (as i pointed out at DMN forum) OR some form of hardware acceleration.

do not re-render source files if not required (talking other than DV here - i dont use DV) .

ac3 input support.

elem. m2v mpeg file input support ..

better resize filters - but speed up a lot of the proccesses. many are way to slow for the quality you get.

built in frame serve support - in and out .. support for virtualdub and avisyth frame serve directly ..

be able to split fields .

read/write DLT (ok - not going ot happen , but be nice) backups (tar and everythng else, see nova)

p@mast3rs wrote on 11/12/2004, 3:55 PM
- Definitely ac3 input

- support for MP4 container

- support for H.264 AVC codecs

- grain removal (like Grain Surgery for AE 6.5)

- auto color, auto levels, auto contrast, shadow/highlights (like AE 6.5)

- NESTED TIMELINES/SEQUENCES (if it doesnt make it in this time, I wont be using VV6.)

- hardware assisted rendering

- HDV codec (no need to spend an extra $500 on Cineform.)

PeterWright wrote on 11/12/2004, 4:23 PM
When a saved preset is used in an FX etc, the name of that preset should be there when the FX window is reopened - not "Untitled".
SeaJohn wrote on 11/12/2004, 4:47 PM
I want a CLIP level motion effect - one that does motion, scaling, and cropping all together.
There are a lot of times I don't want to do motion on a track level. With the current track motion I find myself constantly adding keyframes in front and behind clips to keep them from being affected by what I'm doing to other clips on the track. Just give us a clip level motion effect.

SNAPPING - Clips should snap to each other across tracks. (Yes, I know you can snap the cursor to clip 1, then move clip 2 and snap it to the cursor, but that's an extra step). This is one of the few things Premiere does better than Vegas - it's great about snapping.

Background rendering

Don't lose pre-renders when I look at the screen funny or sneeze!

Change Render to New Track to Render to TOP track.

Bring back track motion presets

kentwolf wrote on 11/12/2004, 5:51 PM
>>...the name of that preset should be there when the FX window is reopened - not "Untitled".

ABSOLUTELY!!!

I thought I was the only one annoyed by that.

You don't know if your preset is applied or not, unless you go back and do it again.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 11/12/2004, 11:19 PM
HDV codec (no need to spend an extra $500 on Cineform.)

I read on those press releases posted the other day that we (Vegas users) get Cineform for $145.
Grazie wrote on 11/13/2004, 12:14 AM
Just a thought here . .but ..

I'm finding I can kinda get along with Media Management - would like Vegas Explorer have the same Thumbnail option as MS Explorer .. seems daft that that aint there? Anyway . . more to the point I wanted to make . . I want to have more Treatment Asset Management. What I mean is I want a more intelligent method of collecting and managing my Presets, FXs and all the various and precious time-consuming manipulations I've created. Peter Wright touched on this with his comment above. But the thing I'm after is a more relevant, urgent, relevant of Asset OR Preset Management. For example, I think it would be neat if I could switch on the following: I do some text manips and as a result of this a "floating" "trigger" toolset remains on screen - not the BIG text manip window - but a trimmed version of that which I just used - yeah?

Look, the reasons why I adore Vegas is the fab way I can "Suck 'n See" a piece of my work to then preview it and see if it is the direction I wanna go in . . a bit like doodling and then firming up ideas and idea creation . . I want the tool set to be as responsive AS the t/l approach allows me to be in managing Media Assets on the t/l itself. Manip tools and Manip Tool assets and their management are lagging behind . . . Not just an extension of Preset Manager - but that would be good for starters . . But hey, what do I know?!?

Do Sony read these Gum Smacking Posts? I'd like to know this?

Grazie
SimonW wrote on 11/13/2004, 2:45 AM
- MXF support.
- Realtime scopes and audio monitoring ala DVrack in the capture module.
- Nested timelines.
- Better media management.
- AC3 input
- Give scripiting much more control over the various aspects of Vegas.
- Perhaps allow scripting for the capture module to allow 3rd party things like the real time scopes to be written for it if Sony don't put it in themselves.
- Allow the marking of broken timecode in the capture module. This way if a tape does have broken timecode there won't be any problems recapturing the footage in the future or if a batch capture is being performed. If a project has a tape with broken timecode, Vegas would then know to fast forward or play the tape until the timecode reappears again, and the next lot of footage after the break can be captured without confusion.
farss wrote on 11/13/2004, 4:26 AM
Ripple edit and audio track locking. I mean I'm OK with all of the above but how about getting the most basic editing functions to work correctly? This shouldn't have to wait for V6 either, this stuff is so basic it should have been fixed in V3.
Good to see less requests for more fancy half done widgets that are done better in apps outside of Vegas and more focus on the basics being got right.
Speed I don't really have an issue with, CPUs get faster and faster.
Some 'approved' way of SDI I/O seems pretty pressing, kind of bizzare we can do DHV I/O and not real SD.
There's lot more in the way of high end I/O I'd love to see but I'm realistic enough to know that's not going to happen and it can be done on other Sony systems.
One thing I'd like to see, better support for metadata, I only found out a few days ago that Sony cameras record a whole lot of usefull stuff into the DV stream, I'm guessing it ends up in the captured avi as well, it'd be nice to have an FX like the TC one that can display all of that info. And how about support for DV tape memory chip data (sorry don't know the official Sony name for that), I've got a deck that can read it but it seems Vegas knows zip about it. The tapes with the chips are pretty cheap these days and the concept seems more attractive now.
Bob.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/13/2004, 4:42 AM
Bob--

Not owning and very rarely using a Sony camera, I was under the impression that the video tape chips only held camera settings info. What would that have to do with Vegas and editing? What have I missed?

Jay
vitamin_D wrote on 11/13/2004, 7:08 AM
I'm just returning to throw in with some resounding hurrah's for whoever has said better Ripple Editing and better preservation of Pre-Renders. Ripple editing has come a long way since 3, but Pre-Renders are, and have been, a perpetual headache -- so much so that they're not even worth doing.

- jim
Nat wrote on 11/13/2004, 8:54 AM
Just want to say that I think the 3D features are nice. Do I need more ? I don't think so, but these features can be quite handy. I think the new compositing engine in V5 is great and I couldn't live without it now... Bezier masks and composite nestable layers can save a lot of time and pre renders.
Lloyd66 wrote on 11/13/2004, 8:59 AM
Definitely fixing the prerenders, I hate spending 30 minutes rendering a clip with magic bullet, and then making a change somewhere else and it disappearing. Also:

-On some of the filters (levels, color balance, etc.) I don't want to use the filter twice so that I can make changes to two different color channels or luma ranges. Levels should be able to make simultaneous changes to the RGB and red channels, and color balance to midtones and highlights as well.

-A dialogue box for determining clip speed. This is about the only thing I like better about Premiere. At least allow the clip to be sped up more than 400%. It gets annoying to mess with that and velocity curves, or rendering multiple times.
TeetimeNC wrote on 11/13/2004, 9:17 AM
* Nested timelines
* Better media management
* AC3 input
* Enable pinning a bezier mask to a moving object in a clip (to make rotoscoping, complex composting easier)
* Improved network rendering

-jerry
ClipMan wrote on 11/13/2004, 9:35 AM
...presets ... gimme lotsa presets.... can't get enough... in particular, I'd like presets for:

1. Pan Zoom
2. Track Motion
3. Anything else that will whip these clips out the door

...... futzing with keyframes sucks even on simple motion ... gimme a break here and pile on the presets...... well, you asked and I responded .... yes, I'm whining but whining is a major part of editing even at the best of times.... I'm not sure I knew what whining was until NLE came along ... now I'm used to it ... in fact, I'm getting to be a pro .... if Sony doesn't put in more motion presets, I'll whine in front of their office and create a scene ...
Udi wrote on 11/13/2004, 9:43 AM
- Nested Time line
- Aduido Scope
- Audio event FX - non-destructive - so you won't need a track for each setting
- Better color corrector - with levels control and color picker that show the RGB/HSL and ability to add a difference between 2 colors
- Zoom capability in the preview and color picker - with cross hair cursor
- Access to capture clip data - like date and time of shot. It is stored in the capture control file, and is shown in the media pool.
- Return the preset of track motion, and pan/crop arrows
- Ability of FX to access any frame, so look-ahead type of filters can be used
- Recoverable rendering, for long render if a failure happned (like power fail, disk full etc.) - so you don't need to restart from scratch.
Grazie wrote on 11/13/2004, 9:46 AM
Replace MEdia at the T/L - not just the Media Pool.
JJKizak wrote on 11/13/2004, 11:16 AM
1. Blinking ripple edit icon
2. Rename the menu message that pops up when you are saving the veg file with all clips to another harddrive so that it says when you interupt with another process "yes" to continue saving and" no" to stop saving.
3. During ripple edit blink or color the files that will not be affected by the ripple edit. (overlapping sound files)
4. Memory predictor-When low on memory automatically bring up the task manager and highlight the processes that can be ended prior to rendering. Then warn to reboot when completed rendering.
5. When openning Forge from Vegas on a long file the external monitor has to be reclicked to bring back the monitor when going back to Vegas.
6. Presets for HDV transport stream rendering.

JJK
farss wrote on 11/13/2004, 1:23 PM
Oddly enough the cameras settings are recorded on the tape!
No from the little I know the chips can hold good take / no take info.
On some systems you can capture just the flagged good takes.
Bob.