Vegas 4 beta released

[vlad the inhale]

I must be a glutton for punishment:

Sonic Foundry has released the public betas for Vegas 4 and DVD-Architect:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/vegas4-cs.asp.

(Flees)

[Dr Mordrid]

Sorry, but no cigar :-P

How many people have an ASIO compatable sound card? From the promo VV4 not only can use ASIO (which is fine) but it requires it (which is not). That sets the bar pretty high when it comes to a minimal system configuration; needlessly so.

At the low end maybe those with an Audigy, but IMHO ASIO support isn't worth a damn on a card that can only sample at 16 bits (Audigy samples at 16 & processes at 24...supposedly). Gamers cards like the Audigy need not apply for this job.

To really use ASIO to its best effect you need something like an Echo Gina24, which has 8 balanced I/O's and ain't cheap. I know....I have one in my audio workstation.

Also: how many are willing to put up with a .NET infrastructure in their editing software? It's a big enough PITA just having to deal with it in my Parhelia's control panel.

Dr. Mordrid

[Hulk]

Although I use and like MS Pro I also use and love Sound Forge 6.0

Sometimes I wonder, if VV is a rock solid as SF maybe I should give it a try. Also, I'm still having that audio dropout with MS Pro. No, I'm not going to switch, but this does raise and eyebrow.

[Jerry Jones]

Hulk,

Your audio drop-out concerned me.

I passed your comments along to Ulead and received a very quick and positive response.

I believe a solution is already available for this problem.

I'll post it when I receive more details.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[wkulecz]

Jerry,

I duplicated Hulk's audio drop at 2:05 into the DV output on my notebook (P4 1.6GHz Dell Inspirion 8200, GeForce2 embedded video) with XP home and MSP 6.52 using both Sony and Canon camcorders. Dropout was more noticible on the Canon, but was definitely there on the Sony as well.


As to VV4 requiring .net, maybe Microsoft has already bought VV from SF and just hasn't told anyone :-)

Personally I don't consider XP an upgrade from W2K.

--wally.

[BrianP]

The .Net portion is if you want to make use of the scripting capabilities. You may write using JScript, Javascript, VBScript, C#, etc. Very powerful. Examples:<blockquote>/**
* This most simple JScript displays the version of the Vegas
* application in a message box. Notice that any script that talks to
* Vegas will import the SonicFoundry.Vegas.Script namespace.
**/


// This script will remove an effect from each item in the current
// project's media pool.


// This script renders a still image sequence from the current Vegas
// project. It first presents a dialog that allows you to specify the
// output directory, base file name, file format (PNG or JPEG), start
// time, stop time, and step time. Then it enters a loop that exports
// a sequence of image files.


// sample script that batch renders the current project.

// This script will add an effect to each item in the current
// project's media pool.

* This script will create a CD burning project from a music play list
* file in ASX format. You can save play lists in Windows Media
* Player in ASX format. This script can be easily modified to
* support any play list format that based on XML. </blockquote>

[BrianP]

Enough FUD.

Vegas doesn't <i>require</i> an ASIO card. The ASIO card is only "required" for record input monitoring, which is a new feature in Vegas4.

from the list of features in Vegas4:
"Record input monitoring- musicians or ADR folks please try that. This is a major addition. With a pro audio card like (Echo, Maudio etc) using ASIO, you should get really clean, low latency input."

[Dr Mordrid]

Since audio features are its major saving grace why get it and not meet the

Minimum System Requirements?

400 Mhz processor
128 MB RAM
30 MB hard-disk space for program installation
Microsoft Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, or XP
Windows-compatible sound card
DirectX 8.0 or later
Internet Explorer 5.0 or later
OHCI compatible IEEE-1394DV card (for DV capture and print to tape)
ASIO compatible sound card (for record input monitoring)
Microsoft .Net framework or Windows XP (for application scripting)
Supported CD-Recordable drive (for CD burning)

Dr. Mordrid

[BrianP]

Again:
ASIO compatible sound card <b><I>(for record input monitoring)</i></b>

translated: <i>if you want record input monitoring</i>, you need an ASIO card.

NOT: that you <i>need</i> an ASIO card, period

And audio is not it's only saving grace. It might have started out that way but it has come far past that now.

[Elie]

Downloading at 2.4Kbps!!!!

Sheesh!

[JackHu]

where to download the beta version VV4?

[BrianP]

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/vegas4-cs.asp

[Elie]

Just installed this awesome peice of software, and let me tell you, although a bit tedious to learn, the effects and transitions are amazing.

1-First of all, I was able to capture straight from my Sony DV Deck without any issues. The resulting AVI was playable in Premiere with RT.X100 in realtime.

2-I was able to stack a whole bunch of effects all in realtime, I added colour correction/ Film effects/ Out of sync TV/ plus a few others and I was surprised as to how it was playing back in RT.

The only unfortunate part is that no output to NTSC monitor.

3-The Colour Correction tool is no different in operation than the RT.X100, again same idea as photoshop.

The real cool effects were RT film effect and TV sync!! You have to try them.

Overall, it will probably take me a few weeks to get used to VV4, I believe the learning curve is huge, still don't know how to cut and trim add transitions, alphachannel, transperancy etc.

Will report back in a week or two.

Regards,
Elie

[Dr Mordrid]

Just gave it a go.

1. the page curls are nice in that they put a bitmap of the b-roll as a texture on 'em instead of using a solid color.

2. it's SLOWWWWWWW.......

It's not often to I connect a capture tool to a VfW device and have the audio in the software lag that of my source preview monitor by 2-3 SECONDS!! Jezzzz.....is that annoying.

3. it cannot RT preview a simple clock wipe in realtime on this system. MSPro7 does this without even ticking up the RT use indicator past white; its lowest activity display.

4. the UI is still poorly designed.

Still checking the rest of the features & rendering times.

Dr. Mordrid

[farid]

Elie,Doc,etc...

Congratulations for giving VV4 a try, shows you folks are open-minded. As far as I know there are is still no hardware RT support and the third party plug-ins are quite limited, but rumor has it that Boris would be ported to VV (wait and see).

Farid

P.S.: No need to say the SoFo forums on Creative Cow (http://www.creativecow.net/index.php?forumid=24) are going berserk, this came completely out of the blue...