What's New in Sony Vegas Pro 12?
Vegas Pro 12, the new version of Sony's flagship NLE that debuted a few weeks ago, boasts several new features for online video production pros including simplified color matching, advanced mask creation and manipulation, and increased 64-bit support, while shipping as part of a new suite that includes Sound Forge Pro 10 and the HitFilm 2 Ultimate effects package.
Increased 64-Bit Support
Be aware that Vegas Pro 12 is 64-bit only. This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but there are still folks running 32-bit versions of Windows, so it bears noting. If you want to run Vegas Pro 12, you have to have 64-bit compliant hardware and be running a 64-bit version of Windows.
Also on the 64-bit front, Sony has finally released 64-bit versions of its Sound Forge Pro audio plug-ins, such as the very popular Noise Reduction.
Project Interchange Tools
Depending on your viewpoint, Vegas either does everything you need or is sorely lacking in the "plays well with others" category.
My understanding is that Vegas was always designed to be a finishing tool; that is, a tool with which to do both basic cutting and final editing.
If you needed to share your projects with other editors using other tools, it was difficult because Vegas has in the past only provided some rudimentary exporting options—namely, simple Edit Decision Lists (EDLs)—and virtually no Import choices.
New for Vegas 12 is the ability to export and in most cases export to and import from Pro Tools, Premiere, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, and other applications (Figure 10, below).
Figure 10. Importing XML edit files from other NLEs into Vegas Pro 12
This is a major boon to editors as they can now work with any studio using these compatible tools.
There are some other editing features to explore and I cover those in the accompanying video tutorial. In future articles I will address some of the other tools in the Vegas Pro 12 Suite, including HitFilm Ultimate. Until then, Happy Holidays!
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