Why is VEGAS Pro the NLE of Choice for Some Editors?
By Jim Bask
From ProVideoCoaltion.com:
WHY IS VEGAS PRO THE NLE OF CHOICE FOR SOME EDITORS?
Trying to figure out which editing software is best is a question authors on PVC have indirectly and even directly asked in many different ways. There are numerous considerations when it comes to making a decision about which NLE to use, and all of those options have a laundry list of pros and cons. Very often though, the choices creative professionals make will be more about familiarity than they are about what kind of options that choice affords them.
Editors of all types and sizes will swear that one solution is better than another, and those arguments don’t always include VEGAS Pro. Part of that might be because those editors don’t know what they’re missing, which is something that they might want to reconsider in light of how the software can impact their bottom line as well as the creative choices they’re able to make on a project.
Speed and Flexibility
We’ve previously detailed what makes VEGAS a fit for someone’s workflow, and the two concepts that keep coming up when talking with users about their experience are about flexibility and speed. Both of those elements are directly related to the audio features that form a core part of the software.
VEGAS Pro was developed by an audio exclusive company, and that means it wasn’t created from a video editor’s perspective. The creators looked at the audio tools they had and decided it made more sense to edit video using the audio paradigm they were familiar with, and in doing so created an approach to editing that is unlike any other out there. A lot of the efficiency users can find in the software is a result of this approach.
A perfect example of this can be seen in the VEGAS Pro crossfades. In VEGAS Pro, if you drag one event over the edge of another event, you automatically get a cross dissolve without having to do anything. No other NLE does that. Editors don’t have to add a transition in and out, since they can just drag one over the other and it’s done. It’s a small thing that might not seem like much, but it’s time that adds up over the course of a project and even a single editing session. Having to spend the time doing so is just something many editors accept as part of the editing process, and that ties back into the flexibility built into VEGAS Pro.
The UI of VEGAS Pro is arguably the most flexible of any NLE. Users have the ability to adjust and customize their setup in an incredibly powerful way, and that goes from the placement of their tools down to the background color of their interface. It’s led to numerous discussions on the VEGAS Pro user forum, where topics like how dark an editor’s interface should be are debated. Professionals can’t be tossed into a one-size-fits-all box, and allowing users to customize their setup in whatever manner works best for them is a key advantage of the software.
This kind of flexibility is directly tied into how quickly users are able to do their work, which itself is one of the reasons those users are willing to reboot their systems when necessary…[continue reading]