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Vegas 5 has hit the streets, and it's an extensive update that is certainly worth a look. Sony Pictures Digital, the new purveyor of Vegas Production Suite only since last July (2003), has hit the ground running, presiding over a significant round of upgrades to the popular digital video editing and production package. For anyone who was concerned that Sony might not be a good steward of their beloved editing software, no need to worry any more -- Vegas ($699 software, $199 upgrade) sports lots of new capabilities, and best of all, the new version is shipping now. Let's take a first look at what's new in Sony Vegas 5 and the bundle that includes Sony Vegas 5 and DVD Architect 2 ($999).

The first thing you'll notice about the new Sony Vegas 5 is its upgraded user interface (see graphic below). Along with a more "XP" look, new icons and support for Windows XP themes, perhaps the most dramatic improvement is the ability to move the various windows around, in what's called "docking windows," and then save your custom layouts for easy recall. I've appreciated this feature in other editing applications and now it is in Vegas, with support for dual monitors as well. For example, if you're editing video, you probably want your windows in one configuration, but if you're editing audio-only, an entirely different layout would probably let you work more efficiently. With Vegas 5, your user-configured layout pre-sets are just a keystroke away. Customizable keyboard shortcuts make for another usability improvement.

Click for enlargment -- Sony Vegas 5 sports an updated user interface.

There are new workflow enhancements  as well. Top of the list is the ability to create media subclips out of longer pieces of media, where you can then bring a clip back into the timeline already trimmed up. Another standout feature is the way you can now create customized chains of effects and then save them as a group for instant use later – that's a crucial capability if you're using, say, the same tag video for a daily promo. Subclips can also be reversed, so real time a/v reverse is now possible in Vegas 5 without rendering. Also included is enhanced timeline marker support -- a nice addition here is the ability to export named timeline regions to a text file for use as subtitles in DVD Architect 2.

Since Vegas 5 is still a software-only application, not being married to any particular hardware accelerator might seem like a disadvantage, which it surely is under some circumstances. But coming to the rescue if you have lots of rendering to do is Vegas 5's new network rendering capability. Included with the each copy of Vegas 5 are two render-only nodes, which you can install on two other computers on your network. Then, as you're editing, you can send parts of your project off to those idle computers to crunch away at that complicated composite while you continue working on your main computer. And, if you have more than two additional computers to join in on all the rendering fun, Sony will sell you additional licenses to allow you to use a theoretically unlimited number of computers to shoulder the rendering tasks. Think about it: Don't most of us have an old computer lying around that might be pressed into service as a render node? The remote rendering is handled intelligently.  If those old computers have various clock speeds and cards, the main computer hands out the remote tasks based on how fast each works -- from each according to its ability.

Not forgetting its deep audio roots, Vegas 5 sports extensive audio upgrades as well. Hands-on editors will appreciate the newly-added support for hardware control surfaces. The most dramatic audio improvement I noticed was the super-clean time-stretching, which was really smooth and sounded perfect to my ears. Also added is a more sophisticated film-style 5.1 surround sound panner, 5.1 plug-in support, downmix monitoring, envelope automation recording (for both audio and video envelopes), support for ACID loops on the timeline, keyboard-based audio pitch shifting, and a new punch-in editing capability that works the same way it works in a big-time audio recording studio. It's starting to look like Vegas 5 will be able to do just about anything you could want in an audio editor.

Back on the video side, there's also a new 3D motion capability that lets you take a flat surface and move it around in 3D space with Vegas 5, a compositing trick that wasn't available before. This could come in handy when you want to fly around some text or graphics, but for my money, I'd probably still want to do something like this in After Effects. But if you don't have AE or want to do all your compositing and editing in one place, Vegas 5 also has a new compositing model that offers greater flexibility with multi-level composite group nesting, separate peer and parent motion settings, pre- and post-composite track fx, and improved composite hierarchy management. It's actually quite useful once you get the hang of it. Another notable addition to the compositing feature set is a new keyframeable masking tool, which lets you create a shape using Bezier curves, and then move that mask or change its shape using Vegas's sophisticated keyframing controls. That will certainly be a nice aid for those of us who find ourselves needing those garbage mattes from time to time. Another welcome improvement in Vegas 5 is the addition of what the company calls transition progress envelopes, letting you add keyframes within a transition, so you can have the transition start, back up, hold and finish according to your keyframing. This is a new level of control you didn't have with Vegas before.

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