However, going down the Sony route – perhaps with Photoshop Elements for image editing – works out cheaper, especially since you can upgrade applications at your own discretion. Most users will need an image editor too, though, so the Creative Cloud suite with Adobe Photoshop, After Effects and the rest starts to make sense at £469 exc VAT per year.
Premiere Pro comes top for advanced features such as nested sequences and animation, but Vegas Pro is quicker to use – on balance there’s no clear victor. The only serious rival for Vegas Pro on Windows is Premiere Pro, which is subscription-only at £176 exc VAT per year. All three are reasonably priced, and the suite is exceptional value for those who need all the applications. The suite includes all of the above, plus Sound Forge Pro 11 and FXhome HitFilm 2 Ultimate. Edit lacks the NewBlue plugin bundle and disc-authoring facilities. Vegas Pro is available in three editions, Edit (£240 exc VAT), Standard (£360) and Suite (£480). Further complications could arise in professional editing environments, since it isn’t possible to dictate which projects a particular client can access, except by actively deleting existing files.
However, comments could become unwieldy with multiple contributors, particularly if the software operator already has his or her own marker system in place. Transfers are simple to administer, and there’s little risk of additional copies being made, as the videos are accessible only from within the app. This is ideal for clients to take works in progress home from a production facility. Comments can be added to this preview, and they’ll appear back on the Vegas Pro timeline when the two devices next find each other on the network.
Projects can be rendered at 720p and transferred to the iPad’s local storage for viewing in the app. This points towards the app being used as an additional control surface by a single user, a role that we found worked extremely well. However, there are also gestures for Undo and Redo. It’s an elegant system for teams to collaborate on a project, allowing a non-technical user to take control of playback and add frame-accurate comments. The gesture-based interface includes four marker labels – Check Color, Check Mix, Edit and SFX – while the transport controls add a Custom option, where you can type your own text. The iPad app also allows you to drop markers onto the timeline. Swiping left and right moves the playback bar at different speeds depending on whether one, two or three fingers are used. It includes conventional transport buttons, but we got on better with the gesture-based controls, which let us keep our eyes on the monitor and navigate the timeline more precisely. It communicates with the desktop software via a local network, and serves as a wireless remote control and commenting system. The new companion iPad app, Vegas Pro Connect, is more inclusive. It’s far from self-explanatory, however, and likely to be useful only to a small number of users. However, it requires a Sony CBK-WA100 or CBK-WA101 wireless adapter, which only support XDCAM professional cameras, so that rather narrows its market.Ī new Loudness Meters panel measures audio levels by sound-energy levels rather than waveform peaks, with various calibrated displays to help users follow guidelines set out by the European Broadcasting Union. It could also be useful for reviewing footage on location without interrupting the capture workflow.
It makes perfect sense for large production teams working to tight deadlines.