New here. Advice please

Archie · #1 (**permalink**) 12-27-2006, 06:40 PM

Hi all,

I'm new here, so be gentle with me!

I've been using MSP for about 10 years, but the 7 version really p***ed me off with way too many crashes. Although I will say there were an awful lot of nice touches there from 6.5. Anyways, when considering an upgrade to 8 I saw Vegas 6d going for a song, so I bought that and Tim Duncan's Vegas training DVD.
A couple of things that concern me:
Lots of moans here about the length of time Vegas takes to render. This WOULD be a big problem for me, as I make wedding videos. Too much pressure of work during the 'season' to wait for a horse & cart.
Also, multicam editing. I regularly use 3 cams at a ceremony. With MSP I put the 2 & 3 cams as PIPs then just play through marking (with cues & cutting with the scissors) where I want to use which cam.
I know there are a few plugins for Vegas multicam, but will the same method I use in MSP work in Vegas?

Having downloaded a trial of MSP8, I can see there are big changes, especially to single track editing. Also, it looks like they've finished the titler at last! Always seemed to me to be a 'work in progress' in 7. But.....is 8 reliable? I would probably feel more comfortable with MSP8 rather than Vegas, as in spite of the new interface, many things seem to work much the same.

I'd appreciate any opinions, especially from those here who use both.

Marc Peters · #2 (**permalink**) 12-27-2006, 06:52 PM

Not a Vegas user myself, but thought I'd chip in with the rendering question. Rendering is, as you no doubt know, a time consuming process. However, recent posts suggesting 24+ hour encodes are WAY off the mark for a reasonably well specced machine. Hell, I was recndering quicker than that on a P3 600. Although the encoding engine will affect the speed of render, this is insignificant when compared to time saved through better hardware (and by hardware I mean a faster CPU). The biggest difference in encoding engines is normally seen with quality, and then that often masked by the fact that there's a speed / quality trade off.

Bottom line? No, IMHO Vegas will not impeded your efficienct.

Mark W · #3 (**permalink**) 12-27-2006, 09:22 PM

Vegas can do as you wish.

Just use a different track for each camera and use track motion to make them into pip.

As for rendering, well how long is a piece of string.... I find that rendering an edit from dv to dv assuming no sharpening or other cpu intensive effects I get much better than real time on my core duo.

I am sure vegas isnt 'worse' in this respect than any other editor.

Chapman Photography · #4 (**permalink**) 12-28-2006, 05:03 AM

With 7.0c I can encode at about a 1:2.5 ration 1 hr avi in about 2 !/2 hr.

Archie · #5 (**permalink**) 12-28-2006, 02:48 PM

OK, well I had a play around with Vegas this morning. Used Vegas capture once, then went back to Scenalyzer. I can't understand why the folder to capture to is buried in options/preferences? I like to keep all of my 3 cams tapes/clips in a seperate folder - just helps to keep things neat as you progress through the project. (so C1T1, C2T1, C3T1 etc..) With Vegas this is a chore. With Scenalyzer it's simple. Not really a mayor problem, as I haven't used MSP's capture for years either. But it's disappointing.

The REAL problem for me was the 'building peaks' 'building audio proxies' thing. With 3 clips (a wedding ceremony) on the timeline averaging 45mins each. It just seemed to take an age. Watching that green progress bar Reminded me of the World Wide Wait we used to suffer before broadband.

There's no way I can put up with that nonsense - it'd drive me crackers!

The other big problem for me is that Vegas doesn't recognise my dual head device, which means I've got to go the firewire route to preview on a TV. Again that's a PIA. MSP recognises the dual head no problem.

I did like the simplicity of the track motion to create a PIP though!

Hopefully, someone will tell me there are workarounds for the above. Be a shame to ditch Vegas before I've even started!

Mark W · #6 (**permalink**) 12-28-2006, 04:55 PM

You can capture to any folder you want but you have to tell vegas that first ! Look in the prefs in the capture wiindow.

Suprised it doesnt 'see' both your monitors, I use vegas with a quad head card and a pci express g card with no probs and am currently staring a 4 montors with no problem.

As for the 'peaks', well you dont have to wait and you just cancel that if you want and carry on but you wont get a waveform. Vegas does this to greatly speed up the editing and display of waveforms, you only need to let it happen once and when you open the clip again the waveform is there immediatly.

It's a complex and powerfull editor and I wonder if you have really given it more than a cursory glance.

Archie · #7 (**permalink**) 01-09-2007, 04:53 PM

Sorry for such a late reply - was away for the new year.

Mark, I think you need to read my post again.

I can't understand why the folder to capture to is buried in options/preferences?

The only 'prefs' I seem to have are buried under the options menu as I described above. It's much much easier with Scenalyzer.

The option of stopping the 'creating audio proxie' isn't an option for me, as I need the waveform to synch up the 3 cams. How does MSP create waveforms instantly I wonder?

I will keep on playing with Vegas from time to time, I'm sure there will be things that it can handle better than MSP8, but at the mo I'll be sticking with MSP. That thing of watching progress/loading bars when opening a file went out with the Ark surely?

All the best.

Andy Lockwood · #8 (**permalink**) 01-10-2007, 06:48 AM

Archie... I guess all progs have an option of where the caps will go to, it's just that Vegas uses that window to specify where. You can change it easily and apply the change for all time.

Archie · #9 (**permalink**) 01-10-2007, 06:39 PM

I like to keep all of my 3 cams tapes/clips in a seperate folder - just helps to keep things neat as you progress through the project. (so C1T1, C2T1, C3T1 etc..) With Vegas this is a chore. With Scenalyzer it's simple.

The capture folders change with every job

howtovideo · #10 (**permalink**) 01-12-2007, 04:33 AM

I'm a Vegas head...not as trained as most..a student of hard knocks. I render on my desktop and my laptop both...Laptop does the best for me. Core 2 duo 7200 with a 1GB or ram...desktop is 3000+ AMD 64...same ram....Intel wins the race on this one. As far as multiple feeds...I just bring each one in and edit the tracks seperately. I'll have 8-10 tracks total but it reduces my time BUT makes me pay attention much more. Again, I only know what I've taught myself so this may not mean anything to anyone.

Mattie
www.apathyalliance.com