Sonic Foundry
Vegas 4.0 NLE Software

 

by Stephen Murphy
 
  As a public company, it is no great secret that Sonic Foundry has been in the same financial slump as many other companies in our industry.
  If the release of a comprehensive software platform for professional video and audio production is any measure of the company’s success, Sonic Foundry has nothing to worry about. The release of Vegas 4.0 ($699 MSRP) is the push over the top that puts the program in close competition with the top native NLEs.

Features
  With the upgrade from Vegas Video 3.0, Sonic Foundry dropped the word “video” from the platform title because it no longer offers its Vegas audio-only software. More significant just a name change, the company has wisely integrated the power of the audio software into Vegas 4.0, giving the user a full-blown surround-capable audio production system to go with its video capabilities.
  The company simultaneously released a new DVD authoring application called DVD Architect. Vegas 4.0 and DVD Architect are offered in a bundle for $999 MSRP. Sonic Foundry has provided tight integration between the two programs, making the total system even more attractive.
  As with previous versions, Vegas runs on Intel-based PCs platform with Windows 98SE, ME, 2000 and XP operating systems. Minimum system requirements are a 400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM and 30 MB hard disk space for program installation. An ASIO-compatible sound card is required for low-latency record input monitoring, and an OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394/DV capture card is required for DV capture and the print-to-tape tools.
  Vegas 4.0 builds upon the features of the previously reviewed Vegas 3.0 software, so this review will pick up from there.
  Vegas is one of the first professional media applications to take advantage of the new generation of Intel Pentium 4 processors (3.06 GHz and higher) with Hyperthreading technology. In simple terms, a single Pentium 4 microprocessor with Hyperthreading can emulate the performance of a dual-processor system when running specifically optimized software applications such as Vegas.
  There are many significant improvements and additions to Vegas’ video editing and processing capabilities including two powerful yet easy-to-use color correction tools.
  The Primary 3-wheel color corrector allows overall color correction of lowtones, midtones and highlights. Controls are also provided for adjustment of gamma, gain, saturation, and rebalancing.
  The Secondary color corrector is intended for adjusting specifically defined areas of the frame. A familiar eyedropper tool is used to define a correction range.  Adjustments can be made to the chrominance, hue, and smoothness. Multiple correction filters can be linked together for complex adjusting tasks.
   Best of all, changes are immediately viewable on an external monitor via 1394 devices.
  A project-level motion blur envelope adds keyframeable motion blur effects to the video on all or selected tracks, while a video “supersampling” envelope can enhance the appearance of computer-generated animation by calculating intermediate frames.
   Vegas’ “Parent Video Track Overlay Mode” allows for a plug-in to control how the parent track modifies the tracks in its composite group. Sonic Foundry includes displacement and height map plug ins for easy creation of lens, mirror, water, fire, and other effects.
  Borrowing from its competition, Sonic Foundry adds event attribute and effects copy abilities to Vegas. This feature allows one to copy and paste audio and/or video attributes from one event to another.
   Of major significance in Vegas’ battle to attract professional engineers from their current platforms is the addition of several key monitoring and adjustment tools. These diagnostic tools allow the user to monitor, adjust and conform video signals to precise specifications and can be monitored in real time through 1394 devices.
  The new Vegas diagnostic tools include a vectorscope to monitor saturations of red, magenta, blue, cyan, green, and yellow; a  waveform monitor displays the luminance of the video signal; the histogram shows color levels and contrast of the video; and a parade monitor to examine individual red, green, and blue components of the video signal.
  In a similar vein, Vegas 4.0 adds an “Enhanced Broadcast Colors” plug-in for smooth clamping as well as customizable luminance, saturation and composite limits to guarantee a program will be broadcast legal.
  Vegas also adds many new effects, filters, standard transitions, 3D transitions and noise generators. One can see a full list and view clips on the Sonic Foundry website.
  The new audio improvements and features in Vegas 4.0 are also impressive, adding a full-fledged multitrack audio recording, editing and mixing system to the program.
  Vegas 4.0 features surround-mixing tools including key frame surround panning for tracks and busses. Projects can be exported as discrete tracks for post-encoding, or sent directly to a Dolby Digital encoder (included in the Vegas + DVD Architect bundle or purchased separately in the 5.1 Surround Plug In Pack, $279).
  Other new audio developments include DirectX plug-in effects automation, ASIO driver support, subgroup busses, and improved time-stretching capabilities.
 
In Use
  An anecdote: I had been a professional audio engineer and producer for ten years before broadening into video and multimedia production. The first video editing programs I used were Adobe Premiere and After Effects, and I was not very impressed.
  A couple of years and many projects later, I was still frustrated by the programs’ user interfaces and dumbfounded by the fact that these were the best available (in a reasonable price range). I vividly remember pining for a video program that was as well conceived and rock solid as Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge audio editor…
  Over the last several years, I have kept my eye on Vegas, trying out a test project or two with each new version. I found it had great potential and was consistently getting better, but still lacking in certain areas.
  With version 4.0, Vegas has definitely arrived for professional use. I used the software solidly for the last two months and was impressed at every turn. The context-sensitive interface could not be more intuitive or easy to learn.
  Windows users who have Sound Forge and Acid will be instantly familiar with the revamped Vegas interface. I used the program for basic capturing, editing and compositing tasks for weeks without ever opening the manual. From a purely subjective perspective, Vegas is actually fun to use and explore.
  New features abound in Vegas 4.0, and during the evaluation, these were a few of my favorites:
  The program now has a split screen preview that lets you compare, side by side, affected and unaffected video in real-time on the computer monitor screen or an external monitor via 1394 hardware. It works by selecting a portion of the image on the preview display to remain unaltered, and the rest of the display shows the video with the chosen effect applied. This was very handy for matching skin tones and making other subtle changes that might not accurately compared in two windows.
  Of course, color correction would not be possible without he primary and secondary tools provided in version 4.0. These – combined with the split screen capability and the new diagnostic scopes – are reason enough to upgrade to (or try out) Vegas. I would be hard pressed to put together a collection of powerful and intuitive technical video tools as those found in Vegas less than $10,000.
  The new keyboard-based event editing features and the greatly enhanced audio/video scrubbing capabilities (including hardware controller support) addressed some of the last-remaining gripes I had with earlier Vegas versions.
  There are some caveats regarding real-time performance. Real-time preview of effects, filters and transitions is either on the computer monitor or external monitor through 1394 devices only. Printing to DV tape requires rendering the project.
  That said, with Vegas running on a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 with one gig of RAM, the preview quality was excellent. For slower computers, preview quality can be adjusted by adjusting preview frame rate and resolution.
   On the audio front, Vegas quite simply blows every other video editing application out of the water. Most of the other software apps like Premiere and the Avid products have some rudimentary and reasonably decent audio capabilities; others, like the popular Final Cut Pro, are sorely lacking, if not downright frustrating. Vegas’ audio implementation is comprehensive enough that some engineers use it as their main computer audio platform.
  Sonic Foundry has poured into the program a large amount of features found in its popular audio products like Sound Forge, Acid and Vegas Audio. On top of that, the program boasts full subgroup bus structures, 32 assignable effects and 26 master and aux outputs, 24-bit/96 kHz audio support, plug-in automation.
  The surround mixing panner implementation is functional for rudimentary purposes, but lacks true discrete channel functionality across the front three speakers. Sonic Foundry’s panner implementation appears to follow outdated Pro Logic standards where the center channel was simply reinforcement of the phantom L/R mono image, as opposed to Dolby Digital’s discrete L/C/R channels.
  Another omission in the professional audio department is the lack of support for the VST plug in format. While there are some fine DirectX plug ins available, by and large, the VST platform has the bigger guns on its side. VST support would also allow the use of plug-in DSP cards from TC Works and Universal Audio. SF added VST support to the latest version of Acid – hopefully Vegas is next!

Summary
  It is apparent that, in developing Vegas 4.0, Sonic Foundry did their homework, listened to users and even borrowed some of the best bits of the competition. The end result effectively clears the way for Vegas to be accepted – even enthusiastically embraced – by the video postproduction and broadcast markets.
  While it may be an uphill battle to win complete converts, the program is inexpensive enough to purchase and easy enough to learn to use alongside existing editing platforms.
  Though I’m not quite ready to turn in my Pro Tools and Avid systems, Vegas and DVD Architect form an impressive and intuitive video postproduction system that may win out yet!
 
Stephen Murphy, contributing studio editor of Pro Audio Review, is a multimedia producer and audio engineer with Grammy-winning and platinum-selling credits.



Applications:
Video and audio production, broadcast, multimedia

Key Features:
Unlimited audio and video tracks; video compositing; real-time preview; key frame transitions, filters, and track motion; alpha channel support; support for any aspect ratio; simultaneous file formats and frame rates; 3-wheel primary and secondary color correction; 24-bit/96 kHz audio; DirectX automation; ASIO support.

Price:
$699

Contact:
www.sonicfoundry.com