@Stanislav-Zakharov

Hi,

Like Ray mentions, there is not a lot that has changed or improved between 14 and 15. There a some bugs that got fixed, some not fixed, and some new ones created. I like the new interface and find it crisper. Others don't like it.

I use names in the track headers and they are now visible as Magix moved them to the top of the track header.

I don't like the Group/Ungroup buttons; the old ones were more representative.

For anyone with a subscription, the changes/improvements to the MAGIX Hub tab would probably be important. I don't know if this was perfected in VPX14, but the Help/manual under the Hub tab is quite good.

Below - Timeline and Media Pool with manual open:

The new feature that Ray mentioned, zooming in and out of the Preview Monitor, actually zooms in/out at the location where the mouse is on the screen rather than always around the centre of the screen. Nice feature, but not something one would upgrade for.

Another feature, selecting an object on the screen for Size/Position/Rotation is nice if you have overlays and need to modify them - no more having to select the object on the timeline first, just select it in the preview monitor and the dashed outline and handles appear.

As for playback and export, I haven't noticed any change, one way or another.

Since you are already having problems with your files in VPX14, I don't think that they will be resolved by getting VPX15.

I find the current price rather expensive for what is offered. The third party plugins are not really worth the extra money. You may want to wait for a better offering.

John CB

Thanks, guys, you are a legend. Just another quick Q for you guys: I believe you have done this a few times. I'm trying to install VPX14 on another laptop, which is a more powerful Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz, 2803 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s), any prompt in a forum, and other Q for you guys, I have found other laptop. (used), HP17 Full Hd RTX3000i7-9850H 32Gb Ram is only concerned about intel 9th Gen 6 Core i7-9850H UHD Graphics 630. your thoughts mates

@Stanislav-Zakharov

Hi.

I have no idea of your age, financial situation, or other constraints but understand such constraints as people including myself have other things that need paying for first hence I'm on a desktop 9th gen Intel CPU and mid range 1600 series nvidia graphics card.

Personally I would not consider video editing on any portable device but a lot will depend on your requirements.

Such laptops capable of video editing tend to be more expensive than their desktop counterparts for several reasons.

1: a mobile CPU will be much weaker than it's desktop counterpart. For instance the 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 you quote has half the amount of processing cores that the equivalent desktop processor would have.

2: The same goes for mobile versions of mobile graphics cards to a more or lesser degree, that are hard wired into such systems .

3: It is very difficult to find a laptop that has a bios that allows both GPUs within a laptop to be enabled at once pretty much defeating the idea of have the two GPUs available to work together.

That means to my mind having to find a laptop that has a performance well above the stated minimum specs for a desktop.

Some people here do have laptops that work such as @johnebaker who has a Lenovo Laptop that does allow the editing experience to be comfortable and usable but the nvidia card within is an nvidia 2060 or 2080 I believe and not cheap.

If you look at the websites for the specs to run these video editing programs they all quote desktop components, not mobile ones. I have only ever seen one Laptop mentioned as running these programs on the Magix website and it was a very high end ASUS model.

That is not a mistake on the behalf of Magix. It is the way the industry has gone due to the processing power needed to work with today's camera phones and modern video cameras.

4K. 8K. 10 bit HDR. HEVC. All of those easily done on ARM chips within a smart phone costing over £1,000 using a pure 64 bit processing chain and relatively cheaply due to the scale of production.

This is why Apple changed and went their own way with their own processors. They have no need for expensive graphics cards. The processors are much faster. Unfortunately they dislike processing non Apple file formats so for editing anything other than files from Apple products or products that use Apple Pro-res they are also far from ideal for general video editing in my opinion.

Windows and computers in general are stuck for now with much older processing systems that need much more power to deal with these changes. That has made the whole process more expensive and power hungry.

That should start to change over the next few generations of processors and when Windows 12 finally hits the market, but will that make the future cheaper again for editing? I don't know but the current state of affairs is far from ideal. The price of a capable graphics card now is getting ridiculous as is the power requirements of capable processors.

So personally I would not be considering a laptop as it is a more expensive route into video editing for a given set of workflow requirements that needs careful consideration and more product knowledge than I have on that side of things. So in all conscience I cannot recommend anything you have suggested.

I do understand that for some people that a desktop is not a practical solution but people should be aware of the need of the increased performance such machines need to have to cope. Even some top performing gaming laptops are not suitable for the task of video editing.

Now I'm going to sit back and watch others chime in telling me this is all bull****.

😂😂😂

Ray.

@Stanislav-Zakharov

As an aside to that last question. Upping the specs is not going to solve your current predicament.

What you really need to do is first make sure all your material is using the same frame rates and resolutions and preferably wrappers (The bits that tell the file how the video has been compressed and into what format) so that there is less for all those components to do and not overload the computers components.

Because if you don't I would bet 10 to one you will still be having problems.

Ray.

@Stanislav-Zakharov

Hi

In addition to @CubeAce comments re working from a laptop, some of which I do not agree entirely with, and looking at the problem from a different angle.

The question as to whether laptops are a viable option and give a smooth (enough) editing experience depends not on just the hardware, but also:

• The video formats and resolution you are importing, and likely to import in the future.
   
• The screen size, anything less than a 15.6" screen is not, IMHO, a good option for comfortable viewing or trying to edit on. Personally I find a 15.6" screen too small, my laptop has a 17" screen.
   
• Complexity of the final 'product' eg if regularly using a lot of Picture in Picture and/or Collages where you have multiple videos playing at the same time.

As Ray has mentioned I do work from a Lenovo laptop when travelling, specs are in my signature and where I disagree:

. . . a mobile CPU will be much weaker than it's desktop counterpart . . . .

Comparing like with like, I get near identical export times, to within seconds as my PC which has the same GPU's, ie Intel UHD630 and a RTX 2060 - this was a deliberate choice on my part so I can switch video projects, and other software projects, from PC to laptop to PC without issues.

. . . . make sure all your material is using the same frame rates and resolutions and preferably wrappers . . . .

I would qualify this by saying that the following are more of an issue:-

Different framerates are an issue if the higher rates are not a multiple of the lowest, eg mixing 25 fps with 29.97 or 30 fps is not ideal. Mixing 25/50/100 or 30/60/120 is OK so long as the export framerate is in the same grouping, changing from one group to the other can cause issues, particulalry with pan shots and movement across the screen.

The videos I import are 4K UHD 3840 x 2160 in both h.264 8 bit 25 fps, and h.265(HEVC) 10 bit Cine-D, 50fps formats, and for the most part the performance is smooth enough, without using proxy files, the PC is relatively smoother for collages and Picture in Picture as I am using multiple drives for import/export.

I avoid, wherever possible, using my mobile phone for video due to issues with the video being Variable Frame Rate.

GoPro video are also known to cause issues with different video editors.

. . . . Windows and computers in general are stuck for now with much older processing systems . . . .

As Ray has commented, they are stuck with Windows for which changes are coming, which will mean Windows is sleaker and better performing once support for 32 bit software is dropped, this legacy support is, IMHO, holding back performance. Apple dropped 32 bit program support many years ago and caused outrage at the time, however the performance increase was noticeable as was the ability to design processors which are 'pure' 64 bit.

John EB