Loved Vegas Pro 15 has been released !

Hey All!

Thought I'd throw my goofy "two-cents" into the ring. I will be purchasing VP 15 next week, as I have to wait for "retirement pay" to hit, and naturally, all those bill collectors wanting their share. But, I did download the 30 Day trial, and did some initial testing, more on the rendering "front". Can't say I like that they load the Magix Music Maker crap along with the trial version, but either don't run it, or uninstall afterwards (that's what I did!). Anyway, I am following the one thread on the Magix VP forum for rendering tests, and provided my own test time. If anyone is interested, I just updated what I had from our Hardware Forum here at MSZ, and you can check their first, then this forum thread at Magix:

Vegas Pro 15 Rendering Speeds

Still hesitant to swap out my GTX 1070 and try the RX 480 I have, as from what I have read so far, small to no (even drop) with the AMD camp, for the moment. Guess I don't have to worry about getting one of the Vega 64 cards (though, doubt anyone is at the moment! Come On AMD! Really???????)

Like George, "Eagle Six", who I know has the Broadwell -E processor, and myself who has two machines with Haswell-E, we do not have the "Native" Intel QSV (Quick Synch Video) within the processor itself. It started with the consumer version of Intel's Skylake processors, but definitely more inherent within the newer Kaby Lake, and future chips. I have not did enough research into Intel's new Skylake-E processor, to see if QSV is Native on the chip or not. But, using that GTX 1070 with VP 15 rendering, cut in half (test project was one I did listed in the Hardware Forum here) Link: GTX 1070 vs RX 480 .

But, just like all the other software and hardware being released recently, it is difficult to "weed-through" all the hype, pure "hate-bashing", misinformation, etc. these days. A lot of what I am reading on the Magix Vegas Pro/Movie Studio forums is the same old complaints, whining, and lack of understanding, and the afore-mentioned junk. Some of the "users" on the forum, I have now seen at various YouTube sites, doing nothing but criticizing, bashing, hating, etc., Wow! Makes me wish I could Re-enlist in the Navy, and go on a two year deployment again! Not saying there isn't problems, but dang! Guess one of the biggest issues I've read about, is the supposed "non-acceleration" of the timeline by graphics cards. Though, haven't seen a single complainer put down what type of file, size, their computer spec, etc., just like we would ask from someone with problems. Wonder how many of them are trying to throw, say a GoPro 3/4/5 Black 4K file with the .mp4 extension on their timeline, not "transcoding" in GoPro Studio or some other program (AVC Derek?), and expect "buttery-smooth" editing? I know with both my machines, I may get away with it for a few minutes, then the "girls" fight back and let me know I better change my GoPro file! Even with QSV, not sure how much it would help with those types of files on the timeline. This would go for those large RED, ARRI, GH5 10-Bit, 5DMkIV MJPEG files, etc. Wonder if they really think that Adobe, DaVinci Resolve, HitFilm, and others work so much better. Hint: They don't. Still got to get those expanded files (GoPro .mp4 to .avi, MJPEG to ProRes or DNxHD/R, etc.) Already tried myself, on both machines. Oh well, rant done.

Just a few of my thoughts on Vegas Pro 15, of which I will be upgrading to next week! At least on that "test" rig of mine. This one, I'll be patiently waiting for the Movie Studio 15 upgrade!

Happy Editing!

Mike "The Chief" O'Sullivan

Could someone provide a short explanation of the the "Hamburger Button" is "?
( Redesigned timeline clip events now contain headers to hold important information and buttons and can be customized through the hamburger button/menu system )

From my limited knowledge, a hamburger button is 3 horizontal lines as a icon that leads to sub menus within a program Hope that helps. John

Richard Jones wrote: Sorry. I did mean AC3 Pro which allows numerous adjustments to be made. I use it with every commentary I have and a few other things as well (eg overall rendered dB control).

Richard

Thanks for clarifying Richard. From a users perspective having something removed from a programme, especially if you use it, is one of the worst things a software producer can do. From comments on the Magix Vegas Forum you are not the only one somewhat irritated by this. One wonders why.

I have to agree with Mike O'Sullivan when he wrote:-

A lot of what I am reading on the Magix Vegas Pro/Movie Studio forums is the same old complaints, whining, and lack of understanding, and the afore-mentioned junk. Some of the "users" on the forum, I have now seen at various YouTube sites, doing nothing but criticizing, bashing, hating, etc.,

Over the years I have been frequently amused and often annoyed by some of the wittering and fluttering of wings that has both preceded and followed the launch of every new version of Vegas. Much of what has been written has been relevant of course and has often led to bug fixes or later changes but too much has been negative, coming from people whose only wish seems to be to undermine the whole product or from those who fail to accept that the problem rests with their own PCs or OSs. The fact of the matter is that Vegas is moving forward and what is already a very good programme is improving all the time. It is intuitive and versatile with many invaluable accessories but there is always someone who wants more and we ought to recognise that it is impossible for any NLE (or any other product for that matter) to be able to please all of the people all of the time.

There! Rant over! My apologies but I do feel better for it.

Richard

Thanks to Mike and Richard (not forgetting George and Eric either) for the sane comments on the development of Magix Vegas. No need to apologise for the "rants"

After tinkering with MVP15 for a few hours checking out some of the features, I'm pleased it is working as well as SVP13. 1080-24p, 30p, 60p mp4 source runs at real-time preview speed 'Full-Best', as does my 1080 ProRes source. 4K (ProRes) is also running smoothly at 'Full-Best'. GoPro HD 60p also running 'Full-Best' without converting. My Cineform intermediates of course also run 'Full-Best'.

I'm not in the speed render game, but I did do a few render speed comparisons between SVP13, Sony AVC, Magix AVC, and Cineform Film Scan 1. Not having Quick Sync or a later model Nvidia card I did not expect any improvement in render speeds. For me, if my renders are somewhere in the double real-time or less, I'm happy. There is little difference on my system between the SVP13 and MVP15 versions. For me this is no gain, no pain, my system renders AVC at about 2x real-time and Cineform in about 1.5x real-time. The same with DNxHD about 1.5x real-time.

I did start a render in mov ProRes 422 HQ and had to kill it before it finished, but it looked like it would take about 5x real-time to complete!! Not sure what that is about, I'll go back and try it again, but good for me I really have no use for rendering out ProRes delivery files.

All my custom script files worked in MVP15 as they do in SVP13, which was expected. I did have one lock up that I will pursue if it happens again, other than that the v15 seems stable. The freeze frame feature works better than I thought it would. Also the selective copy-paste attributes offers some flexibility which I may have a use for in future projects.

My 4K GH4 and Ninja Flame source files import correctly (they did not in SVP13) and this will save me aggravation and time. The default interface I think is much better than MVP14, and even though it is mostly a black screen, it better matches that of Resolve 12, which I have been using, so it is not that much different and I expect I will get used to it pretty quick. I have been adding option buttons back to the display using the hamburger (setting) icon to the preview and events.

There is still a lot more to explore in Magix Vegas Pro 15 and I'm looking forward to Dr. Zen's review.

I have read with great interest the comment on Vegas Pro 15. I don't see too much to make me change from Vegas Pro 14 as my requirements are mostly satisfied in VP14. I am really just a non commercial user and would really only like to look forward to being able to archive to UHD disks when they come more available to people like me! I am very pleased with 1920x1080 50p even though I have an FDR-AX100. Render time is better and at the moment I archive to a Samsung solid state drive. Look forward though to your review video Derek it will no doubt explain some aspects I am yet to grasp, cheers.

How are you Pro15 users finding the interface? I gather it has the same dark grey background as has been hoisted on us with MS14. With MS14 icon highlighting is black and at times difficult to see. There is no provision for it to be changed. What is the situation with Pro15? I'm hoping Magix have provided an option to change the black to something more visible and that this will trickle down to MS15.

Eric, I have not trialled MVPro 15 yet. I'm waiting for a couple of updates to see the early bugs fixed first. Being I'm one of those who don't need the dark GUI and almost did not upgrade to MVMSP 14 due to this, I was glad to see the following points in Dr Zen's initial post in this thread.
- Users can specify one of four options for the shading of the VEGAS Pro interface ranging from very bright to a dark interface
- Users can define the amount (strength) of color they want shown in their buttons

I'm expecting to see them included in the next upgrade (the devs have said it can not be implemented in v 14 yet) of Magix Vegas Movie Studio Platinum.
You may remember this comment on the MV forum.