Sony Vegas Going 64-Bit! (Update: I'm Using It!!)

[Anderton]

I just got the Sony newsletter which says:

 

Vegas Pro 8.1 update:

 

Ready for 64-bit Vegas Pro? The advantages of running Vegas Pro 8.1 on a 64-bit PC with a 64-bit compatible operating system include increased computer memory and editing power, more files open on the timeline, more filters and effects, more cached frames, and faster rendering performance.

 

Stay tuned for information on the availability of both updates

[blue2blue]

You mean that (once I have 64 bit hardware, a 64 bit OS and the new 64 bit version of Vegas) I won't have to go out for dinner when I'm rendering a 5 minute clip with a bunch of special FX and overlays? Nice. I'm ready as soon as I get the... well, everything. Hopefully by the time I get ready, there'll be a 64 bit version of the basic version of the software that I own.

 

 

Craig, are you using Vegas primarily for vid or audio?

 

 

I have to say I was delighted by my purchase of Vegas Platinum (translateable as Vegas Plebian -- limited to 4 vid and 4 stereo audio tracks). I'd screwed around with so many giveaway vid editors (like you get with cams and capture cards and DVD burners, etc) and a couple of free and shareware editors and been so discouraged by all of them that I'd pretty much given up on affordable editor software that was really just usable. (Platinum was on sale around 60 or 70 bucks when I bought it. I consider that a very good deal for what one gets. But Sony really did right by me this time, I have to say. It kind of rekindled that old 60s flame just a little. )

 

But Vegas was utterly quick in its nondestructive editing and quick-render, even on my quite modest Pentium with only a gig and a 1/4 of RAM, had a respectable enough collection of plugs, and was very intuitive, operating much like Sonar or Vegas' sister app, ACID, in terms of basic editing (fades, slip-editing, etc).

 

Few purchases in recent years have been so delightfully positive. (And those who follow my rants a little too closely may recall that my judgments regarding Vegas publishers Sony have not always been so glowing.)

[Martin Kantola]

That's great news, I'm a long time Vegas Pro user but haven't been bothered to buy any updates for a long time, but I certainly will now! Speed is the key, spent about four days rendering one of my last projects... Yes, that's 24 x 4 hours! And 64-bit is the best way to go faster, no?

 

Vegas is such a great product, especially for projects mixing different types of media. The video preview in my Nuendo is a PITA.

 

Martin

[Anderton]

 

Craig, are you using Vegas primarily for vid or audio?

 

 

Exclusively for video.

 

 

But Vegas was utterly quick in its nondestructive editing and quick-render, even on my quite modest Pentium with only a gig and a 1/4 of RAM, had a respectable enough collection of plugs, and was very intuitive, operating much like Sonar or Vegas' sister app, ACID, in terms of basic editing (fades, slip-editing, etc).

 

 

Exactly. If it wasn't for Vegas, I don't think I'd have a video career, and there wouldn't be all those trade show videos in the HC Theater!

[russrags]

Cooooool.

 

I'm just about finished with a 2 hour DVD documentary from my trip to Italy last Jan. That's taken 8 months to complete, yikes it's a slow process. I'll probably wait and make the move to 64 Bit with my next computer.

 

I'd sure like to see some of you guy's stuff.

 

 

Russ

Nashville

[Anderton]

I'd sure like to see some of you guy's stuff.

 

I've done every AES and Frankfurt Messe video in the Theater. I've also done a lot of the NAMM videos, two 45-minute instructional videos for EQ magazine (one on mastering, one on signal processing), and a bunch of other videos that are scattered around the web (like the EV2 clips and some videos for companies).

 

This tells you all you need to know about Vegas: Within two weeks of the end of Winter NAMM, I had edited, rendered, uploaded, and backed up 74 videos. If it had been 64-bit, I probably could have done it in 10 days

[MikeRivers]

This tells you all you need to know about Vegas: Within two weeks of the end of Winter NAMM, I had edited, rendered, uploaded, and backed up 74 videos. If it had been 64-bit, I probably could have done it in 10 days

I guess you've had pretty good luck with Vista. If it was me, that 3 day saving would be far outweighed by the 3 years it would take me to choose a computer that can run it and then get everything up and working.

 

I'm glad I don't do video. I probably won't live long enough to finish a project. .)

[Anderton]

 

I guess you've had pretty good luck with Vista. If it was me, that 3 day saving would be far outweighed by the 3 years it would take me to choose a computer that can run it and then get everything up and working.

 

 

I have had good luck with Vista, but I didn't install or tweak it...that was done by the PC Audio Labs guys. It doesn't use the Aero graphics or anything fancy. And I think they disabled some of the "Please please can I install this program please?" security measures as well.

 

I hear all these nightmare stories about Vista and am thankful they haven't happened with me. But I also pretty much use the Vista aspect as an appliance - boot Vista, run Sonar, rinse, repeat. Sonar works well with Vista, which I think is part of the equation too. Hopefully Vegas will be as solid.

[spokenward]

It's up.

 

I'm thinking about it...

[Anderton]

I downloaded it. I'm using it to edit AES videos, and I gotta say:

 

THIS IS WHY VISTA 64-BIT WAS INVENTED!!

 

It just totally rocks. Rendering times cut almost in HALF. Virtually instantaneous pre-rendering. I can open multiple instances of Vegas and cut-and-paste among them. And with Sonar being 64-bit, I can hop over and whip up some quick music.

 

This is freakin' amazing!! I estimate that using 64-bit instead of 32-bit Vegas will save me about 15-20 hours over the course of doing 30-40 AES videos.

 

I started fooling around with it just before going to AES...when I ran into a guy from Microsoft, I introduced myself by saying "I'm that happy 64-bit Vista user you've been looking for."

 

Really!! If you use Vegas and have a 64-bit machine, download the update now.

[blue2blue]

That's great news, Craig. As I think I indicated, I'm a big fan of Vegas.

 

 

And I'm starting to get the sense that some of the worst of the Vista problems are growing to a close for those lucky enough to have bought hardware with Vista on it that was actually supported by Vista-ready drivers that work properly.

 

(I mentioned elsewhere that I recently saw some gaming benchmarks showing Vista outperforming XP in all their game benchmarks but one. That said, I have no interest or knowledge of today's gaming so I really don't know if the bench's were sensible or bogus. But they said their previous game benches were pretty disastrous under Vista and that they felt it was basically better written device drivers that had eased the huge slowdowns they saw in earlier testing.)

[scud133]

anyone used the other big ones, Avid / Final Cut Pro / Premiere ??

 

how does Vegas compare?

[Music Calgary]

Pretty effing cool.

[dahkter]

 

This is freakin' amazing!! I estimate that using 64-bit instead of 32-bit Vegas will save me about 15-20 hours over the course of doing 30-40 AES videos.

 

 

That's a great feeling, I love it when products deliver.

[blue2blue]

anyone used the other big ones, Avid / Final Cut Pro / Premiere ?? how does Vegas compare?

 

I tried using AVID Free (or whatever it's called) but it was highly unintuitive (or perhaps I was! )

 

Vegas, OTOH, I found to be pretty much instantly usable. Everything works the way I expected, for the most part. And, even on my extremely modest tower (a 2.8mHz P4HT with only a 1.25 GB RAM!), editing is virtually instantaneous. It's truly no-wait working. (Rendering, OTOH, can take more a while, particularly if the vid is junked up with a bunch of trick FX and multiple vid overlays -- but that was completely to be expected.)

 

I found it to be very similar in many ways to my own DAW, Sonar. And, while my version of ACID goes way back to version 3 (before Sony bought Sonic Foundry), I imagine that the latest versions of that program and Vegas are very similiar.

 

Many of the same 'moves' I use for editing in Sonar are the same or very similar in Vegas for both editing audio and video.

 

For instance, to do a cross fade in audio or dissolve in video, you simply drag one clip over another. To do a fade in/out (or adjust the fade times of individual parts of a dissolve) in audio or video, simply roll the mouse over the upper left or right corner of a clip and the mouse tool changes to the fade tool (and, of course, you can set various fade options).

 

Plug ins are quite intuitive. You can apply them to a whole track in the track info/control area on the left or just to a given clip. Setting mattes and composite porperties is easy. Apply automated effects like moving pan-and-scan crops (for the "Ken Burns effect") is easy. Multiple FX can be easily combined and overlapped.

 

Even the prole version (in my case Vegas Platinum, which set me back about $60 after a $30 rebate which Sony actually promptly sent to me with no fuss!) has four stereo audio tracks and four complete video tracks. (It's a trifle confusing at first since they've given the tracks that show by default 'purposeful names' -- video, video overlay, and text for the vid tracks [with an additional vid track you can also add in] and voice, music, and sound effects [with one more stereo track you can add in] for the audio. BUT... they're all functionally equivalent and interchangeable in actual use and practice.

 

 

As some folks may know, I used to carry a big ol' chip on my shoulder about Sony (the first brand I ever fell in love with -- back when I was about ten -- but who disappointed me a number of times in the 80s and 90s). But I have to say, I could scarcely be more delighted with Vegas than I already am (for the paltry money, anyhow). After messing around with a number of 'giveaway' vid editors like the Nero editor, Win Moviemaker, and some others, I'd just about given up on ever finding an affordable, more than barely usable editor. Vegas is like an entirely different beast... a completely different level. It's a real, usable, and powerful program.

 

How it stacks up with something like Final Cut Pro, I can't tell you. But it's actually hard for me to imagine liking a NLVE better. (Although I've almost never heard a bad word about FCP. Then again -- it ain't no 60 bucks. )

[Anderton]

 

That's great news, Craig. As I think I indicated, I'm a big fan of Vegas. And I'm starting to get the sense that some of the worst of the Vista problems are growing to a close for those lucky enough to have bought hardware with Vista on it that was actually supported by Vista-ready drivers that work properly.

 

 

 

I finished the update to service pack 1 yesterday, and downloaded new video drivers...it's really doing very well.

 

And I agree with everything you say about Vegas. It's an exceptionally intuitive and intelligent program.

[TimOBrien]

I use the lower-end Vegas Movie Studio and would love to completely switch to Vegas Pro.

 

....if only they would throw the MIDI editing from ACID over into Vegas.

 

I'd love to compose to video and do all my audio sequencing all in one application.

 

I've made the suggestion to Sony several times. Put your 2cents over to 'em too, they should be able to wrap it all up in one package.