Probably not, I'm afraid.

Such a (minor) change would have a major impact on how slow or fast the browsing is - within the project media window.. Gets my vote as a handy fix! You should send SCS a "Product Suggestion". Don't hold your breath, VP11 is probably already nailed, and just undergoes some minor tuning before the soon to be release...

I hope SCS has put the act together and at the same time (creating new bugs) also repaired some of the nastier old ones...

Christian.

You should send SCS a "Product Suggestion"

Done. not holding my breath....(why is that so depressing ?...seems to be a given that most, if not all, software manufacturers frig things up)

I never use the Project Media window for anything. I don't even have it displayed. I create folders on my hard drive for the various collections of assets in a project and access them through Vegas' explorer window. Super simple and streamlined, with none of the issues you've mentioned.

I will definitely try that Chienworks.

The only issue with that is viewing and switching between folders in thumbnail view....my preferred method of viewing assets.

I'll have to try and figure out how to do this in the best way in Windows 7.
Any tips would be appreciated.

I never use the Project Media window for anything. I don't even have it displayed. I create folders on my hard drive for the various collections of assets in a project and access them through Vegas' explorer window. Super simple and streamlined, with none of the issues you've mentioned.

I too have all my assets in folders, and I've named each with a name that is meaningful to me. But I cannot view them as icons. Are you seeing icons when using the Explorer through Vegas, or just the file name.

The whole "bin" issue has been around for over a decade, I don't think SCS designed Vegas for the kind of workflow that makes heavy use of bins. Getting this issue addressed is most probably never going to happen because its not an issue for the majority of the target market and fixing it may well break what the target market finds appealing about Vegas.

I'd kind of suggest you're simply using the wrong NLE for how you want or need to run projects. If your requirments entail a lot of media / asset management a solution from Avid might give you more joy especially if you see your business growing. Of course if you absolutely love everything else about Vegas and just cannot live without it then you may well be very unhappy with the constraints that an Avid system imposes although they have made some moves to loosen the straightjacket a bit of late. Certainly if I was in your position I'd get a trial of an Avid solution and give it a fair shake out, you may love it or hate it.

Bob.

The only time I use Project Media is delete no-longer used stuff from the project file (all items with a use count of 0).

Peter - there's a lot of hidden columns in Project Media that sometimes come in handy.

OP - "The Project Media Section is supposed to help you to streamline and organize your project media."

I think that you have mistaken Project Media with the Media Manager.

The Project Media window is not intended as any kind of bin or database - it's simply a window into the details of the project media.

Hmmm..Steve....I will bow to your knowledge of Vegas since I am not a professional, but, from the Vegas manual :

"You can use the Project Media window to collect and arrange all the media you will use in your project. You can add media, preview it, view and change file properties, and add effects to a file.

I'd kind of suggest you're simply using the wrong NLE for how you want or need to run projects. If your requirments entail a lot of media / asset management

Fair enough Farss. So, to answer your question, I've tried Avid Liquid (er' whatever it's now called) and immediately did not connect with it. I grappled with it for quite some time, but, just didn't like it at all. I've demo'ed Adobe Premier and, similarly, found it too convoluted. I actually luv Vegas.

But, let's take it from another angle....what is the Project Media Window for ?....if it's not for previewing and organizing your media into various Bins ?

I'm finding a lot of these suggestions to be a little...I can't think of a nice way to say it. Saying "I never use that feature you have a problem with and therefore there's no problem" isn't really helpful. Basically you're (points finger at Kelly) describing a very specific way of working that suits some people but isn't going to be the intuitive choice for most users, who will look at Vegas and try to use the tools provided rather than spend their time figuring out how *not* to use the tools provided.

I'm not knocking the idea of individual workflows, I have my own byzantine methods, it's just that the world is full of "other people" and you can't always expect people to adopt your own well reasoned practices.

Yes, you can organize everything in filesystem folders and you can just use the Vegas Explorer to access it all. Unfortunately this doesn't tell you what's actually in your project. That's the job of the project media window.

Vegas has three or four management tools: Vegas Explorer, Project Media, Media Manager, and Edit Details. All of them do some specific and very useful things, although it galls me that Project Media shows bins and Vegas Explorer shows regions. Project Media should show both. But all the tools have a place in the workflow.

As far as Bins goes, I don't think the feature was introduced until v4 or v5, and it's always seemed like the feature was added to get customers off their backs. It hasn't gotten a lot of love since it was introduced, in my opinion.

88keys, you're right that the thumbnail view in Project Media is really annoying when it has to reread the thumbnails. It'd be nice if that was improved.

As for moving from bin to bin, I have been running into similar annoyances in lots of places outside Vegas too. Even in Windows 7's file selector. Sometimes a tool remembers what you've selected, sometimes not. Sometimes it keeps resetting it's view to the top of a list, sometimes not. Sometimes a tool remembers a folder you've selected and opened but resets the list so that your selected folder is at the bottom of the window, where you can't see subfolders. This drives me crazy, for instance, if I'm trying to pick a folder when saving files from Adobe Raw, because the folder I'm trying to choose never stays under my mouse. Is it an Adobe thing or is it a Windows thing? Don't know, but it's bad design.

So, the bin views should be able to remember what was in view and also what was selected in the bin. It seems like a pretty straightforward design requirement.

BTW, the same behavior happens in the Vegas explorer. If you go from folder to folder and then back to the first folder the content's list resets to the top of the list. It doesn't have to work this way. I use a Windows Explorer replacement called Xplorer2 and it remembers where I was both forwards and backwards. It's a very nice navigational feature and really speeds things up.

As for Undo resetting and closing Bins, I'm not seeing that behavior but maybe I'm not doing what you're doing.

Rob Mack

First-off, sorry for the previous bit of rant.

....what is the Project Media Window for ?....if it's not for previewing and organizing your media into various Bins ?

Keep in mind that the Project Media Window existed before the Bin feature was added to Vegas. Aside from the fact that bins "exist", I don't think much has changed in the Project Media window. The name of it changed from Media Pool to Project Media.

So, the window primarily shows you what media is actually being referenced by your project. It can also show you thumbnails, or a list view, or a detailed list that includes data that the Vegas explorer can't show you. All of this is useful and I dare say it's a REQUIREMENT that any NLE actually be able to show you what media is in your project. Vegas Explorer can't do that. Media Manager doesn't do that, Edit Details doesn't do that.

One of the things it does very well for me is search the media in my project, but this is only useful because all of my media has descriptive names. It doesn't help when your media is named clip01, clip02, etc. And it's nice that you can save the search results as a bin, but it'd be even nicer if the bin name would default to my search term.

Rob

Very well said Rob!

Well, I am corrected.
It has never occurred to me to use bins in the Project Media window - all this time I've been using Windows folders.

'Scuze me while I go eat some crow....

"So, to answer your question, I've tried Avid Liquid (er' whatever it's now called) and immediately did not connect with it. I grappled with it for quite some time, but, just didn't like it at all. I've demo'ed Adobe Premier and, similarly, found it too convoluted. I actually luv Vegas."

"Liquid" was not an Avid product, Avid bought the company and never did much with it. I believe it is now defunct. Avid Media Composer is probably more along the lines of what you may want to have a look at...

Never played with it myself but I know it is NOT Vegas.

I do use Ppro and don't find it so bad at all. It too isn't Vegas but it's closer than Avid MC.


Bottom line is as I think you can see, not many Vegas users are that interested in Bins. There's certainly been a few here over the years who've devoted a lot of typing to complaining about what Vegas isn't and most of them have gone elsewhere and found some form of Nirvana. Needless to say we've got plenty going the other way and there's a few who use Vegas AND xyz.

Bob.

;-) i've complained over the years, (and still am!) about time code, media manager, protype titler, bins, and media manager - these are not bugs, but badly (if at all) implemented aspects of what is undoubtedly the best nle (for my purposes anyway) around.

if you don't like it, there's other software around as already mentioned. as the saying goes; been there, done that, didn't like it ;p)

"It has never occurred to me to use bins in the Project Media window - all this time I've been using Windows folders....Steve

I need a work around the Gawd Awful Project Media window. We have all determined that it is pretty near useless as it is.

I'm going to try Windows 7 Folders...what is the best Windows 7 Explorer application for handling video and photo assets...including thumbnails ?

It might be a nice touch if one could translate those folder structures to bin layouts, and vice versa. For instance, if you save a project and "copy media with project" it'd be a nice thing if you could recreate your bin layout as folders. It's not *necessary* but it might be nice.

I'm sure there's a reasonable substitute that would allow you to do your clip wrangling outside of Vegas. For instance, I just browsed a folder full of DVCProHD quicktime files using Adobe Bridge, and it seems to hold a lot more thumbnails in memory, supports drag and drop to Vegas, and probably allows you to tag things.

Personally, there are things about Bridge that I find far more infuriating than Vegas could EVER be, but there are things it can do that make me use it sometimes. It can display RAW stills with the effects of my development settings, and shows me that settings exist. Other than that it often makes me want to jump out a window which is not good when you're three floors up in a Victorian. However, if you work at ground level and have Bridge available to you you might try it. It can play previews in it's own window rather than opening an external player.

Anyway, I won't claim that Bridge is the best but it does what you want with resizable thumbnails, drag and drop, support for a lot of video formats, and internal preview.

The Project Media window will still display basic information like What's in the Project and What's in Use without you having to do much. This is important information but if thumbnails are your main criteria then it seems like you have to go elsewhere.

Rob

The Project Media window will still display basic information like What's in the Project and What's in Use without you having to do much. This is important information but if thumbnails are your main criteria then it seems like you have to go elsewhere

Well, it will but only in Detail View. Not in thumbnail view.

The single feature that I would have liked coming from Pinnacle Studio over to Vegas... years ago... is that amazing little check mark which, at a glance, instantly tells you when you have already used an asset in the timeline. How frickin' hard is that to program ?

Rob, I'm trying to work with Windows Folders, which, so far is O.K., but, still, you cannot so easily manage the timeline from windows Folders. That is, I like to build my timeline step-by-step bringing in assets almost one-at-a-time.My M/O forces me to "go outside" of Vegas into Windows Folders and then "back into" Vegas....OUT then IN then OUT then IN....I don't think this working method is very "streamlined." Wouldn't you agree ?

Bottom line is as I think you can see, not many Vegas users are that interested in Bins.

I'd probably state that more as "not many Vegas users who frequent this forum and also feel obliged to tell you they don't use Bins have an interest in Bins."

A bit like saying that 100% of telephone survey respondents say they have telephones.

One certainly doesn't have to use bins but they can be a handy organizational tool. More importantly for Sony, I think, is that it's hard to lure people over from another product if Vegas doesn't at least *seem* to have all the fingers and toes that they expect in an edit system.

Rob

Bottom line is as I think you can see, not many Vegas users are that interested in Bins

That's pretty much like saying that Windows users are not that interested in Folders. True, but, are they indispensable ? Unless you're the Oscar Madison of Windows users, I'd say yes.

I'm more like the Felix Unger of Vegas users.

Don't worry Rob, no offense taken in the slightest. All i did was review what the OP said he wanted to accomplish and noted that it *could* be done in Explorer view. Obviously there are folks who know better suggestions. :)

Wouldn't you agree ?

Yes I would agree. What some have suggested is that you use Vegas's Explorer view rather than using a completely external application. One advantage to the Vegas Explorer view is that you can view Regions that you've marked out in the trimmer and this can sometimes be a lot more helpful than bins.

Unfortunately, your primary requirement is that you have a thumbnail view of your media and the fact that the project media window seems to only keep about 45 thumbnails in memory. At least that's my count.

This sort of thing trips people up all the time --- that there's one particular quirk in the software that we just can't get around. So you're trying to balance the trade-offs between the different ways you can approach this. Project Media Window? Vegas Explorer? Windows Explorer? Other External Browser? None of them can give you everything you want.

One of the things I'm noticing with Bins is that when they don't have huge numbers of clips in them there's not much delay in their redrawing. But then I'm not seeing the bins reset every time I do an Undo, so our experience is different. I'd definitely try to get some some tech support from Sony on this.

Rob