VMS vs Vegas Pro - Mini-Comparison.

[Chris B]

As a home hobbyist (as I believe most of us are around here) I've been trying out Vegas Pro 11 with a view to upgrading from VMS10. Upgrade price at the moment is very keen. I don't think that the comparison pages really show the differences that users of my level will experience - does anybody here actually need to edit RED footage? So I though I'd summarise what I have personally noticed as being useful/different between VMS and Pro. I'm comparing VMS10 to Pro 11 so there might be something in VSM11 that I don't know about.

GPU acceleration and 64Bit.
Pro uses a lot more of my machines resources - which is a good thing. VMS only renders with 4 threads and can struggle for memory (I applies the LAA fix to my copy that helped considerably). GPU acceleration offers real world performance increases.

Envelopes (velocity/track/transition/fade)
These look really cool - not used in anger as yet but the Velocity envelope is something often asked for elsewhere here. (Allows you to change the rate the playback smoothly). Having full control over the transition envelopes is also cool.

Path tool on crop/pan
This is incredibly powerful for all sorts of picture in picture and mask effects - it had to be pointed out to me since I didn't realise it was there!

Far more Mask options
For creative effects. Not limited to simple Alpha masks.

3d track motion
Does what it says on the tin.

Vectorscopes
Might use these - I can see the use - but I will need to learn some more.

newblu titler & protype titler
The pro-type tiler is quite good - doesn't seem to "cheesy" I haven't had the newblu titler in the demo.

Extra effects
I believe that Star Wipe and some of the light effects (star, light rays) are exclusive to pro. Light rays is significantly more powerful that the Rays effect from VMS.

Sub Projects
Already used these - very good for doing separate projects for small sections then combining together.

DVD Architect 5.2
This hardly gets a mention but is the full featured version. Notable things for the home user are Dolby Digital tracks for audio on BluRay (considerable space saving) and multiple audio tracks per event (for commentaries)

Is there anything anyone else out there thinks I've missed - or something that's in VMS11 that I've included above?

[Paul LS]

I am quite happy with the new Vegas Pro 11. The GPU assisted timeline playback and rendering (similar to PPro) works very well and unlike PPro is supported on both Nvidia and ATI/AMD graphic cards.

The New Blue Titler in Vegas Pro 11 is very powerfull and costs $299 if purchased alone. It is certainly easier to use then Sony's ProType titler.

For me, one of the big positives of the Pro package is the 3D animation, it makes it easy to create page turns and other animations. It is a bit like having a watered down After Effects within your video editor.

[Steve Grisetti]

Sony's products haven't got the brand appeal of products made my Apple or Adobe. But as anyone who uses their pro and consumer products knows, they pack in a heck of a lot of bang for the buck!

[RJ Johnston]

Chris, Don't forget about scripts. They allow you to automate many tasks, including batch processing. You can write your own, buy them, or download them for free.

[Chris B]

Scripts is one of those things that I've net yet investigated - it's not immediately obvious what to use them for. I'm sort of presuming that once you use them you never want to go back! Anyhow - I've handed over my cash to Sony so I'll get round to it at some point.

[Paul LS]

"Scripts" are like "Actions" in Photoshop... they allow you to do repeative tasks automatically. For example adding transitions to all clips or delete a certain number of frames from each track.... ie they work on events or tracks. There are hundreads freely available. More detail and freely available scripts here:
http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/