Adobe or Avid (Or Sony)?

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 7:02 pm

I am about to add a video editing suite onto my side room and was just wondering which of these are the better software or if there is something better than these ( for pc ) Thanks for any advice.

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 9:10 pm

Neither one for us....Sony (Formerly Sound Forge's) VEGAS 6.0 with DVD Architect 3.0. In over three years of use, it's NEVER crashed or failed us. (Can't say the same for Adobe Premier 6.0, although I'm told Premier Pro is much better now...)

I"m not gonna bash AVID - all those users can't be wrong, but again, you can do everything you need with VEGAS, if you're working on the PC Platform, anyway. We find more stuff "under the hood" every day.

Moderator Joined: Apr 13, 2006 Posts: 117

I will second the Vegas 6 + DVDA recommendation. Best workflow of the PC NLEs in my opinion. Also very fast and efficient under WinXP (works well on a dual core AMD system here).

Premiere Pro 2 imparts a pretty significant system load, at least when I tried it. If you consider it, give both PP and Vegas 6 a try first - both have demos.

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:14 pm

One thing I have found troubling with the Avid software is, since they go quite a ways back with both the Macintosh and PC platform, were limited in the past and still are to some extent with file sizes that exceed 4GB in size. The Avid software automatically splits the incoming ingested data automatically. They indicate their process is seamless but I don't care for my audio to be split into numerous little chunks! I equate that with recording your mix down on to already spliced analog tape. No professional would do that. Thanks to the NTFS Windows disk file format, you could with Adobe Premier, ingest/capture to a single file up to the entire size of a large hard disk drive! The same holds true for the Sony Vegas software thanks to what I believe is sometimes referred to as "Open DML" recording format? I still don't believe the Macintosh platform is capable of that, when capturing video?

Now what the Adobe Premier Pro does, I don't like either. Since most DV camcorder's record in 16-bit 48kHz, that's what I've been working with. What Premier Pro does is automatically conform the 16-bit 48kHz audio to 32-bit float. Now that automatically makes your audio files twice their size and obviously requires an internal transcoding process. Adobe states that its process is seamless also but I would like to have the option of whether it gets converted/conformed or not and that is not available in Premier Pro in any version. So I still use Premier 6.5 and Sony Vegas 6.0 most of the time and am trying to get used to Premier Pro on occasion. I just don't like doing things to my audio that isn't absolutely necessary.

Anal at best
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:49 pm

Not to hijack this thread, but I understand where you're coming from, Remy....that's why we do all the critical audio in Sequoia, (usually 24/48 ) and then port it over to Vegas when we're done.

If my video editor gets ahead of me in the production process, he'll temporarily work with the best audio from the cameras, often going with the raw audio from the "Master" shot until I give him something better.

I give him a stereo mix for normal audio, and/or five discrete audio channels for surround. We use the Dobly 5.1 AC3 plug in (available with the Vegas/DVD Architect bundle) to encode the five tracks (done previously in Sequoia, all ready to go) into a Dolby AC3 file.

It's funny, though; I'm told Vegas began life as an audio editor which had video 'added-on" to it. (It even works with similar "Objects" as does Samplitude/Sequoia.) Still, I tend to not trust anything but Sequoia for audio, although I realize Vegas does a nice job - just not anywhere near as flexible.

WHen I think back to how needlessly difficult Premier V5 and V6.0 was (not to mention all the horrible, lossy crashes), I wonder how I stood it for as long as we did. We could write pages about the horrors, believe me.

Before we even knew how stable Vegas was, the main feature that lured us into trying it was real-time rendering and effects to the video clips. (Premier at the time had you wait around for renders (and re-renders) of your work. Vegas was one of the first to use a lower-res "real time" rendering process. It doesn't look as good as the REAL rendered stuff, but it keeps the workflow going, and never crashes for us.

Ditto for the file size; you can import anything of any length, and although it breaks things up into smaller sub-files, (2gig? 4 gigs? I forget now) there's no limit to what you can do with WinXP NTFS.

I'm sure Premier Pro has a lot of fixes and upgrades to bring it up to competitive levels with Avid and Vegas, but fool me once....

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:04 am

Antother Vegas customer here. It works, It works well, It does not crash and it makes money for us.

I use it in conjuction with Samplitude and Sound Forge and find it to be the ideal program.

We also have Premier 6.5 and we were looking at Edius from Canopus but I could never get the demo to run without crashing and when I called Canopus they were NO HELP at all so I figured why.

Hope this helps~

Moderator Joined: Apr 13, 2006 Posts: 117

I've never heard of Premiere or any other program actually rewriting your recorded audio files to disk as 32-bit float versions. Those are writted at the recording bit depth. Internal processing/dsp resolution would, and should be 32-bit float unless you want to limit processing quality. That doesn't double your file sizes for your original audio on disk, unless the app is premixing audio to disk in 32-bit float format, but those would be temp files only used during mixing/processing, and cleaned up after the session is closed.

Most if not all current audio editors/multitrack apps work at 32-bit float (Sequoia included, unless limited to 24 bit or 16-bit playback). SAW is the only one I know of still using 24-bit internal resolution (PTHD uses 24-bit dsp, but processes doubles to get 48-bit precision through the data path - PT Mix actually truncated to 24-bit between dsp chips - not a great solution).

32-bit float is the standard processing format/bit depth for native audio/cpus - it provides more headroom for processing, mixing and dsp calculations. You can render off to 32-bit float if you intend to master/process in another 32-bit float application, and that is actually a good idea, and then, yes you get twice the file size.

Also, splitting data files should have no impact on the file itself if the app handles it correctly - it would simply stream from a different temp data file on disk - should be seamless to the user.

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:12 am

dterry, you obviously have not used Premier Pro yet? It absolutely conforms your audio files to 32-bit and does literally store them in a dedicated folder where you'll find them at twice their original 16 bit size. I'm not talking internal CPU processing. I'm talking actual file size. So I speak of which I know. Although people do want bigger, more, best, I still see no problem working within the 96 DB dynamic range that 16 bit affords. It's more than adequate for most average workaday delivery, even if it is internally process in the 32-bit realm. I think it's the same kind of excess that typifies the American mindset. It's like having a 300 horsepower engine in your car so that you can drive between 25 and 55 mph. A false sense of security to rationalize through inadequate engineering expertise, that people like myself don't require. So do you regularly fill your car with premium, when all it requires is regular? I think not?

Ex, lax engineer
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:51 am

Dont forget that these programs all have a variety of proprietary ways of doing mundane, "housekeeping" chores. I"ll bet that 32 bit float issue is part of it, perhaps even tying into some kind of waveform draw scheme. The broken-up segments might make for easier and quicker renders should you do any DSP to the audio in there.

Part of my complaint(s) with Premier 5 & 6 was the way they handled audio waveform viewing. It took forever to draw the waveform in the first place, and (as I recall) it would have to redraw it many times over if you made any changes. Incredibly frustrating, and completey the opposite of the way Samplitude did it, even back then. One of the things I wanted from Adobe at the time was to have the audio info STORED as a project was updated or saved. Duh!

Same with the video renders in the earlier Adobe: if you made ANY changes to rendered portions of your video timeline, you'd be screwed and have to wait around for ALL of it to redraw, which sometimes meant hours, if not 10, 20 minutes at a pop. Not to mention crashes and literally some files actually disappearing.

I highly suspect the 32 bit float & chopped up segments issue has something to do with this...

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:20 am

I spoke to numerous Adobe representatives at numerous digital video conventions from NYC to DC. I discussed this issue with them and believe that their reason for converting all incoming 16-bit audio files to 32-bit, is generally the totally lack of knowledge and expertise in working with anything audio that "video people" are clueless about, without any expertise in audio and don't know how to handle. This provides them with a much broader dynamic range in which to screw up with. Something most of us professional audio people don't usually even think about or consider. But Adobe does not plan to provide the option to work with strictly 16-bit files within their Premier Pro software. C'est la vie!

Audio person in the video world
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 1:40 pm

All i have to say is WOW you guys ( and gals ) know your video. I guess i will go with the sony vegas but what is cd archetict for? I saw that mentioned? Also Any advice on a decent digital camera to use. Thanks so much i normally have to wait about a year to get a reply in other forums and then its useless info im glad i joined this!

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:50 pm

Two more issues you brought up, so here's two more bits of info:

Re: CD Architect. (Actually, I think you mean DVD Architect).

Since no one wants or watches VHS Tapes anymore, and unless you're doing material for broadcast (on servers, digi beta tape, etc.) chances are nearly 100% you're going to deliver product to your clients on DVD. We will NOT make VHS copies for a client unless there's a drop-dead reason to do so; we will not risk the embarassment that the gen-loss to VHS brings. The need to make them grows less and less every day. We recently gave away our stock of VHS T-10 and T-120's, keeping about ten of each "For someday".

DVD's are the ONLY way we go now for all video projects. If someone claims their machines wont play them, we suggest they go to Best Buy and spring for $50 for a GoVIdeo player that will. It may sound arrogant, but it's already the future, and we're not going back. We learned our lesson with the last 5 VHS machines we bought - about 10 minutes before the bottom fell out of the format. Rolling Eyes

So, aside from a DV Tape and Hard Disc backup of the finished project, it's a given you'll need to make a DVD of your work for temps, final proofs and even dupes for clients. This is where the beauty of Vegas/DVD Arch really shines. The two products are designed to work together, actually. (In many more ways than I can tell you here, you'll just have to trust me on this...you'll find out as you go, smiling all the time, believe me.)

Timelines for projects in Vegas can match up smoothly to when you port it all over to DVD Arch (as MPEG (Video) files and AC3 (Dolby Audio) files.

One of the really smart & savvy things you can do is this: Highlight a region in Vegas to "Render" to MPEG, give it a name: Myfilm.mpeg and then do the same with the audio: Myflim.ac3. When you open DVD Architect and beging making your DVD, it will automatically find the audio as soon as you import the video (MPEG) clip. (Assuming you've put them in the same folder, of course.) You can always change it, as well, but the marriage is designed to be seamless.

You can also create "chapters" in either product - Vegas or DVD Arch, it's sometimes smarter to do it in either place, depending on your needs. (If you create the chapters in Vegas and render to an MPEG, the chapters will then show up in DVD Architect already. Brilliant!)

The main thing is this ability for pre-creating DVD projects in Vegas: All work gets rendered to DVD-compatible MPEG files (in a variety of frame rates, ratios, formats for many many DVD types and regions) and are therefore usuable as menu clips, movies, special features, etc. Ditto for audio, and (space dependent) you can create stereo OR 5.1 versions of the soundtrack for the DVD as well. (All menu selectable, of course.) The beauty of it is that it's all compatible, under one roof, in a way. (2 separate apps, of course, but definitely designed to work together.)

Did I mention it's also HD compatible? With a software patch (About $150) you can import HD video and still work on it within Vegas. We've already done HD-ready production with it, as well as converting things over to SD for regular projects. (all at 16x9, too.) As soon as we get calls for HD DVDs, we're ready.

RE: DV Cameras. In general, I would not buy any more SD (standard def) DV cameras. Not in today's market, not with such great afforable HD stuff coming out now, unless it's a real steal on old unopened stock. (Do not bother with "used" or refurbished DV cameras; their problems with tape path and pixellations/glitches make it not worth the hassle. Way too risky!)

Did you know, btw: that just about all Pro-sumer HDV gear has a switch or selector for HD as well as SD? Yep! It's all reverse compatible. Of course, I'm in no hurry to part with my Sony SD cameras (the 2100, 1000 and 900, not nec. in that order) , but we've gone with JVC for HD live projects now. (3 cameras: one for master shots, and two for side views/pickups, etc.) B&H in NYC is still the best source for this stuff, IMHO. (Ordered my pro-sumer JVC JY-HD10u last Friday morning, it arrived today via UPS. Can't beat that for service and turnaround time. ) This new JVC HDV cam cost less than my SD Sony 2100 (purchased last year around this time), and it's ALSO got pro XLR inputs too.

We try to do everything in 16x9, usually 30fps (sometimes 24 for a filmic look depending on the project's needs) and in HD when the project warrants it, with multitrack audio for surround soundtracks. Even it if becomes just an SD stereo DVD with no goodies, we've still got the capability to revise it someday, and it's good practice for the stuff that's coming along next.

Yeah, I'm sold on this NLE stuff. Can you tell? Twisted Evil

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:04 pm

Ok alittle of that was over my head im a mastering eng first and the need has arised to add video editing to my studio. I see why vegas and dvd arch. work well but why did they not just incoporate the 2 in 1 program? I work and burn masters from wavelab. I would only be working in dvd as well so is it better to get a camera that records to dvd or one that has a harddrive? Im not shooting movies here more like band demos on dvd and live shows. So i bought sony vegas and will install that today sometime anyone know if they have tutorials anywhere for it? Thanks again. Also please speak to me as if im new to the video game because some of the stuff you are mentioning is just going no where.

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:23 pm

Joe H always has good suggestions.

A couple of side lights.

1. Mini DV is a dying format if it is not HD. One would think they would reduce the price on the non HD equipment which the stores and manufactures are not doing. The salesman at Best Buy said that he thinks his company will be dropping most mini DV cameras by the end of the year if they are not HD. He also said that most people buying equipment today are going with cameras with built in hard drives.

2. Vegas and DVD Architect have allowed us to win many shootouts against people who are using "other" DVWs. The quality is there and it just looks GREAT! and comes with a lot of free plug ins that others charge you extra for.

3. If you are going to get into HD remember that there is a lot of stuff you will have to purchase to make it all work together and you may have a lot of relearning to do. It is not just pick up a HD camera and start shooting.

4. Video is going though the same revolution that audio went though a couple of years ago. What use to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars now can be had for a lot less. The only caveat is that you still have to have the talent to use it properly. The DVW is bringing desktop video to the masses. As in audio just because you have a DVW does not mean you are Cecil B. DeMill or Steven Steven Spielberg and that all your movies will look like the Ten Commandments or Jaws. It still takes talent and a lot of hard work.

5. I just found a great program if you need to do a lot of pan and scan footage it is by Canopus and is called Imaginate 2.0 you can read about it here http://www.canopus.com/products/Imaginate/index.php it has saved us soooooooo much time and looks GREAT! It is just like hiring a very high priced camera person and having a fluid head on your tripod but it can be had for about the price of two hours of a good videographer. FYI

Best of luck!

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:27 pm

thanks again you guys are great.

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