Vegas Video 3 is the latest offering from Sonic Foundry for professional high end digital video and audio editing and recording. It is suitable for producing video for web delivery as well as broadcast quality footage. Vegas Video 3 is available only for the PC platform and has many features and capabilities that even more expensive programs like Apple Final Cut Pro (retail $999.) and Adobe Premiere (retail $795.) should be envious of.

Of particular note is Sonic Foundry Vegas Video's technology enabling real-time previewing, which allows users with modern computers to apply nondestructive FX, transitions, envelopes, time-stretching and motion effects and preview in REAL TIME without rendering! Yes, you heard right - REAL-TIME! No expensive video card or video hardware needed! No more coffee breaks just to see if the effect or transition you selected works! And YES, Vegas Video even offers REAL-TIME previews via firewire on an external monitor! You can't do that with Final Cut Pro without additional hardware!

With processor speeds increasing at a healthy pace, and the low prices for RAM, there is no longer a need to purchase expensive video editing hardware that may become old and even outdated. When you upgrade your PC you simply get more performance from Vegas Video.

So, armed with no more than a decent modern PC, Vegas Video intelligently uses RAM to produce a real-time editing experience otherwise requiring software and hardware that costs many times over what Vegas Video sells for ($419. web download or $499. retail boxed version direct from Sonic Foundry). Consider that a loaded PC with a Pentium 4 2.4 GHZ processor goes for about $1,500. compared to an Apple G4 Dual 1 GHZ which is currently going for about $3,000., and you can see how attractive editing on the PC can be.

Our test machine, a Pentium 4 1.7 GHZ with 256 RAM running Windows 98SE, was more than adequate to get realtime previews, stutter and glitch free, even when layering multiple effects, transitions and audio tracks. This is truly a breakthrough! Oddly enough, Vegas Video has offered real-time previews going back to version 1. If we were Sonic Foundry this would be the feature we'd be dropping in everyone's face!

If the real-time preview capabilities aren't enough to get you interested, Vegas Video is loaded with features, many of which are simply not available elsewhere.

Here is an overview of some of the features of Vegas Video 3.0.

Intelligent Rendering. Vegas Video can intelligently determine which sections of the timeline require rendering, and will render only those sections that need it. This eliminates the need to have a single AVI file when printing to tape, cuts down on disk space, and greatly reduces project render times.

Vegas Video 3 offers support for all OHCI-compatible IEEE 1394 DV devices (Firewire), from consumer to professional. Whether the final project is DV, MPEG-2 for DVD, streaming media for the Web, uncompressed D1 for broadcast, NTSC or PAL, or a Red Book audio CD master, Vegas Video 3 is more than capable of delivering the highest quality results with a pleasant user experience.

Vegas Video 3 Interface (click to enlarge)

Vegas Video 3 is loaded with even more titling capabilities, effects and transitions than Vegas Video 2. Transitions like Barndoor, Clock Wipe, Cross Effect, Dissolve, Iris, Linear Wipe, Page Peel, Page Roll, Push, Slide, Spiral, Split, Squeeze, Swap, Venetian Blinds, and Zoom. Effects that are fully customizable like Lens Flare, Light Rays, Film Effects, Color Curves, Mirror, Timecode, Deform, Convolution Kernel, Linear Blur, Black Restore, Levels, Unsharp Mask, and enhanced Text Tools like Color Gradient and Credit Roll. Vegas Video has dedicated plug-ins for text and credit rolls and timed sequences. Includes anti-aliased, keyframeable, dropshadows and glows, kerning, leading, foreground and background alpha control.

Vegas Video 3 offers DV Capture with automatic scene detection, batch capture, tape logging, still image capture and thumbnail previews. Print projects to DV tape directly from the Vegas timeline with NTSC or PAL color bars and tone. Vegas Video offers an abundance of professional outputs with the click of a button.

Vegas Video 3 includes a new high-quality DV codec developed by Sonic Foundry that offers pristine colors, incredibly sharp images, artifact-free compositing, and DV chromakeying for both NTSC and PAL. With Vegas Video 3.0, DV is a no-compromise option for the broadcast professional.

Dynamic RAM Previewing — Make movies faster than ever with Vegas Video 3.0. Preview effects, transitions and changes on the fly — no rendering required. Temporary RAM previewing gives you the power to view complex processes and make modifications in real time.

Vegas Video is perhaps most acclaimed for it's multitrack audio capabilities and includes 18 DirectX Audio Plug-Ins from Sonic Foundry's XFX™1, XFX™2 and XFX™3 series — a $450 value. This arsenal of effects includes three EQ's, Amplitude Modulation, Chorus, Delay/Echo, Distortion, Dynamics, Time Compression - i.e. condense 62 seconds of audio down to 60 sec. to make it fit in a spot, Flange, Pitch Bend, Reverb, and more. Vegas Video 3 offers Audio recording, editing, and mixing. 24-bit/96 kHz audio support. Powerful scoring options make your soundtracks even more effective. Vegas Video even offers CD Extraction to grab audio from CD's. In addition you can easily open an external editor like Sound Forge from within Vegas Video and edit your audio tracks. Voice optimized timestretching.

Vegas Video allows you to use multiple file formats in the same project or on the same track, and crossfade them on the same track roll—all without conversion or rendering. Use video in different sizes, frame rates, and formats — all in the same project or on the same track - no conversion necessary. Then render out to just about any resolution.

Import pictures and scanned images in BMP, GIF, JPG, TIF, and PSD formats. Rotate, resize, stretch, flip, or apply 2D motion to a video track and add keyframeable drop shadows and glows. 9 New Overlay Modes for Expanded Compositing Control. New video composite modes include: Cut, Screen, Overlay, Hardlight, Dodge, Burn, Darken, Lighten, Difference, Difference squared.

Burn your project directly to VideoCD for playback on most DVD players, or data CD for playback on your computer's CD-ROM. Convert video frames into still images. Advanced encoding tools. Export your videos for the Web in RealVideo®, Windows Video®, QuickTime®, and MPEG-1 and 2 formats.

Dual processor DV rendering support. New video overlay modes. Smooth paths for track motion and pan/crop. Keyboard scrub and linear timeline scrub.

Windows Media™ File Editing. Get your movies on the web faster than ever with Vegas Video 3.0. Now you can create and edit Windows Media™ files and take advantage of high-end streaming media capabilities such as metadata commands and more. Vegas Video also provides integrated closed captioning tools designed for Windows Media™ and supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and Windows Media™ 8.0.

Vegas Video 3 is truly loaded with all the features you expect from a professional video and audio editor.

Vegas Video has a number of excellent effects with extensive customization capabilities.

My experience with video editing on computers dates back to the early days of PC EDITING when I bought an Apple Mac 8100 110 specifically for editing video, along with a Radius Videovison Nubus setup using Adobe Premiere 3.0 (back when it used to ship on floppies!). That was a trying time where I had to work with video in small segments and had to suffer through long render times. It was not uncommon to have my Mac working overnight only to wake up in the morning and it was still rendering that short clip. Not only that, but if you applied any transitions or effects you'd have to take a coffee break just to get a preview of how it looked. It was a major time waster.

Soon after I updated my computer to an Apple clone PowerTower Pro 225 (abandoning Nubus along with Apple), and also moved up to Adobe Premiere 4.0 along with my new 3 chip Sony DVR-X1000 (after near disaster with the Canon Optura DV, which I promptly returned in exchange for the Sony) and a firewire card by Promax. It seemed that so much had changed for the better and the early days of battling the 8100 Mac and Radius VideoVision were behind me. It was starting to become a more a pleasant experience working with video on a computer. Render times were still pretty long though.

Another upgrade to a G3 and a new version of Adobe Premiere 5.0 continued my progression. But Premiere 5 was a radical redesign and I never quite embraced it like version 4. Yes, I know there were many improvements, supposedly most notably in stability, but that new user interface never quite settled in with me. I battled with Premiere 5 and my G3 Mac and almost gave up on video editing entirely. Odd crashes, capture problems, poor data rates and numerous little problems made it a chore. Premiere 5 was not intuitive at all, at least not for me. I wasn't ready to upgrade to Premiere 6 as it required updating the Mac OS, and 8.6 was working fine for my musical applications. So I just stuck with Premiere 5.

Enter current day. In the last year or so I have pretty much weaned myself off the Mac platform and have migrated most all of my music applications and now video editing to the world of Windows. (Sorry Mac fans! There are still a few programs not available on the PC which does make me miss the Mac on occasion though.) It's rare that I even fire up the old G3 (upgraded with a 450 MHz processor) and now rely on my P4 PC to handle almost all of my computing tasks. Not that it has been all smooth sailing, but I now seem to have a handle on the quirks of Windows. The latest project has been to incorporate video onto my Pentium 4 1.7 MHz machine with Windows 98SE. Surprisingly it has been smooth sailing.

A brief introduction with Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video 2 convinced me that working on the PC is every bit as good as on the Mac, or perhaps even better (Vegas Video is PC only). I liked it much better than Adobe Premiere 5 on the Mac. And now the release of Sonic Foundry Vegas Video 3.0 has been the icing on the cake! It is once again fun to capture and edit video with my computer! Vegas Video 3 is so intuitive and easy to get exceptional results. No more battling with the computer. Sure, some of this has to do with the quick P4 1.7 processor, but as far as working with a video editor goes, Vegas Video 3 is a blast. It's easy and intuitive to jump right in, unlike Premiere 5, which for some reason confused me even after having much experience with previous versions. Plus the real-time previews Vegas Video 3 offers are a dream come true!

Without even cracking the manual, with just the read me file, Vegas Video 3.0 installed quickly and easily and worked immediately with my $49. Firewire card and Sony VCR-X1000 camcorder. I didn't have to labor over optimizing settings or changing things to make it work. Granted, I already had my PC optimized for hard disk music recording, but working with video has been unexpectedly painless.

My first task after briefly getting accustomed to Vegas Video 3.0 with some DV video clips I already had on my computer, was to capture DV video. New to Vegas Video 3 is integrated built in video capture. In Vegas Video 2 you had to launch a separate Video Capture Application.

I simply hooked up my Sony DV to the firewire, connected the DV Cam's video and audio outputs to an external monitor, launched Vegas Video and selected CAPTURE from the file menu. It immediately recognized my Sony DV and the transport within Vegas Video 3 was controlling my DV and playing on my external monitor. I located a segment to capture and hit the CAPTURE button and it happily captured the footage at full size (720 x 480) without any dropped frames or problems.

Wow! This was too easy! I soon found that Vegas Video 3 had "scene detection" and will batch capture the clips and even separate them into individual files without any cueing or stopping and starting. This was cool. I was able to capture full size uncompressed DV footage for approximately 30 minutes or so before getting an error message at which capturing stopped. This may be due to the fact that I only have 256 MB of RAM, or it may have been due to a dropout or similar on the DV tape. Nonetheless, I resumed capturing and finished off the rest of the 64 minute miniDV tape without stopping. 69 separate files totaling about 11 GB worth of data on my drive.

Next, I was curious how easy it'd be to edit various clips together. Without even cracking the manual I jumped right in. (Normally I do spend time with manuals to learn features, but didn't need to with Vegas Video. I have since spent some time with the manual and recommend you do the same, as there are some great tips, time saving shortcuts and multiple methods to accomplish tasks).

Working with Vegas Video 3 is as simple as can be. Vegas Video makes it easy to audition and preview files with an integrated Explorer window (much like Sonic Foundry Acid). It even has an auto preview option that lets you click a file and it automatically starts playing in the preview window. Then you simply drag the selected clip from Vegas Video's explorer window to the timeline and onto a track (or gather your files into the Media Pool and work from there if you prefer). If you overlap clips on the same track it will automatically crossfade them (audio & video - very cool - you may also disable this feature if preferred). You also have the choice of many different crossfade types if you right click on the fade. All of this with a stutter free full size 720 x 480 preview (optionally you can preview just on the external monitor or reduce the preview size and quality). I found previews to be stutter free all the way up to the BEST preview quality. Best of all, this was in real time with zero rendering time needed. I remember how much time I used to spend in Premiere 5 just waiting for preview renders of transitions and simple effects. Not so in Vegas Video 3.0. Everything seems so instant and realtime.

It's easy to trim files as well. Simply locate a point with the cursor and select split from the file menu. It cuts the file in 2 and you can delete the unwanted segment from the timeline. Best of all, every edit including TRIMS are non-destructive, so the original clip remains unchanged. You can also open clips in the FILE TRIMMER and make adjustments there if desired.

Next I added TITLES to the beginning of my project. Simple and intuitive. There are so many options and text effects available. SImply select a template and type in your text. A new segment is created and added to the timeline where you can superimpose and add movement effects etc. You can go back at any time and change the text or colors or whatever you desire.

Next, I added an additional track of audio, a techno song I had created in Acid Pro. Simply locate the audio file in the explorer, preview if necessary and drag to a new track. It was very easy to figure out how to set envelope points and fade ins, so that the two tracks would blend nicely. The original audio track from the video footage had a loud obnoxious crowd with occasional bursts of applause plus it had a Van Halen song playing in the background. I needed to duck the VH music in and out, while still keeping some of the bursts of applause. It was easy to set the volume envelopes to allow some applause to periodically come through over my techno beat, while keeping most of the original audio low in the background to hide the Van Halen music. Easy as pie, and all without even cracking the manual. A few tweaks and it was sounding good!

Vegas Video 3 is extremely intuitive and well laid out. It seems to do most everything the way you would expect it to. Of course there are a myriad of options and choices, but in general everything is so easy to figure out. No need to crack the manual, but of course there is a lot of helpful info there if you need it. Also, there are some excellent Vegas Video tutorials available at the Sonic Foundry web site which walk you through all the steps in a project. I watched these after my first few tests and learned about alternative ways to accomplish things as well as numerous shortcuts. For example you can split a track at the cursor point simply by typing in S on your keyboard. There are many other shortcuts as well. Also right clicking always seems to serve up a healthy amount of options. I must say that is one thing about Windows OS that I always liked, and miss when I work on my G3.

Next, I wanted to render some test files to see how they would turn out. My first render was an uncompressed AVI at the full DV aspect ratio of 720 x 480 at 29.97 fps. This 1 min 14 sec. project, complete with TITLES, crossfades, 2 audio tracks with envelopes took a measley 1 min. 30 sec. to render! That is remarkable. I printed back to MINI DV tape and it looked immaculate on my external monitor playing back from the SONY.

I then used Vegas Video's included templates for Windows Media Video (.wmv) exports, which are streaming files optimized for various connection speeds based on several predefined templates (with custom variables available). The render times were astonishing. The smaller sized renders like 160 x 120 at 5 fps with a bandwidth target of 64k were almost instant. The larger sized 370 x 240 render with a higher bandwidth target (250k) and 2 passes (improved quality) took about a minute for the same one min. 17 sec. project complete with crossfades, titles and multiple audio tracks with volume envelopes.

This is incredible! I never expected such quick renders. Now, in all fairness I can't compare Vegas Video 3.0 to other programs regarding rendering speed at this point, however Vegas Video 3 seems to render so darn fast I'd venture to say it holds up or surpasses other programs.

A 555 x 360 5 fps render with 400k bandwidth and 2 passes took less than 2 minutes. Wow! And it looked great!

I just can't get over the fact that a LARGE 555 x 360 render could take less than 2 minutes! And the quality of the render was beautiful with minimal artifacts. I put the 4.1 MB rendered file on my web server and then clicked the link on a directory web page and it opened up Windows Media Player and streamed almost immediately after a short buffer (I'm on DSL) and looked superb! No dropped frames or stutters of any kind. The audio sounded decent even at the low rate I was encoding at. A 370 x 240 render also looked great and streamed beautifully. The smaller files I rendered (160x120 with 64k target bandwidth) were full of artifacts (as expected), but that's what you get when you try to squeeze in all that info to make the video suitable for streaming to a 28.8 or 56k modem. Increasing the target would have helped but then the files would be too large for users with a slow internet connection. Fortunately there are enough settings to customize to find the best tradeoffs for your particular application. Originally I was concerned I would need to get a separate program like Terran Media Cleaner to encode the files for web delivery, but so far have been very happy with the codecs provided with Vegas Video 3.

If you prepare video files for the net like I do, Sonic Foundry Vegas Video is more than adequate to get good quality video up onto the web. It also has RealMedia and QuickTime among other codecs and I tested both as well. I liked the way WMV looked so I have decided to use it to encode video for my web sites, as it buffers and almost immediately streams into Windows Media Player. Besides, I have never been a big fan of RealPlayer and dislike the fact that their software does nasty things to your system when installed or updated (like changing file associations to their player). So I am more than happy with the file size and quality when using the Windows Media Video codec. Vegas Video 3 offers a large amount of encoding options so you can encode for a broad range of bandwidth targets and quality settings. Once you find the settings you like you can save it as a custom template for future use.

After seeing how easy it was to do simple projects and render the files, I decided to spend more time with the TITLING, TRANSITIONS and EFFECTS. Vegas Video 3 ships with a healthy number of transitions and effects, much more than Vegas Video 2. I was concerned at first Vegas Video didn't support the Premiere plug in format, but after seeing how much variety comes shipped with Vegas Video 3, my concerns were soon pushed aside. They also have 2 packages available separately to add more to your arsenal of tricks (see below links).

It was a blast to play with Text Titling, Effects and Transitions. You can do some pretty way out stuff with Vegas Video 3 and best of all you instantly see the previews without rendering. All edits and tweaks are also NONDESTRUCTIVE so your original files never get altered. That makes it super easy to experiment. Also Vegas allows multiple undos so you can always step backward and try again.

Another great feature is Vegas Video's Velocity Envelopes which makes it incredibly easy to speed up or slow down the video, all while the audio retains it's original speed. You can do some pretty cool stuff with this feature like emphasizing particular frames in the video. It works smoothly and looks great!

Of particular note to musicians and composers are Vegas Videos' excellent multitrack audio capabilities. No other video editing application offers the kind of control over audio that Vegas Video offers. Vegas Video 3 is the big brother to Vegas Audio, which has all the same audio features, minus some of the video editing capabilities. You can do some simple video editing in Vegas Audio, but not nearly on the scale of Vegas Video. But all of the powerful audio features of Vegas Audio are incorporated in Vegas Video, so there is no need to leave to another application for audio tweaking, unless of course you would like to use Sonic Foundry Acid or Sound Forge, which is just a click away from within Vegas Video.

We used ScreenRecorder to grab some video of the Delay-Lama plugin in action within Cubase VST on our computer screen and used Vegas Video to add and synchronize the audio track, and then render to a streaming WMV file. Check out the Delay-Lama in action

We've still got a lot to learn about Vegas Video 3, and can't wait to utilize it's myriad of features. Based on the work we have done with Vegas Video so far, we have no need at this time for another video editing program. Vegas Video 3 does everything we need and more! And it is so fun and easy to use.

Vegas Video 3 is a pleasure to work with and is truly a winner. We can't resist giving it a 10 out of 10 Beat Mode rating. While there is always room for additional features (we always want more, right!), there are no glowing omissions in this feature rich, stable and speedy video editing application. It works like a champ and produces quality results. Oh, and it has never crashed. Not once.

Oh, wait... Just thought of a feature... it'd be nice to to be able to export ANIMATED GIFS and/or thumbnail images from Vegas Video. That would come in handy.

If you are a PC musician or composer and would like to get into editing video for the web or broadcast, we think you'll be very satisfied with Vegas Video 3, both for it's audio and video capabilities. If you are a Multimedia Producer with a PC and produce video for the web or broadcast, we think you will enjoy the speed, flexibility, stability, features and ease of use that Vegas Video provides for much less than competing high end NLE video editing software that can't even match many of the features. Keep an open mind and give Sonic Foundry Vegas Video 3 a try! You'll be glad you did!

Oh, and be sure to show it to your friends that have Macs!

Vegas Video gets a 10 out of 10 Beat Mode rating.
"INDISPENSABLE - must have - the cream of the crop!"

Beat Mode Vegas Video Links:

Sonic Foundry Vegas News

Sonic Foundry Vegas Video 3 Product Info

Pixelan Software™ SpiceMaster™ and SpiceFilters™ for Vegas® Video
product info at the Sonic Foundry Web Site.

Vegas Video Plug In Pack - info at the Sonic Foundry Web Site.

Sonic Foundry Vegas Video Tutorials and more.

Creative Cow's tutorial on Velocity Envelopes.

Multimedian Review of Vegas Video 3

More Creative Cow Vegas Tutorials

Vegas Video 3 review by Creative Cow

Simulating 3D Effects in Vegas Video 3

Vegas Video 2 Review by Internet Eye

Soniccontrol Review of Vegas Video 2

DigitalVideoEditing.com Review of Vegas Video 3

Digital Media World Review of Vegas Video 3

NLE Software Roundup

Videography.com article on Spicemaster Effects