Solved Vegas Movie Studio 17 Launch

It's been a while since I posted anything on the forum. As yet I have not found many comments about Vegas Movie Studio 17.
I have been receiving regular prompts from Magix that the new version 17 is available. As yet I have not taken the plunge.

How many members of the forum have tried the new version yet?
Any comments, compliments or warnings?

Hi Videome,

I installed VMS 17 Platinum Suite, on an "older" ThreadRipper computer: 1950x, MSI Gaming Pro Carbon AC, Crucial Ballistix 2400 MHz 32GB DDR4, Intel 660p 1TB for OS/Apps, another for Scratch/Temp, Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB for source (all three of these are PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVME), Adata SU800 1TB for Photo/Video/Music Assets and Rendering, and my "Older" Sapphire Radeon VII. It is on a CLEAN install of Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit (1909 - 18363.815), and using the Radeon Adrenaline 20.2.2 driver.

I did not install the HitFilm Ignite pack, though I did download. Want to see how the current installation does without any "Extra" Third-Party plug-ins for once.

There was no issue with the download "manager", and subsequent program downloads, though did make sure to check the "Customize" Option, so I could Un-Check Music Maker, PC Auto Tune & Cleaning, HitFilm Ignite pack (downloaded separately from link in E-mail), and that friggin' obnoxious Update Notifier. Programs downloaded fine, installed both VMS 17 and DVD Architect. Re-booted computer, then ran Movie Studio to Activate and set my Preferences and default Project Settings I like. Closed, and re-booted again. Did the same for DVD Architect.

Then, since I did not have an available HEVC file from one of my GoPro's, did a quick video from a GoPro Hero 6 Black in 4K60p. Took that short clip, another GoPro Hero 6 Black 4K30p (AVC), Sony AX-53 XAVC-S 4K30p, Canon 80D 1080p30 .mov (ALL-I), Canon T5i 1080p30, and a Canon T3i 1080p30 clip; "Threw" all of the straight onto the timeline after importing via "Add Media" (so audio peaks created), and waited to see if any "CODEC" Activation screens would pop-up, of which surprisingly, none did! Could be you don't have to do that with VMS17. Or, I did have Vegas Pro 15 Suite on this machine which required those "CODEC" activations and possibly held, even after I Un-installed Vegas Pro. Just want only one program, as this is more of a "Gaming" computer, as well as for "Testing". Of which is why I un-installed Davinci Resolve 16.2.1 from the computer as well. Though, that un-install mucked up my Grass Valley, Avid, UT VIdeo, MagicYUV, and Lagarith installations; easily rectified by Re-Running the installations for each. No problem.

For the above clips, after doing White Balance, Levels, Grading, Sharpening, decided to "Ensure" the HEVC CODEC was "Installed", so rendered the above timeline (approximately 5min. 30 secs. long) using the Magix HEVC template with AMD VCE, and it took roughly 21 minutes to render. Not bad considering the clips were not Proxied or using Intermediaries, different frame rates, different resolutions, and best of all - NO CRASH!

So, "Meesa like".

Happy Editing!

Mike "The Chief" O'Sullivan

Wow some detail in there regarding equipment. Thank you. Sounds thus far that the product appears stable unlike the last VMS 16 release. I have a new 'Gaming' class PC on order from DELL with an Intel i9 CPU and Nvidia RTX 2060 Graphics card along with a number of enhancements. I reckon a copy of VMS 17 could be on order soon as Magix are still running an introductory offer. I will still be looking for other forum memebrs remarks to see how it is performing.

Unfortunately DELL's order lead times are long in the UK so I will not see the new beast until next month. I was pleased to see Derek's remarks recommending the RTX 2060 graphics card.

I will be writing a review for Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 17, but not promising when that will arrive.
I haven't written any new articles/reviews for a very long time, but that drought is coming to an end...

Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 17 does one thing that I am the most excited about.
It no longer hangs at the "Creating Windows" stage during boot up, when you have a large library of 3rd party FX installed.
Instead, it now boots up super fast with no delays !!!
This bug was introduced way back when v13 was released. I have been asking to have it fixed for 7 years !

The Video FX, Transitions and Media Generators windows have also been fixed, after they removed folder view from v16.
Version 17 is now much more user friendly and easier to find the exact FX you want to use.

If you haven't upgraded Vegas Movie Studio Platinum for a long time, I highly recommend the upgrade to v17, provided you have a modern Nvidia or AMD graphics card installed. GPU Acceleration finally works extremely well when you have one of the latest graphics cards installed.

The Video FX, Transitions and Media Generators windows have also been fixed, after they removed folder view from v16.
Version 17 is now much more user friendly and easier to find the exact FX you want to use.

Thank you Derek for more detail. I did notice the start up hang, but it has not been too much of an issue. However the FX view and GPU corrections sound like major improvements. My current i7 system has an Nvidia GTX 1650 4GB, but as I said in my reply to the 'Chief', my new system on order has the Nvidia RTX 2060 6GB with an i9 9th generation CPU. I think there will be an order going in soon for an upgrade from VMS 16 Platinum.

As with all new versions you could download the 30 day trial to see if it suits you and your system.

ericlnz wrote: As with all new versions you could download the 30 day trial to see if it suits you and your system.

Thank you Eric
Let's print that on a t-shirt and hand it out to all the newbies as they arrive in the land of Vegas !!!

The two big gripes with the previous version(s) that DoctorZen mentions in post #4 are indeed fixed and making a world of difference in "User Experience".
They alone are worth upgrading to VMS 17 Platinum. As repeatedly suggested, be sure to choose the Platinum version. Several disappointed basic version users are again seeking refunds and wanting to change to Platinum.

As with all new versions you could download the 30 day trial to see if it suits you and your system.

Absolutly true ericlnz, I wholeheartly agree. Unfortunately Vegas Movie Studio versions 14, 15 and 16 have all had varying degrees of issues with their early release versions. As the old saying goes 'Once biten twice shy', hence my caution this time to make use of this wonderful forum taking advantage of the immense spectrum of experince here.

Agreed that the user experience is much nicer, especially the startup time when there are lots of plugins. I have now re-enabled all my plugins!

I'm still having problems with random hanging when rendering a DVD (a YouTube livestream converted to a DVD for a couple of ladies in our church who don't have internet). With Dynamic RAM preview max set to default 200, under both VMS 16 and 17 the MPEG2 rendering for an hour-long video uses 70-80% of CPU and estimated time to completion is around 35 minutes, but the rendering will hang at some random point (5%, 20%, 35%, sometimes even 90%) and then will stop. The rendering dialog box timer keeps increasing, but the preview is frozen and it is impossible to cancel the rendering (repeatedly asks "Do you want to cancel"). I have to kill VMS using end task in Task Manager. This has happened for different source videos, all 1280x720p constant 30fps AVC/AAC MP4. I'm converting to PAL widescreen DVDs (MPEG2/AC3).

But if I set Dynamic RAM preview max to 0, the MPEG-2 rendering always finishes, but uses only 50-60% CPU and takes around 55 minutes. I have tried it in VMS 15, 16, and now 17, same thing. In my editing there are no transitions, just a cut at the beginning and the end. Very strange. I have Windows 10 Pro 1909, i7-4790, 16GB, GTX 1660 SUPER driver Studio 442.92. BTW the same thing happens in Vegas Pro 17.

Ken.