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Edit Review: Sony Vegas Pro 8

Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Reviewer: Franklin McMahon

Update brings forward-thinking features and realtime workflow.

           

In a Sony Vegas Pro 8 multicam track, clicking the mouse or keyboard switches between clips. In the upper left corner of the screen is the new ProType titler, offering complete keyframe control over text animation and effects.

Sony Creative Software has been fairly aggressive in developing its line of media products, updating its Acid music-composition software while introducing new packages such as Cinescore. This time around, the SD/HD video-editing program Vegas Pro gets an update with an impressive array of forward-thinking features and helpful additions that are sure to please current fans and bound to make some fence sitters take the jump.

While other editing programs are working to refine their interfaces, Vegas basically sports the same look and feel it has had for years. It also demands a big monitor — I mean a really big monitor — because the interface is a mashup of lots and lots of large windows. Screen real estate is definitely used. I used a single 1920×1200 24in. screen, and even on this, I was dragging stuff around. Luckily, you can pull the windows apart and separate everything, so you can easily drag some stuff to a second monitor for more breathing room.

Vegas does a lot of realtime stuff, but because that term is overused, I'll invent a new one: no render bar (NRB). If you are used to using a program such as Adobe Premiere Pro, you are probably used to capturing HD but not seeing the video on your computer screen (just on the external video monitor or camcorder). You may also be used to being able to drag all different kinds of clips — MPEG, QuickTime, etc. — to your Premiere timeline, but you'll often see the red render bar and playback will be choppy. Not so with Vegas; when capturing, you'll see (and hear) your video as it's grabbed. Drag in clips, and they typically play back completely normal. I have a regular client for one of my shows that sends large, 30-second QuickTime clips. In Premiere, these clips need to be rendered for smooth playback; in Vegas Pro 8, they play back as smoothly as bringing in native HD. Same goes for effects. Rendering of transitions and effects scales with your processor, so even a basic current machine will play back without rendering. I tested on an Intel Pentium dual-processor Extreme Edition, 3.2GHz with 3GB of RAM, and everything played back smoothly and rendered speedily.

This is probably the largest asset of Vegas. It lets you experiment and play around and not have to stop and think if it's “worth rendering.” Sony has included a new feature in this version to make workflow even speedier: The program no longer performs recompress rendering for long-GOP formats (such as XDCAM and HDV). For example, say you had a 20-minute program with a single effect. When you render it out, the program only renders the effect. The remaining video is passed through unmodified and unrendered. This saves generational loss and greatly speeds up export of cuts-only projects.

Also new is the ability to process video via 32-bit floating point. Many editing programs perform in 10-bit, which admittedly works fine for most projects; however, it can be limiting if you do a lot of compositing and graphics. A lower bit level can cause gradient banding in some onscreen objects; 32-bit allows smoother color gradients and transitions, and it comes in handy if you plan on a lot of color tweaking and processing. I tested in HD, both graphics and video, and I didn't see any banding — perhaps because of the increased resolution.

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