Update for Sony Vegas Pro

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Sony Creative Software has announced the latest version of its video and audio editing package, Vegas Pro. If you’re superstitious then look away now because this is version 13.

Unlike previous releases, this one’s actually quite muted in terms of new features though the techs at Sony say there’s a lot of behind the scenes work gone on into making it more stable than before – versions 11 and 12 developed a bit of a reputation amongst some users for being, shall we say, “intermittent”.

So the new bells and whistles line up includes:

  1. An iPad app that will somehow (the press release is entirely vague about how) enable clients to review and suggest changes to your edit.
  2. The ability to work on proxy (low res) files generated by the latest generation of Sony camcorders, swapping them out for high-res files when the time comes to generate a top-quality version.
  3. Possibly the most useful feature of this release – better project archiving which will finally copy all media related to a project, including nested timelines, into one neat location. Hooray!
  4. “Smart rendering” for XAVC-Intra; a way of not re-rendering files that don’t actually need re-rendering, thereby saving time.
  5. Loudness meters: new EU and US legislation demands precise control over how loud TV programmes and adverts are perceived so this feature should help.
  6. A small number of effect plug-ins from FX Home.
  7. If you’re prepared to pay more, plug-in bundles from New Blue FX and Izotope.

Sadly there appears to be nothing groundbreaking like enhancements to the rather crude effects masking that Vegas currently offers, nor multiple timelines in a single project, nor nestable project elements, nor … you get the gist. Sad face.

Oh, and it’s going to cost you $400 for the basic version, $600 with DVD Architect (not updated at all) and the plug-in bundles, or $800 for a full suite including stuff like HitFilm Ultimate for separate effects manipulation. No word yet on upgrade pricing.

There’s more info at http://blog.sony.com/press/sony-announces-latest-version-of-vegas-pro-software/

We’re still going to buy it for the Project Archiving alone, we’re fed up with saving vast amounts of unused media “just in case” the project needed it…

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