VEGAS Pro wants to join the big league. Introducing its most significant NLE upgrade that includes tons of new features like GPU-accelerated workflows, advanced motion tracking, enhanced HDR support, and improved plug-in and color grading workflow support. Would it be enough?

A new age of VEGAS Pro?

VEGAS Pro is the lesser familiar NLE (Non-Linear Editor). The editor was originally published by Sonic Foundry, then by Sony Creative Software, and now by Magix which is a German developer of consumer software, develops software for video editing, audio editing, DAW, and photo slideshow. VEGAS Pro has accumulated a lot of critics that claimed this software has not meant for professional video editors due to a lack of features and stability. However, it seems that someone in VEGAS Creative Software has been listening, since this new version (18) contains a huge amount of goodies to enhance your workflow as a content creator. According to VEGAS Creative Software: “VEGAS Pro 18 adds a breadth of new features and major feature improvements to enhance workflow performance, including AI-driven effects, GPU-accelerated workflows, advanced motion tracking, HDR support, sophisticated color grading tools and plug-ins ideally suited for video professionals in post-production facilities of all sizes and requirements”.  Let’s dive in a bit.

VEGAS Pro 18 adds a breadth of new features and major feature improvements to enhance workflow performance, including AI-driven effects, GPU-accelerated workflows, advanced motion tracking, HDR support, sophisticated color grading tools and plug-ins ideally suited for video professionals in post-production facilities of all sizes and requirements.

VEGAS Creative Software

New Features in VEGAS Pro 18

1. SOUND FORGE Pro is now integrating tightly with VEGAS Pro enabling users to send audio files directly from the VEGAS Pro timeline into SOUND FORGE Pro, make their edits, and return to VEGAS Pro where all changes are instantly and automatically updated in the timeline.
2. Artificial intelligence-driven effects including Colorize and Style Transfer.
3. GPU Driver detection and update utilities and automatic GPU configuration for hardware acceleration.
4. There is a new Motion Tracking Panel.
5. VEGAS Capture enhancements, including a new capture folder configuration and new audio encoder.
6. HDR improvements, including hardware encoding available for HDR, presets, and automatic selection of IDTs based on metadata.
7. Support for Open FX plug-ins for optimal flexibility.
8. New plugins like Flicker Reducer, Black Bar Fill, and Denoise.
9. Color Grading improvements: Dockable Color Grading Panel, Logarithmic Exposure Tool (“Camera Exposure”), Improved Auto Contrast, Skin-Tone Line for Vectorscope, Combined RGB Display for RGB Parade scope.
10. Optional trim handles for timeline events.
11. Timeline cursor location storage saved with project files.
12. Video engine performance improved.
13. New presets and animations for Titles and Text.

Future plans

Furthermore, VEGAS Creative Software also announced today’s detailed plans to provide extensive, cloud-based media management, file transfer, and backup and collaboration capabilities that link VEGAS Pro 18 users with our content management systems as well as remote collaborators. According to VEGAS Creative Software, all VEGAS Pro 18 cloud-based media management and collaboration tools will be offered as free services to VEGAS Pro 18 subscription customers. Pricing for cloud-based services for perpetual license customers will be announced when the services become available beginning in October 2020.

Pricing and Availability

VEGAS Pro 18 is available immediately as a monthly subscription or as a perpetual license. Subscription plans start at $19.99 per month.

Final thoughts

It seems that VEGAS Pro wants to get into the big league of professional NLEs like DaVinci Resolve, FCPX and Premiere Pro. Disclosure: I’ve never used VEGAS before. I do have vast expertise as an editor in Resolve, FCPX, and PP. But I’ve never touched VEGAS due to the number of critics I’ve heard about it. Nevertheless, now it might be the right time to start since it looks like VEGAS has made major progress regarding the development and improvement of its platform in many important aspects like GPU utilization, color grading, and sound. The big question is: Would it be stable enough for professional applications? NLE’s stability is the most important factor when working under pressure. PP has its own issues in regard, however, it makes a huge amount of effort to solve it (The Public Beta project, for instance). I guess the only way to find out is to try VEGAS Pro 18 and see if it holds up.

What are your thoughts about this new VEGAS upgrade? Are you a VEGAS Pro editor? If not, would you jump in? Let’s know your thoughts.