@Gid, @AAProds

Hi Gid, Al

I have removed 'unecessary coments' from both of your posts, rather than delete them. there are valid comments in both which add to the conversation.

John EB

@johnebaker @Can-Dive @browj2 @AAProds @Gid @AAProds @Reyfox

I am now, at the risk of being controversial, going to risk making a personal statement. This is my view and accept it may not be appreciated by everyone.

'I have never understood why after a period of time Magix did not combine the Vegas and Magix forums to one forum'.

(waits for flying fur to settle) There, I said it.

They are now all Magix owned programs. Yes they have different interfaces and workflows but the problems having two forums has caused, especially here where there are people who could quite easily answer questions is completely beyond me. So one workflow doesn't suit some people over another. So what? We don't have to answer or join in every topic posted. I avoid answering questions about creating playable DVD/Blu-ray discs like the plague. One, it is of no interest to me personally and two, I have no extended experience of problems creating one which I think I may have only attempted a couple of times.

I feel that having two separate forums has just created an us and them attitude and produced fanboy unwanted comments where there has been no need for them. Don't get me wrong, it's bad on both forums. Possibly worse on the Vegas forum for lack of sympathy to bewildered topic posters. Only caused by having two forums where one would suffice IMHO.

I feel comparing the work done with both sets of programs is useful. Do some not realise that some of the 'added extras' has been trickled down from the Vegas development side of things lately?

The infusion engine is not primary a Magix thing, just it's version of a released TDK that Magix, Adobe, and a few others have taken advantage of and developed their own versions. It is not a Magix exclusive and free for developers to implement their own take of it and based on some hardware changes to some GPUs, hence the change of base hardware requirements. The same as working with AV1, it's a pain to work with if you don't have an nvidia 4070 or higher to get the advantage of hardware acceleration. I'm not sure what Intel GPU inboard is required. I know I have neither.

There seems do have been much more program development on the Vegas side which should be worrying anyone using VPX or MMS. I would love to see more development on our side of things. I'm just not sure what the owners are thinking. When was the last time update announcements were made here by Magix staff? Or asked for feedback on an update?

Ray.

I feel that having two separate forums has just created an us and them attitude and produced fanboy unwanted comments where there has been no need for them. Don't get me wrong, it's bad on both forums. Possibly worse on the Vegas forum for lack of sympathy to bewildered topic posters.

Excuse me but I disagree and object to this comment. It is certainly not worse on the Vegas forum, In fact it hardly exists on the Vegas forum. Folk posting there by mistake are simply redirected here. As for attitude problems and fanboy attitudes yes they are common on this forum but not on the Vegas forum.

Not sure whether a combined forum would be better. I see no point in having to trawl through posts about a program I never use because of the possibility that the post, if not named perfectly, might be about Magix or might be about Vegas. That could occur if both forums were merged.

Talkgraphics, the Xara forum, would be an layout option to achieve what Ray is suggesting. A large forum but with clearly defined sub-forums for each product. I only visit the Web Designer subforum and don't see any of the others.

But, would that solve the confusion that has occurred with the purchase by Magix of Vegas and the rebrand of MEP? Probably not. It would probably make it worse because people on the "Vegasy" type forum would see "Movie Studio" and leap in, with the same . Unless there was a separate sub-forum for the two versions...

As for fanboys, I'm going to hop over to the Vegas forum and see if I can spot any! 😃

Video editing software to me is like ice cream. Some like vanilla, others, chocolate, and someone like me, Rocky Road (sure wish I could get that here in Poland). We all have our personal preferences, which is just that, personal.

My initial observation for this post was about the VPX website and how it compares with others out there. And while we can discuss the pros and cons of what the software needs, to me, overall first impressions are extremely important. Software of the caliber of VPX deserves a better website than what it already has. I say this because I don't want to see the software fall by the wayside because of marketing the software. In addition, the website hasn't changed in a very long time with it's basic look. If I were considering VPX, and took a look at their website, I wouldn't be impressed enough to buy the software. There is nothing showing how it can edit, and what it can produce. On the other hand, MMS does. Go figure....

I do like competition in the anything I am interested in. It usually drives things forward with improvements and updates. I'm hoping that VPX gets the needed "love" it needs to be competitive and to prosper. There have been a lot of good suggestions from people that use Magix, just hoping someone else is listening.

As for a unified "forum". I am assuming @CubeAce means with separate tabs at the top like there are now for the different products. You would see Vegas, VPX/MMS, etc., as separate tabs. There would be a tab labeled Vegas Movie Studio in addition to Magix Movie Studio. I do think the renaming of MEP/VD was a HUGE mistake on Magix part creating more confusion than necessary, but here we are, and it isn't going to change in the foreseeable future.

@ericlnz @AAProds @johnebaker @Gid @Reyfox

As I sometimes do, part of my post was clickbait to see who had a humour lobotomy or just plain disagreement.

That was the only point of my post.

I posted it was IMHO and if that was not enough I added this disclaimer.

This is my view and accept it may not be appreciated by everyone.

Hi Eric.

My experience of the Vegas forum only comes from casual browsing and mainly based on a few observations I saw a long time ago so Eric may have a point but I only at that time saw redirects, no other helpful words or suggestions and yet there are people there that also have a Magix product.

Sorry if I offended you Eric but that was my direct point. A lack of sympathy for those posting in a mistaken or erroneous manor.

Hi Al.

You raise some very good points.

The site would need an additional topic or two headers, and things will still need redirecting from time to time but I'm trying to see a way of reducing offence by trying to make people realise the products are all under one roof so to speak. Comparison and learning from other's experience and now what has been possible can only be a good thing. I think we all agree the MEP MMS thing was a disaster. I'm not sure what Magix was thinking or afraid of. Their eventual offer of a lower upgrade to the Pro Edit version at the time should have been their first response.

There is nothing perfect but I do feel frictions can and should be reduced.

This was my take on how it may be achieved. I have been known to be wrong before 😉

[Edit]

@Reyfox

Totally agree and exactly what I was about.

Ray.

@Reyfox

Hi Tony,

Software of the caliber of VPX deserves a better website than what it already has. I say this because I don't want to see the software fall by the wayside because of marketing the software. In addition, the website hasn't changed in a very long time with it's basic look. If I were considering VPX, and took a look at their website, I wouldn't be impressed enough to buy the software. There is nothing showing how it can edit, and what it can produce. On the other hand, MMS does. Go figure....

Spot on! Please send this in to Magix.

You've always wrote about the integration of Magix software, which is lacking. It could sell more than one product if there was integration. 

There is or was integration, but judging from the Magix website and their publicity, you would never know it. Attached is a link to a writeup of the various programs, mostly Magix, that work or worked with the video editors and vice versa. I'll leave the file in Dropbox for a couple of days. I did not include images in the writeup, but I may add them to this file to illustrate the links between the program like I have shown below. At one time, Magix promoted these with their "MX" program, Media Exchange. They seem to have collectively forgotten about all of this.

To give you some idea of how other programs are linked, if you have Music Maker on your computer, in Movie Studio, top menu, click on Share and you'll see this:

If you select a photo on the timeline and click on Share, you'll see this:

It will now open Paint. Older versions will open Photo Designer 7 or whatever image editor you have put in the Program Settings, Folders as the image editor.

If you have Xara Designer Pro X or Photo &Graphics Designer, select and right-click on video clip, select video effects from the menu, and you'll see this, which opens the video in Xara animation mode. I have tutorials on this.

In VPX or if you have/buy the full version of Magix (Xara) 3D Maker and you insert a title template from 3D Animation Basic, 3D Static Basic or 3D Decorative Basic, the 3D Maker interface will open for full editing of the title:

If you have and select a bunch of contiguous images on the timeline to create a panorama of them, right-click, Create panoramas will open the image below. Click on the More possibilities button, read the text, click on More possibilities button, select your country, and you'll get the advert page on Magix.com as below:

If you have a wave file on the timeline or you create one by doing a mixdown (Shift+D), right-click, you'll see this:

which will open whichever External Audio Editor you have put in the Program Settings, Folders. The default is Music Editor 3. I put SFACL3 and I get this (after having deleted the H0 and HDP files to get the waveform):

In SFACL, if I open Share on the top menu, I get:

In Photo Manager, if I select some media, image, video, audio, and click on the Share menu at the top, embed photo into a video, I get this:

That should give you an idea as to some of the ways that the various Magix programs can interact.

More later.

John CB

Hi,

The one big thing that VPX and MMS have is multi-movie (multi-timeline) capability. This is never mentioned in the adverts. This capability is not in most video editing programs, as far as I know, except for Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. For me, this is one of best and most significant features of VPX/MMS.

Some of you have mentioned that fixing the bugs would probably require a rewrite of the program, but you don't mention any particular bugs. For some of the bugs that I have on my Bug List, or maybe for most of them, I can't see why that would be necessary.

The Project Temp Folder bug - trimmed clip from the timeline to the PTF back to the timeline puts up 1 second instead of the correct trimmed duration. The duration of this clip is shown correctly in the PTF. In version VPX14, the problem was with trimmed clips dragged to the PTF from the Import/Source monitor, not from the timeline. It would be only 1 second long when put on the timeline from the PTF. This was corrected in VPX15, but the bug was now transferred to the trimmed clip from the timeline. It was as though the programmer just switched the code around. This should not require a rewrite of the program. It worked before, they broke it, they know how to fix it, so just FIX IT!

I'm peeved because I received a message yesterday from Magix that fixing the above bug "is not in the development focus." That is utterly ridiculous and unacceptable.

Object Trimmer - there is a sticky arrow button. No rewrite necessary. There is an incorrect shortcut on arrow buttons. The manual says use Ctrl+Click for 5 frame increments - doesn't work, but Ctrl+Alt+Click does work. So just change the manual and the hint. No rewrite necessary.

The Sound Forge Audio Cleaning Lab 4 (ACL) problem of not opening the file from VPX should not require a rewrite. SFACL3 and every version for the last 20 years worked. Why just this one?

Of course, there are other problems with the external audio editor that could require significant programming time to fix, but the strange thing is that using an old version of ACL, actually the last Audio Music Lab, still works properly - it recognizes Edit wave externally when the audio part of a video clip is right-clicked, does a mixdown, and opens the mixed down file in AML. So if that one works, the newer versions should be fixed to work the same way. I don't know if the problem is with VPX/MMS or with ACL.

There are other bugs on my list but most are obscure, and I've given up on the Xara bugs and the Hitfilm FX problems.

I put MAGIX Capture on my bug list, but the problems are not bugs, just incompetence. Recording a video - the audio part is 44.1 kHZ instead of 48 kHZ. Recording audio - same problem. For both, there is no option for recording in mono.

I think that the problem is that there is no one left at Magix who understands how the programs work or are supposed to work, and that is discouraging.

So, what are the other bugs that you have identified?

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND PROPOSED NEW FEATURES

The topic of AI was brought up and some are indicated in the VPX advert page. Users are expecting new AI features, but what? Look at the Feedback part of Magix Hub. Under User Feedback, they mention AI source material sorting twice -

Incorrect recordings and faulty images - The AI is supposed to help me recognize and sort out shaky, blurred and duplicate images in my source material.

 

Timeline - The AI should help me to sort my source material into a geographical and/or temporal sequence.

I can see these features being added to Photo Manager (Media Manager), but not the video editors.

Also, AI Smoothing - which, I guess, is in addition to the AI smoothing feature already released

Improve material without losing details. I would like an image optimization that enhances the transitions at the edges and at the same time removes small, unimportant structures. The number of relevant details in the image is controlled, making important edges in the image appear sharper.

The one thing missing from User Feedback is "FIX THE BUGS," which has always been the number 1 request, has it not?

Under Planning are two topics for AI Source material sorting:

The AI should help me sort my source material (images, videos, audio files).

Face recognition - I would like to see AI image recognition that makes it possible to identify objects, places, people and fonts within an image or video.

Do you agree with these? Have you clicked on the Like button?

What other AI features would you like to see in VPX?

John CB

The AI should help me sort my source material (images, videos, audio files).

Face recognition - I would like to see AI image recognition that makes it possible to identify objects, places, people and fonts within an image or video.

Do you agree with these?

They get a big fat NO from me. That nonsense will take away valuable time from stretched programmers to fix the bugs. I'm surprised they even made the light of day. AI Image recognition: that will have come from some nerd who runs a security company and gets grainy lo-res CCTV footage and wants something to perform miracles on it such as identifying people and number plates 300m away in the dark.

@AAProds

Hi Al,

AI Image recognition: that will have come from some nerd who runs a security company and gets grainy lo-res CCTV footage and wants something to perform miracles on it such as identifying people and number plates 300m away in the dark.

Well, what if I told you that Magix has had this capability for the last 10 years?

I mentioned that this is best done in Photo Manager where one is going through the photo and video files. Here is the text straight from the Photo Manager manual:

Tag people in photos

MAGIX Photo Manager 17 Deluxe can automatically search your photos for faces and assign them to people you have already identified. Identify people and create categories for them:

1. First select an image, in which faces are easily recognizable.
2. Now, click on "Selection" and choose "Tag persons on photos". The "Identify persons" dialog now opens. MAGIX Photo Manager 17 Deluxe now identifies the people in the image and puts a frame around them.
3. Select a person you want to identify by clicking on the corresponding frame. Now click on the right on "New person" and enter the person's name. MAGIX Photo Manager 17 Deluxe will then analyze the entire database.

In "Categories" (view page 31, view page 14) you will find all a list of all the people selected and the photos they are in.

Note: If a person you've already identified isn't automatically detected on a different photo, you can tag them manually using the "Identify people" dialog.

Occasionally it works. Today, it's throwing up a fatal error and exiting the program. I get a runtime C++ something error. Anyway, Magix obtained the FaceID and PhotoID technology through a license with Fraunhofer.

The program also has

Select the best shots Here you can select the criteria, which MAGIX Photo Manager 17 Deluxe will use to automatically create a folder containing photos. This allows you to create a selection of your best photos or exclude similar photos or prefer photos with people in them etc. MAGIX Photo Manager 17 Deluxe searches the photos or folders you chose and creates the selection, so you don't have to spend a long time going through them yourself.

See the selection criteria in the red rectangle.

Does this not sound similar to what Magix has under Planning for AI Source material sorting?

I just spent the better part of a week working on trying to upgrade my projects database (made using MS Access) to replace Photo Manager. The big difference is that I have the video Project files, the associated Movies, categorized and commented, and now I want to add in all media on my hard drives and then link Project/Movies to the media files used in the projects. That way I can see if a video or photo has been used in a project, and which one. I have started many projects, too many, without completing them, so I have forgotten if I have used certain media.

To help out with the coding, I watched many tutorials on VBA programming and working in MS Access, then I asked Copilot to help out. AI Copilot is amazing and gave me code that I asked for, that worked, tweaked, and so on. So, that was a real-case use of AI for me. But I am having problems thinking of AI uses for VPX.

As I mentioned, I feel that features like this and the AI facial recognition, etc., are best left to a Media Manager, not put in a video program. The video program should use the Media Manager and it should be sold as a must-have add-on to the video programs. That is what Magix did not do with Photo Manager. They basically ignored it and let it languish. Users of the video programs would never know from the advert pages, like that for VPX, that Photo Manager would be a useful tool. And, they don't say why. Magix just does not seem to understand how to market their products so that if you buy X, then you would probably like to have Y, and here is why. It seems to me that this is pretty basic marketing.

The same applies to Audio Cleaning Lab. If you have VPX or MMS and are half-way serious about cleaning up your audio, then you should get SF Audio Cleaning Lab. Of course, they have to make it work properly, so we go circle back to the main user request - fix the bugs!

While on the topic of audio, does anyone wonder why I promote SFACL so much? It has one must-have feature that is not in ME3 or even in the famous Sound Forge Pro. Spectral cleaning. Want to know why?

EDIT: Here is a link directly to the Audio and Visual Content Analysis page on the aforementioned Fraunhofer Institute. Scroll down and read about what they are doing. Interesting.

John CB

Some of you have mentioned that fixing the bugs would probably require a rewrite of the program, but you don't mention any particular bugs.

This comment isn't directed at you @browj2 but in reply to your comment there is one I have mentioned that should be fixed & that's AR recognition. There's no 'match project to media' prompt with 1:1 or 9:16 when imported.

When I first started as a complete novice 20 yrs ago I screwed up a few videos by exporting, keeping the export & deleting the orig thinking I'd done what I need to do.

I'd import a non 16:9 clip, it'd look a bit like this, everything looked fine 👍. (This is a 1:1 from my phone, same thing happens with 9:16)

I'd export not really knowing what I was doing, viewed in a media player it looks likes this, looks fine 👍

But we all know what black bars are, so in reality the video looks like this.

Of course this is a learning exercise & I learnt pretty quickly but it did befuddle me for a bit, so for newbies who use these AR's much more nowadays this should be fixed.

(Sometimes on here there's AR / Pixel AR problems with files like 4:3 but I see that problem occasionally pop-up on the Vegas forum also, so I think that is media as much as or more than program problem.. )

@Gid

Hi,

I was going to mention that as you had brought it up. As far as I know, the programs are supposed to detect the format of the first video clip and propose a change to the project settings. For the AR, that doesn't work. I think that we should all ask Magix to fix this.

Not only that, I just tried opening an Ultra video (3840x2160) in a new project in VPX16 that was set up for 1080P and was not asked to change the settings. So, I changed the setting to 3840x2160, restarted the program, the load screen confirmed the setting. I tried loading a 1080P video, no request to change the settings. Changed setting to 4K (4096x2160), reopened program, loaded 3840x2160, no request to change settings.

Can others please try this? I think that the feature is borked.

To add to that, this should work for each movie added, not just the first one upon starting a new project. We can have the first movie at FullHD landscape, the second at 4K landscape, and the third portrait mode.

John CB

@browj2 Yep, my phone does 16:9/9:16, 1:1 & Full screen.

This is Full screen imported onto a 3840x2160 UHD project (my default new project size)

2320x1080 isn't 16:9 & the project remained UHD

This is a GoPro, no idea what is going on here. ..🤷‍♂️ Again the project remained UHD

It's squishing them to fit the 2160 height like it would if it was a second or third file added to an existing project.

@browj2

The Project Temp Folder bug - trimmed clip from the timeline to the PTF back to the timeline puts up 1 second instead of the correct trimmed duration. The duration of this clip is shown correctly in the PTF. In version VPX14, the problem was with trimmed clips dragged to the PTF from the Import/Source monitor, not from the timeline. It would be only 1 second long when put on the timeline from the PTF. This was corrected in VPX15, but the bug was now transferred to the trimmed clip from the timeline. It was as though the programmer just switched the code around. This should not require a rewrite of the program. It worked before, they broke it, they know how to fix it, so just FIX IT!

I'm peeved because I received a message yesterday from Magix that fixing the above bug "is not in the development focus." That is utterly ridiculous and unacceptable.

Thanks for the update. This is unacceptable. The PTF and Source monitor are key features of VPX which users pay for over MMS. Its these two features that make VPX visually different to MMS. They should work. It's not as if the user should not move objects from the timeline to the PTF and only populate the PTF from the Media pool or Source monitor. There is actually a right click context menu item that allows to do this. Very disappointing. I was hoping this issue would be fixed before the next release. Other than this bug, I have been pretty happy with the program.

Reflecting on @Reyfox's original post where he observed that VPX's webpage seemed to be neglected as compared to MMS led to a healthy discussion regarding VPX's current pricing, past development, bugs and future plans. If I was product manager for VPX, I would be reading these posts, taking notes and reporting back to the development team.

I responded to the OP and expressed that I was optimistic regarding the product's future since VPX16 has a feedback button which opens a window listing all enhancements that are currently being developed and what is in the pipeline.

In a subsequent post, I suggested that MMS and VPX could easily be combined into one product brand since VPX is essentially MMS with a number of advanced features turned on. A MMS user could easily upgrade to VPX because VPX has an edit mode which essentially transforms it into MMS. No learning curve required until the user decides to switch to Standard (VPX) mode. And that learning curve is rather flat.

If you think about it, Vegas Movie Studio and Video Pro had the exact same relationship. Vegas Movie Studio was discontinued to allow the company to focus on one product which reduced production and marketing cost. With one product, you don't need to spend money creating multiple webpages, different logos, user manuals etc. As a result of this decision and increased focus on one product, Vegas Pro has developed into an exceptional video editor. Vegas Movie Studio users didn't really lose anything. They gained a better editor. 

MMS is a great consumer editor which is competitive in its market segment. Initially VPX was developed to penetrate the professional segment but with the purchase of Vegas Pro, Magix decided that Vegas Pro was better suited for this segment. I personally feel VPX still has a role as a Prosumer editor and as users become more familiar with its advanced features it provides them with a steppingstone to move up to a professional editor like Vegas Pro if they so desire.

The question is, for its intended role, does VPX justify a separate marketing budget? Magix has been purchased by Russmedia Equity Partners and obviously it wants to make a profit so again, products will be reviewed for rationalisation as part of the company's restructure. As noted by @CubeAce, Magix's own public statement doesn't mention VPX. It refers to the product as Video deluxe. Why so many names for the same product? Video deluxe, Movie Edit Pro, Movie Studio Platinum? (Why Platinum for the base software?!) Obviously, there would be cost savings if Magix would just pick and promote one brand name.

I even suggested a new name for the product; "Metropolis" or "Metro" for short. I tried to link the name to its state of origin; to give it some significance. I mean, how did they come up with Davinci Resolve? Leonardo da Vinci? = painter = colour = colour grading? Sequoia? Isn't that a tree? Viva Las Vegas Pro?

Of course you could link it to other Magix products. You have Music Maker; how about Movie Maker? Sound Forge? Video Forge? regardless, just pick one name and stick with it!

I previously indicated that there would be 3 benefits if MMS/VPX would be combined. First, it consolidates Magix product lines reducing production and marketing costs. Second, it fixes the branding/marketing error created when Vegas Movie Studio was discontinued. Third, it allows Magix the opportunity to reprice the product more appropriately.

So to answer the original post, I think the reason why Magix isn't spending money on VPX's promotion and webpage is because it is going to merge VPX with Movie Studio. There is no loss to the user. It will still be developed and users will still be able to purchase and use it. Hopefully this consolidation, in the long run, will reap similar benefits as it has for Vegas Pro.                

@Can-Dive

Vegas Movie Studio users didn't really lose anything. They gained a better editor. 

There is no loss to the user. 

Of course there is: a Vegas Studio user now has to pay more for things they don't need or want if they stick with Vegas, and MMS users like myself will be forced to pay more for a VPX+MMS mashup which, once again, I don't want.

@AAProds

Hi Al.

I don't think that is what @Can-Dive is proposing but rather one program that depending on the price point / version chosen unlocks increasing capabilities. Which personally I think could be a good idea but not sure if that would be possible.

Some things may be easy to implement such as adding the HEVC encoder / decoder but others may not be. Such as adding the additional controls to the colour and contrast effects. At what point do you get two monitors or the additional faster export acceleration? Better / smoother track handling? Add LAB colour or 10 bit processing?

You actually lose a track layout option in VPX but gain an overall volume readout.

Would producing those 'upgrades' become more or less work for the developers? Yes the changes are as easy for the user to implement as they would just have to download them but to have them assembled in programming? I don't know.

What third party packaged bundles would be offered to which versions at any one time or would bundle options also be offered at different price points as additional add-ons? At that point they are no longer incentives but additional costs.

Those options may also become more confusing for the consumer than having the two separate products.

Like I said, I like the idea on the surface of the suggestion but I feel there would be lot of wrinkles to iron out.

Ray.

@AAProds @CubeAce

Just to clarify, this isn't really an exercise in pricing; but cost savings. Certainly, the price of VPX is too high currently and it should be reduced. The consumer editor market is very competitive, so Magix doesn't have much leverage to dramatically change the price structure of MMS.

In terms of how to implement the combination, the idea of paying for additional modules within the system wasn't mine. It's not a bad idea but it would require additional programing which would offset some of the cost savings.

My suggestion is even simpler. There is really no change to the current software except changing the name of VPX and maybe Movie Studio.

Say the equivalent "new Movie Studio" is the current Movie Studio Suite. Essentially, Movie Studio plus a bonus plugin. VPX is rebranded "Movie Studio Pro". It remains exactly the same as VPX except for the name rebranding and it too has the bonus plugin. The only change to VPX is that its default Edit Mode, when installed, is "Minimum" which is essentially MMS. So, when MMS users open MMS Pro (VPX) for the first time, they are greeted with a video editor they are familiar with. Of course, users can easily change the default to "Standard" which is the VPX screen layout. The third version of MMS is say; "Movie Studio Pro Ultimate" which is essentially VPX with some additional plugins. That's it; no real programming involved.

Personally, I wouldn't call it Movie Studio due to its history, but you get the idea.

@Can-Dive

That makes more sense but Magix has already rebranded Movie Edit Pro once to Magix Movie Studio.

That confused Vegas users. We are still suffering the fallout of that here.

Changing the name again so it now represents two old products may make people returning to upgrade their software even more confused if greeted with a completely new name and their old software at first glance has disappeared.

That's the problem with trying to change established brand names. It doesn't affect new customers but surely does returning ones. Even now we get people referring to Vegas as Sony Vegas and that change of ownership was almost a decade ago. Sony didn't even own the original Vegas at first which started out as a DAW, not a video editing program by Sonic Foundry in 1999. Sony acquired Vegas in 2003 and Magix bought it off Sony and released version 14 in 2016 so for most people Sony had Vegas for the longest period and probably acquired the most users during that period. It will be a while yet i my opinion before the majority of users associate Vegas with Magix.

So imagine how long it will take current users to get used to or understand a rebranding of the current Magix products.

Like I said, I like the idea but having worked with advertising agencies in the past I know how markets react.

Ray.

@Gid @Can-Dive @johnebaker @browj2 @CubeAce

Greetings all. It's been really really busy for me the last week, and it isn't slowing down. It is a good "busy".

There are a lot of good ideas on what can maybe propel Magix further forward with what is already available. But without the public being aware of anything that really is "new" and shown visually, not with printed text on a webpage, Magix will never attract anyone new to the software. Here is a video of just an update to Vegas Pro 21.

An update video that was done completely on a decent, but not monster laptop, with no additional plugins but what is provided in Vegas Pro. How do I know? I conversed with the person that made, and later created a tutorial on how it was done. We chatted over several weeks with me picking his obviously more creative and experienced brain. He was forth coming on obstacles and issues. But the finished video speaks volumes of what Vegas Pro is capable of. Nothing like that exists for VPX. And while a lot of the features that were presented in that video may not be used by the end user, they will be impressed with what can be done. Again, the VPX website is uninspiring, and it should show what the software can do. And if you look at the other Magix websites, they all look like they're using the same template.

@browj2 I know you have beat the Magix drum of connectivity with its many products. I don't know if Xara will work currently as a plugin, and do not see it listed. Yes, I know that you can direct in the program settings, what photo editor (I have it set for Paintshop Pro) and music editor can be used, but demonstrating this in an actual video by Magix might help in possibly selling said products.

Also, I don't use Photostory or Photomanager, but there seems to be some overlapping of those products in some areas. Magix music editing software, I am just not familiar with, even though I have Soundforge Pro 18 and Acid Studio 11. Haven't installed either. I rarely do any audio editing, so I would have to defer to you, who has the experience.

What is strange, when I go to the Magix website, I can't find Panorama Studio.

We've discussed the multi movie feature in the past. Can it be a selling point? Yes.

As for the AI suggestions, yeah.. surprised I haven't seen the "one click does all" suggested. People have gotten too lazy to set things up before editing. They want "cookie cutter" videos that all look the same.

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I do think that here is room for both VPX and MMS as two separate editing solutions, with the ability to upgrade for more features from MMS. But that isn't mentioned on either webpage. But then, there would have to be more work put into both the VPX and MMS pages to show what it can done, how software in the Magix library can integrated with their video editing software.

@Reyfox

I may not be a typical potential buyer but I had seen that video and personally it put me off of what Vegas was capable of as the rotoscoping was clumsy and the edge fringing / halo for me was far from what I would want to see as an end result from a pro editing package.

I know that boils down to personal preference but I've seen much more impressive work in that area from @Gid all be it not in the form of a 'what's possible' video but much neater and virtually invisible rotoscoping results, that if you didn't know they were there one would think were part of the original footage.

I understand that the rotoscoping was only part of the video and that instance showed a stylised version of its use, but it's that part my eye latches onto and left the most impression on me of the watched experience. It's what I would have remembered most if comparing videos showing capabilities from various programs in demo videos.

Ray.

@Can-Dive

Hi,

Just so you know, the actual name of Movie Studio in all other languages that Magix supports, is Video Deluxe.

There have been a couple of users here on the forum and on my YT channel that can't find many tutorials on Magix Movie Studio, not realizing that it used to be called Movie Edit Pro and I have many tutorials on it. At least Video Pro X has not changed. Changing the name of MMS again would just confuse users even more.

@Reyfox

I had already seen the Vegas video and thought that it was a very good publicity video for Vegas - fast, bouncy, exciting, with whooses on the transitions! Unfortunately, reality for user is different, as Gid has pointed out.

I spent a lot of time putting the MX document and the screen shots together, so I hope that you looked at the document at least

PhotoStory is just a light or kind of a light version of MMS with a slightly different look to the interface. In some aspects, it is more advanced as some of the proposed new features for VPX/MMS are already in PhotoStory. The target market is those who make videos using mostly photos.

As for Xara, I have several videos on my YT channel and you can look at them to see how it works, but I just did up a quick and dirty one using MMS to show you that it still works. I should have mentioned that when I copy the image in the animator, the video advances by the duration shown.

Look at my other videos on Xara to see how to make a mask or masks that change shape and location.

As for Music Maker, I'll do up a quick video in a day or so. Music Maker is not Acid and the loops are not like those that come with Acid, The Soundpool loops are more finite, not multi-instrument pieces of music like some of the Acid loops that I have. Magix has made the Soundpool loops interface easy to use.

Panorama Studio is not the only thing that you won't find easily on the Magix.com site, but as you saw from the link, it exists. Actually, it came along with the purchase of Xara.

John CB