Vegas Pro Reviews

Professional video editing studio

Video content has the potential to significantly boost sales for any product or service. However, professional video editing software, like Vegas Pro, is necessary to create high-quality and impressive video content. As videos are often shared through social media, they tend to get distorted and compressed, making the quality of the video even more crucial.

Memes and viral marketing are becoming increasingly popular, and high-quality videos are favored by those who create them as they provide great templates. The more time and effort you put into creating video content, the higher the chances of it succeeding.

About Vegas Pro

Did you know that up to 80% of the human brain is dedicated to visual information processing? It’s no wonder why video content is the best way to engage with your audience. However, it’s important to ensure that your audio quality is also up to par. This involves muting any background noise and trimming any dead silences. In this review, we will take a closer look at Vegas Pro, a professional video editing suite and audio editor. This software is perfect for those who want to learn how to create YouTube videos with all the bells and whistles.

Vegas Pro is a comprehensive package that offers a range of video and audio editing tools to help you create complex storyboards with multiple camera angles and perspective tracking. It also comes with add-ons, such as Vegas Stream, which allows for live broadcasting. Previously known as Sony Vegas up until 2014, the software is supported by a constellation of programs that are accessible through the Vegas Hub login. However, it’s worth noting that we experienced some issues with this feature during our review.

What is Vegas Pro used for?

The program used as video-creating software hides imperfections in the recorded video. Shooting conditions are rarely ideal, and you can always expect problems with the hardware, lighting, or actors. These problems can result in anything from jarring colors to noisy audio, breaking the immersion and grating the viewer’s senses. Sound Forge is a companion program that corrects the audio.

The software can do color correction, which is useful for better visibility on different devices and formats. For example, professional video recording hardware uses the maximum number of colors, but not all can be displayed with equal fidelity on all viewing devices. Color correction emphasizes some colors and mutes others for a more balanced image.

Special effects are used to highlight or emphasize certain actions or events that may not have been captured properly during filming. For instance, if a collision occurred off-screen, adding dust particles through special effects can ensure that viewers notice it.

Motion blur is a technique that imitates the human peripheral vision during quick eye movement. The human eye can perceive sharp details only within a narrow cone in front of it; everything else appears blurry. When the eye moves quickly, we experience motion blur, but our brain compensates for it.

The motion blur effect conveys to the viewer, “Don’t pay too much attention to this part of the screen.” It should be used sparingly, as it can cause motion sickness. While anyone can use Vegas Pro as a movie studio, it’s recommended for professionals. Video editing novices will need to experiment with the different options to understand their functions.

Vegas Pro Trial

Run the installer and select the components you’d like to test. By default, five components totaling 2.8 GB are installed:

Boris FX Primatte Studio is also offered for installation, but you will have to purchase it before trying it out. Vegas POST and Vegas Effects are two more modules the program suggested later, but I already had plenty on my plate.

When you launch the program for the first time, you will be asked to register an e-mail address. Then, please do the needful and drag your first video file into the editor, dropping it into the timeline at the bottom of the interface.

Vegas Pro Features Detailed

I used a 44 MB .MP4 file showing 36 seconds of gameplay footage captured through OBS in 1920 by 1080 resolution and 60 frames per second to test its features. The setup involved two monitors, one in which the editing took place and another to show the real-time preview.

Pressing ALT+SHIFT+4 sent the real-time preview to the secondary monitor. Unfortunately, the video was displayed at 480 by 270 resolution, making it look gnarly.

A quick check in the Preferences under the Preview Device tab confirmed the monitor settings are fine. Then, clicking the “Preview (Auto)” button above the video, selecting “Preview,” and then “Full” showed the video as it was originally recorded. All right, now we’re cooking with gas!

Next up was applying a motion blur effect to make the video feel more action-packed. The file in the timeline has an “fx” button, which seemed like an obvious choice. It opens the Plug-In Chooser and displays available effects strewn across several folders. The default view shows 84 effects, such as Mirror and Swirl. There I found these motion blur effects:

Clicking the “Vegas” folder in the sidebar showed an entire folder of blur effects, adding these to the mix:

So, I double-clicked Quick Blur, and it got added to the plug-in chain on top of the dialog. I clicked “OK” and set the Blend amount to 0.250, which seemed like a nice number. Then, I played the video, and — nothing. The preview showed no change at all.

I went back into the dialog, changed the number to 1.0, tried again, and still saw no change. When I did the unthinkable, I opened the Vegas Pro help file. It stated Quick Blur has a subtle effect and recommended Gaussian Blur.

I went back into the plug-in explorer and chose Gaussian Blur. This time around, it applied an appropriate amount of grease across the screen, producing an immediate change on the preview. There were five blur presets, ranging from Light to Extreme. The plug-in chain automatically added another effect called Pan/Crop. It is represented as a dotted F inside a circle and a rectangle. I presume that’s how I choose where to apply the blurriness. Wait, did I add Pan/Crop by accident?

Mousing over the video file in the timeline made the cursor change to 5 different shapes. Did I perhaps move the file, click something, or tweak an option without noticing? I ended up undoing all my changes to make sure and started with the intact file.

The third try confirmed the Pan/Crop plug-in effect was added automatically. It seems some plug-in effects have prerequisites, which are added automatically. However, there doesn’t seem to be a way to remove the Pan/Crop without Undo. I eventually gave up on tweaking the Blur effect. It was applied across the same screen area that I couldn’t figure out how to customize.

One thing I noticed is that the “…” menu had an option called “Media FX” as opposed to the one I used through “fx” being called “Event FX.” I assume that there is a way to add events to the file in the timeline and then attach effects to events.

I clicked the “…” menu next to “fx” in the timeline on the loaded file and chose “Color Grading.” This opened a few panels with something more intuitive. Four rainbow circles at the bottom were labeled:

Each circle had a dot in the center. For example, a panel showed an RGB color curve with four dots to the right. Moving any dot around immediately changed the colors in the video preview, allowing me to experiment, compare, and learn on the spot. Every panel also had its Reset button.

Two reticles did color corrections based on black/white areas in the video. I targeted a black/white area in the video with the appropriate reticle, and Vegas Pro did the rest.

To save the edited video, click on “File” and then select “Render As…”. You can choose from over 100 different file formats, including HD video formats, 5K, and 8K videos. I opted for 1080p at 59 frames per second, which is similar to the original file specs. The rendering of my gameplay, with the redness turned up to eleven to make it look more action-packed, took only a minute and produced an 88 MB file. Upon playback, the video played smoothly with flawless quality and a steady frame rate.

These algorithms learn by comparing hundreds or thousands of data points to what they were taught before being released to the public. They power two plug-ins in Vegas Pro:

The first automatically colors black and white footage by guesstimating, while the latter mimics a painting style on a real-life photo. If you’re not going to use these two plug-ins, you don’t need to install Deep Learning Models.

This is a streaming interface. You’re asked to create a new project or open an existing one on the first launch. There are templates as well. Overall, the program feels and functions as a stripped-down version of OBS.

Everything works, but just barely. For example, I could not put both the webcam and the desktop feed in the same window. However, the recording worked fine; I didn’t test the streaming performance.

I clicked the NewBlue Application Manager in the Windows Start menu. After creating a new account, I was welcomed by the NewBlueFX App Manager dashboard. It showed a store page with some 30 products that don’t seem related to Vegas. Switching over to the “Products” tab showed two familiar names:

It appears NewBlue bundled its products with Vegas Pro in hopes of scoring a sale. During the installation, a PDF opened and asked me to click a bit.ly link to buy and install Boris. When checking NewBlue FAQs, I found one mention of Vegas Pro and Boris, confirming my suspicions.

Live2Post appears to be used only if other Vegas modules are installed. The entire NewBlue product portfolio seems focused on adding effects, titles, and polls to live broadcasts.

This program asked me to log in and check my e-mail for the activation code. Once pasted into the box, I clicked “Test program” to start the trial. Immediately after, I got an error stating, “The scan server audio_plugin_scan_server_vst3.exe could not be started”. The message told me to either disable my antivirus and try again or abort. I noticed my sound got disabled due to whatever process the program tried to run.

I aborted the scan, the sound returned, and I was greeted by the Sound Forge interface offering tutorials, which is a nice touch. They are available by clicking the “Show Me How” button at the top center of the interface. I used a 4-second MP3 clip of a comedian speaking in reverse I recorded off of YouTube using Audacity, a free audio editor, to test Sound Forge. The challenge is to play the clip backward to hear the hidden message.

In Audacity, the process is:

In Sound Forge, one tutorial is named “How to reverse audio.” Perfect! So, the tutorial told me to:

Clean, simple, and efficient. I like it. The interface again suffers from diminution, but at least the main project window can be resized and maximized, showing the sound file in more detail.

You can dabble in Vegas Pro, but only a video editing ninja can find his way around the minefield of buttons and options. The buttons are minute, measuring 20 by 20 pixels, and they are all over the place, as are drop-down menus. That’s not a problem, but there’s little indication of what you’ve clicked or changed.

Vegas Pro has reached the limit of adding new options to the interface. I would like to see something more intuitive, such as a console where users can search for an option. In addition, more ways to see what a button does would aid experimentation and smooth the learning curve. As it stands, you are all but expected to use a pair of monitors and binoculars.

I used Windows Magnifier to zoom in on Vegas Pro’s interface. I was floored to discover there are even more buttons, particularly two “…” menus in the lower-left corner of the interface. One was white on pink, making it barely visible even after I knew it was there. Who thought that was a good idea?

The interface is jam-packed with options, it’s just that Vegas Pro doesn’t give much feedback as to which ones are activated at what point. That doesn’t sound so bad until you realize many effects and changes are subtle. Having a lengthy history and a consistent before/after preview would help discover and give the newbie user confidence.

Vegas Pro Cost & Subscriptions

Vegas Pro offers various licensing options for its software:

It also offers a SmartScription model, which includes cloud storage, premium stock content, and AI-powered tools. With SmartScription, users receive a perpetual license when the contract ends, ensuring continued access to the software and projects.

Each subscription model provides varying levels of cloud storage, free upgrades, stock footage access, and additional features like Text-2-Speech and Speech-2-Text.

Alternatives to Vegas Pro

The video industry is growing day by day, and so are video editing tools. Yet, if you work in the professional industry, you already know the business. Most of the video editors are using Premiere Pro, together with After Effects. Yet, here are some of Vegas Pro alternatives:

Premiere Pro vs. Vegas Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro is the Adobe video editor. The main advantage is the seamless integration with Adobe Creative Cloud, from which you can pull assets of any kind to insert into the video.

The interface is up to the industry standard and always provides subtle feedback. For example, the active pane in Premiere Pro is highlighted with a light blue border, so you can immediately tell if you’ve accidentally clicked somewhere. Unfortunately, Premiere Pro suffers from the same problem as Vegas Pro — you need a whole slew of supporting programs to get all the effects and options, but the product quality is much higher.

Vegas Pro Review Conclusions

As a video editing program, Vegas Pro was quite intimidating. I found myself doubting my skills, and the only solace was the Undo button. The program offers a plethora of options, but unless you are an experienced video editor with a sharp vision, you might struggle with understanding their functions. Moreover, the interface is so small that it becomes almost unusable, with little to no feedback on your actions.

Despite its interface shortcomings, Vegas Pro is still a useful and functional tool. Sound Forge is intuitive and easy to use, but I’m not sure I would recommend the other three products I installed (Deep Learning, Live2Post, and Stream); they seem to be bloated with unnecessary features.

However, this might be a reflection of my own experience. If you have a basic understanding of video editing, Vegas Pro is a great program to start with. But if you’re a beginner or have no experience with video editing, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s better suited for professional users.

The only way to know if you’ve accidentally clicked something is to check the Undo dropdown.