I like Samplitude, too, but NOT the Magix site and the company's management!

Wayfarer
I tried to tell ya'll, Magix sucks. Their video software has ALWAYS been full of bugs and they don't care. So sad to see they took over Vegas. I went to Vegas after Adobe Premiere went to subscription garbage. Now I'll have to dump Vegas somewhere down the line too. No idea what I'll be using next, but I'll never have anything to do with Magix ever again. They've got Nazis running that company.

Try Davinci Resolve 15 if your computer can run it.  It is Free, but just as powerful (if not more so) than both Vegas and Premiere Pro.  

Interesting--thanks! HitFilm is another free one that looks promising except my graphics card isn't good enough for it, and it requires Windows 8 or 10. (I'm still on W-7.) Of course I'll have to be upgrading my computer before long anyway.

Wayfarer
Interesting--thanks! HitFilm is another free one that looks promising except my graphics card isn't good enough for it, and it requires Windows 8 or 10. (I'm still on W-7.) Of course I'll have to be upgrading my computer before long anyway.

HitFilm Express (the free one), isn't nearly as powerful.  Essenitially it works as a fee but then pay for addons model 
Davinci comes with world class color grading tools in the box...serioiusly, it is the benchmark for color grading.  Programs like Vegas and Premiere need plugins to get to that level.  
 
It is nice they give a free crippled down version, but Davinci is actually a legitimate full blown featured NLE.  
 
Now whether or not your computer/graphics card can handle it, that is the real quesiton.  

I read that the free version was quite good but that it only exported to mpg. And the full version is over $400. That's pretty pricey for me. Vegas Platinum had everything I needed for less than $100. I had a used version of Premiere Pro that I found really cheap or I couldn't have afforded that either.

Brian Walton
 
Try Davinci Resolve 15 if your computer can run it.  It is Free, but just as powerful (if not more so) than both Vegas and Premiere Pro.  

Are you using DaVinci? I assumed that as an open source project it would not have proper licensing for all video formats, so I never tried it (aside from I'm not really having any unsolvable problems with Vegas 12).

I use HitFilm, but have had lots of problems running it on my Win10 laptop; probably because my graphics card is old (NVidia GeForce). Projects would freeze up, crash, and I'd loose what little I was able to do in that time. Also, the encoding takes aaaaggggeees. 
I got hold of Vegas in the Humble Bundle deal so that I can ditch HitFilm for something more stable.  My way of thinking is: if a video software is free, they have probably crippled it to some extent, so I'm hoping a paid software will run better.
Da Vinci looks pretty cool - but I imagine there is steep learning curve. My brother-in-law once passed me a version of Avid 4 that he 'acquired' from work. I loaded it up, but decided it was too pro for my needs.

Larry Jones

Brian Walton
 
Try Davinci Resolve 15 if your computer can run it.  It is Free, but just as powerful (if not more so) than both Vegas and Premiere Pro.  

Are you using DaVinci? I assumed that as an open source project it would not have proper licensing for all video formats, so I never tried it (aside from I'm not really having any unsolvable problems with Vegas 12).

It is anything but an open source project.  I realize that "free" implies that, but you can buy a $30,000 Davinci Console to run the thing  https://www.bhphotovideo....i_Resolve.html Or you can buy the $300 Software Version that allows amazing realtime colaboration between different people working on the same timeline...seriously pro stuff.  The thing is, the free version basically gives you virtually the entire package outside of the realtime colaboration, that unless you work in a produciton house, you wouldn't actually use.  The tools are all there unlike other companies crippled versions.    
 
Yes, I use DaVinci.  I also have Vegas 15 and Premiere Pro for use on other computers that can't run DaVinci and for projects I'm handed by other companies.  Vegas I rarely use.  Premiere Pro I've used a lot over the years, but I think Davinci is better out of the box.  It takes quite a few plugins to get Premiere Pro to have a comperable feature set. 
 
(Auto Multi Cam Sync in all packages is still imperfect)     
 
Vegas 12 is far behind what Davinci 15 can do.  If your compuer can run it, I'd highly recommend giving it a shot.  

burgerproduction
I use HitFilm, but have had lots of problems running it on my Win10 laptop; probably because my graphics card is old (NVidia GeForce). Projects would freeze up, crash, and I'd loose what little I was able to do in that time. Also, the encoding takes aaaaggggeees. 
I got hold of Vegas in the Humble Bundle deal so that I can ditch HitFilm for something more stable.  My way of thinking is: if a video software is free, they have probably crippled it to some extent, so I'm hoping a paid software will run better.
Da Vinci looks pretty cool - but I imagine there is steep learning curve. My brother-in-law once passed me a version of Avid 4 that he 'acquired' from work. I loaded it up, but decided it was too pro for my needs.

I personally found Vegas harder to use than Davinci coming from being very knowledgable with Premiere Pro.
 
I'm also familar with Avid, but have only used it for pro productions, not "personal" projects.
 
Yes, Davinci has some advanced functionality, but chances are you will never need or use the Fusion Tab.  The basic edit and color controls are very easy to grasp with a few tutorials.  With Vegas I'm constantly looking up "how do I do x"  as many basic functions just are not intuitive.  Even selecting and moving multiple clips on different timelines at once isn't as simple as just shift selecting and dragging.  For a Windows based program, it is pretty odd.  
 
Vegas rendering is quite slow.  I have found it will run on older machines, so to me that is the selling point of it.  (I'll reiterate, though Davinci is free, it is worlds more featured than Vegas).  

Brian Walton
 
It is anything but an open source project.  I realize that "free" implies that, but you can buy a $30,000 Davinci Console to run the thing  https://www.bhphotovideo....i_Resolve.html Or you can buy the $300 Software Version that allows amazing realtime colaboration between different people working on the same timeline...seriously pro stuff.  The thing is, the free version basically gives you virtually the entire package outside of the realtime colaboration, that unless you work in a produciton house, you wouldn't actually use.  The tools are all there unlike other companies crippled versions.    

Yes, I use DaVinci.  I also have Vegas 15 and Premiere Pro for use on other computers that can't run DaVinci and for projects I'm handed by other companies.  Vegas I rarely use.  Premiere Pro I've used a lot over the years, but I think Davinci is better out of the box.  It takes quite a few plugins to get Premiere Pro to have a comperable feature set. 

(Auto Multi Cam Sync in all packages is still imperfect)     

Vegas 12 is far behind what Davinci 15 can do.  If your compuer can run it, I'd highly recommend giving it a shot.  

Very impressive. The BlackMagic website is confusing, though, and does not seem to include system requirements to run Resolve 15. I guess since I have to ask I probably couldn't run it anyway. Since I just make make pretty simple music videos and slide shows I think for now I'll stick to what I have. I agree Vegas does do things backwards from Premiere, but it's consumer-level, and I'm used to it, and I know for sure it runs on my PC.