Why is it that none of these articles ever mention Vegas as an alternative?? It's always just "going back to avid" or "switching to Adobe Premiere". Strange isn't it? Is vegas stil lnot considered a pro software?

I think it is not mentioned because it is not an Apple platform software. These people have a lot invested in Apple and so are looking for alternatives.

But honestly, Vegas is not on many people's radars. It just stays in the background. Even though I prefer it over the others, I have to use Avid or FCP where I work.

Dave T2

"Why is it that none of these articles ever mention Vegas as an alternative?? It's always just "going back to avid" or "switching to Adobe Premiere". Strange isn't it? Is vegas stil lnot considered a pro software?"

I've thought this, and commented on it, repeatedly. Vegas does what FCPX SHOULD have done - 64-bit, maintaining the feature set of FCP, while moving the editing paradigm into the 21st century, and adding speed and ease-of-use to the platform.

Why don't video professionals consider Vegas as an alternative to the now-dead FCP? Perhaps because the marketing people at Sony don't. There's never been a serious push from Sony to present Vegas as a tool that can be used as a beginning-to-end solution for big-budget projects.

The frustrating thing is, it could be, especially given Sony's resources:
They manufacture high-end video cameras.
They have a professional NLE.
They own movie studios.
They control distribution.

The solution is simple.
Put someone in charge of a team, on one of their next big-budget films, with one goal. Make this film, using Sony products from end-to-end, including shooting on the PMW F3 or the F35, editing on Vegas, distributed through Sony theatrically and on Blu-Ray.

And then promote the hell out of Vegas, the way Apple did with Final Cut with Cold Mountain and Walter Murch.

There may be some struggles. Sony may find that their EDL and OMF tools need some work. They may find that Vegas Pro 10 wasn't quite up to the job. But Vegas Pro 11 will be. Because the experience of using their tool on a job that pushes its limitations result in the tools growth. Just as using Final Cut on Cold Mountain, before Final Cut was ready for such a job, did.

"Why don't video professionals consider Vegas as an alternative... ? Perhaps because the marketing people at Sony don't."

Genius statement. It's always felt like the rest of Sony is embarrassed of Vegas.

...Perhaps because the marketing people at Sony don't.

I get the feeling that FCPX was the result of Apple marketing people riding roughshod over the former FCP product team.

Sure, the main reason these people don't mention Vegas is that they're on Apple platforms and Vegas isn't a native option. But read the comments after the articles. The people who are complaining wouldn't be happy with Vegas because Vegas wouldn't do the things they're asking for. And after all the people here have been saying that FCPX looks a lot like Vegas how can you think that people complaining about FCPX would be open to Vegas? Basically, Vegas and FCP7 weren't competing for the same market. Maybe Vegas and FCPX *are* in the same market, though.

This whole episode ought to be instructive for SCS. The professional market is saying pretty plainly what they want in an NLE. SCS can also see pretty plainly how Apple has botched their communication with a very vocal part of their customer base.

Rob Mack

"I get the feeling that FCPX was the result of Apple marketing people riding roughshod over the former FCP product team."


IMO, the after-sales revenue team (AKA iTunes, App Store..) is ascendant. They appear to have it all over the old model of software sales. I beleive they cowed Marketing, who, if they had done their job correctly, would have told them *both* of the gajillion new sales they'd make *and* the existing customer base they'd disappoint. Either that, or they just decided to give the pros the middle digit.

Hard to tell which - but I'll point out that Apple Marketing is considered lengendary. There's hardly a business systems textbook that doesn't point them out.

Anyone else thinking that the contributing factor was that iMovie and FCP were two completely separate products, with separate (probably pretty large) dev teams, and someone decided to merge the two, letting the bean counters dictate which market segment would be the most profitable?
The problem being that they met in the middle so to speak, and only made one version.

As I understand it, there are a lot about the FCPX that even the Pro's like, but there are also a lot they obviously do not. Judging from the NAB(?) presentation in April, they certainly seemed enthusiastic about just about every single one of the "Vegas" features. Such as:
- Easy fade
- Drag to change framerate of a clip
- Automatic (4-point) audio duck of the selected audio. Though it looked like it split the event into 3 parts doing so, where we use an Envelope.
- Automatic ripple edit

When it comes to releases, Sony, and IIRC most others is doing it right, building pro and consumer on the same code base leading to only one main dev team with a bit of customization on the side.
The "Studio/Xpress/whatever" consumer version is then a scaled down, limited version of the professional package with some added default and fixed FX settings and such to make it easier for the consumer. Casein point, Vegas Studio 11, with the new titler, which is just a wrapper around the ProType titler. Same code underneath, but with some fancy pre-sets that are unfortunately not very customizable.

The use of the same code base also carries the benefit that the user can more easily jump up to the pro version, as the basic UI will be the same.