Thursday, January 17, 2013

Why Sony Vegas will most likely never be a Mainstream Professional Product

I have been (to my own demise) been using Sony Vegas Pro since version 8. Now as the years have passed and the Vegas Pro guys actually got more money and credibility from the mother ship, Sony itself (a couple of years ago) it seems that they simply have lost their direction. Or maybe they are being forced into creating crap by the mother ship. Who knows.

The only thing I know is that I am migrating away from SVP as fast as possible. This fat, buggy and buggier by the version, expensive (anything that you pay for that doesn't function is expensive) and time wasting piece of dung needs to a) be put out to pasture b) needs to be totally revamped or c) get killed altogether.

It seems the guys that create this monstrosity are simply following suit to other big boys that have this attitude that an upgrade doesn't need to function better, remove bugs of yesterday, and be faster, but rather, add new bugs, make old bugs stronger and oh, by the way, make this a fat clunky piece of crap that loses functionality as you use it more.

There have been hints along these lines from several users over time. If you happen to look at the Sony Creative Support or knowledgebase, well, that's an oxymoron.

Report a bug - you get a generic boiler plate message back a few days later telling you to totally uninstall  add a new user on you system with admin privileges and then re-install under that user. Perhaps they should stop at the uninstall part and leave it at that.

This typical response seems to be Sony Vegas' only solution. Does it work? Hell no! It is the most useless information, strategy, method, option, concept that could ever be contrived. The Sony guys seem to think that we all have time to tinker and experiment on their behalf. Perhaps this "boilerplate" concept was created to appease the user that blew a good 600 bucks to start, and then blew 300 more each year to keep up with the Jones' by constantly upgrading and thinking things will get better for sure with this new version. Hey, they changed the desktop icon... now that is improvement!

Sony, I hope you are reading this. I hope you take this to heart. I hope you actually take note and start really fixing things. I have reported to you diligently over the years about your damn memory leakage... (for those interested, just start up Vegas, open Task Manager and watch the processes, particularly the Sony Vegas one.... it just starts eating up memory even while sitting idle. God only knows why.)

But that's not all... you have trouble rendering to your own codec, particularly when it comes to simple internet mp4's. POS! (no, that does not mean Point of Sale)

You crash randomly almost as if someone, perhaps Sony's Other Brother (SOB) is spying on us and sees when we have stuff to get out on deadlines. You make the software puke like no tomorrow.

Then you invite companies to create plug-ins for you or you even team up with them so that before SVP even loads, we have to look at a crappy advert that makes the system crash. I knew blue wasn't my favorite color all along.

I may be ranting here... but I have had it with your shenanigans and your absolutely useless support fodder. Get real! Get some knowledgeable people involved. Listen to your users! Oh my god, that would be a concept in itself.

Oh and by the way, the BS parties (actual marketing soiree) that you throw at NAB every year... yeah, those are sometimes cool. But I wonder just what kind of magical machinery and software the presenters actually use, to be able to with good conscience, speak so highly of your software? Or is it that you simply pay big bucks for endorsements?

Yes, this may sound like a rant and another rant from a guy that has lost much time due to crashes (time is money), and that has spent way too much on upgrades over the years, and that was very optimistic until this last issue - new system, new install, cool GPU, lots of memory, awesome processor... and well Sony Vegas Pro 12 (whatever batch) - acts absolutely no different!

It's really too bad that it has to end this way. You actually have some neat features that no one else has. Too bad they are part of this atrocity that you call software.

3 comments:

Melissa C. Banczak said...

Can I get an AMEN BROTHER?

I upgraded from Platinum HD 10 to pro 10 when I started editing my first feature. (I loved Plat HD 10 by the way, and never ever ever had an issue with it) I upgraded because I wanted to close caption my film and the Pro version was the only way to go.

From day one, the program crashed endlessly. I did the whole create a new user thing so many times, my household now qualities as a small Country, and I am in negotiations with the US gov for most favored nation status.

Over the two years that I've been trying to edit my feature, I've discovered that New Blu sucks. Uninstalling all those 99 dollar add ons helped stop the crashes for a bit.

Then when the it started back with a fury, I got rid of every program, that might be incompatible, on my computer till it was silicon and wires.

I'm down to the last few minutes of editing (about 3 minutes worth) with a few music and foley tracks still to add. I say a silent prayer each time I fire up the machine. Today, oh great digital god in the sky, please let me finish before Vegas does.

Andreas (Vader) Hohl said...

AMEN!

Unknown said...

I sure wish every word you wrote was not true Andy, but dammit...I can't deny it.

I fell for Vegas on version 4, then jumped to v9 Pro, which was kinda cool, actually. Skipped 10, then grabbed 11 for the wonderful GPU acceleration and the stabilization (which is totally useless).

Is it possible that they will pull their thumbs out and get it together if enough voices are raised?

I actually take great pleasure these days in raising my voice - yes, in all caps with profanity - every time I get that wonderful message: "Vegas Pro has stopped working ..."

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