Gary Rebholz, VEGAS Software Paving the Way for Video Editing and Audio Creatives

OWC RADiO host, Cirina Catania, and Gary Rebholz, Product Owner, MAGIX/Vegas Creative Software, take a deep dive into the world of the VEGAS NLE and their full line of products. VEGAS Post, VEGAS Pro, and VEGAS Movie Studio are helping creatives be… well, more creative!

As VEGAS Creative Software training manager, Gray has written five software training books and produced countless tutorials, webinars, training videos, and most any other type of software training resource imaginable. After many years of teaching users how to use the software, he brought his expertise, and deep understanding of the industry and customer needs to the product management realm.

Gary guides the VEGAS Creative Software development team. He works closely with them to set priorities, plan development work, and bring VEGAS Pro and other software to an even wider group of professional users.

The Vegas Movie Studio software was recently upgraded, and OWC listeners will hear the inside track on what to expect. And…there’s a free trial available!

A Brief Background on VEGAS:

In May 2016, MAGIX acquired the multiple award-winning VEGAS Pro and VEGAS Movie Studio product lines, along with other video and audio products. They believe that VEGAS Creative Software now stands poised to take video editing to a new level.

The VEGAS Creative Software mission:

To make VEGAS software faster, more efficient, and even more intuitive for video editing users at all levels.

More information:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/gb/

For more information about our amazing sponsor, Other World Computing, go to MacSales.com or OWCDigital.com, where you’ll find hardware and software solutions and tutorial videos that will get you up and running in no time.

For more about our host, filmmaker, tech maven and co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival, Cirina Catania, visit cirinacatania.com.

If you enjoy our podcast, please subscribe and tell all your friends about us! We love our listeners. And, if you have ideas for segments, write to OWCRadio@catania.us. Cirina is always up for new ideas!

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In This Episode

• 00:09 – Visit blog.macsales.com to check out the Rocket Yard Blog, your source for expert tips, special deals, commentary, reviews, and the latest tech news.
• 04:45 – Cirina introduces Gary Rebholz, Product Owner of MAGIX/Vegas Creative Software.
• 07:49 – What are the Vegas Creative Software products?
• 11:54 – Gary discusses the advantages of using Vegas Pro based on people’s feedback and comments. One is the efficiency in which you can finish a project.
• 15:40 – Cirina and Gary talk about their work environment during the quarantine.
• 21:40 – Gary shares the partnership of Vegas Creative Software with FXhome, NewBlue, and Boris FX.
• 24:21 – Gary describes the recently released product of Vegas Creative Software, the Vegas Post.
• 28:15 – Gary’s talks about how his experience in the creative process and his knowledge of the intricacies of the software helped him to be great at what he does.
• 31:24 – Gary mentions the people that resonated with him through their projects created using the Vegas Creative Software products.
• 36:05 –  Go to vegascreativesoftware.com to view Vegas Creative Software products, and go get their 30-day free trial to test it out.

Jump to Links and Resources

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Transcript

Hi, this is Cirina Catania, I’m the host of OWC Radio. And it occurred to me that I haven’t been giving you guys enough tech tips lately. So there was something that came across my desk, thank heavens for the Rocket Yard blog. If you go to blog.macsales.com, you’ll see Rocket Yard Blog, and there’s a lot of amazing tips there. But one thing that really hit home for me is the one about what you do to stop your MacBook Pro from overheating. I don’t know about you guys, but when I record audio from my podcasts, I’m working off of a MacBook Pro, and a lot of the time, that fan will just start going full blast. I mean, it’s an overdrive, and I’m trying to record nice clean audio for you, right? So there’s a tip there, that’s so simple that I went “Are you kidding me? Are you really kidding me?” All you have to do instead of plugging your power cord into the left side via Thunderbolt 3, just go over to your laptop’s right side and plug it in there. And voila, no more overheating. Now they’ll explain why in the blog. So go to blog.macsales.com, and you’ll get all the reasons why. For me, I just want to know that when I walk into the studio here currently at my house because of Coronavirus, but when I walk into the studio, and I turn my MacBook on, and I record audio for you guys, that I’m not going to have to deal with that noisy fan that’s only a short distance away from my microphone. Ain’t that great news? I love it. So there’s a lot of other stuff there too. There’s a current article on giving your photos a retro game look with a console cam. Remember the days of Mario? I mean, come on, we all still love Mario, right? But you can give your photos a retro look that kind of matches the old Mario look with your console cam. And then there are some articles on security, and there are articles on how to enable all those free fonts that come with macOS Catalina that are hidden there unless you know how to uncover them. And of course, I love them because they promote OWC Radio every week. I’m not going to argue with that, right? 

And the ThunderBay Flex 8 just won a huge award at NAB. So you need to check that out. It’s not out in the marketplace yet, in fact, I just bought ThunderBay 8, which is the older version, but it’s still great. I have 128TB, and I can connect it directly to my Mac Pro and work with blazing fast speeds and get all my editing done wonderfully. Thanks to ThunderBay 8. Yes, it costs some money, but over the years, I tried to save money by buying one RAID after another RAID after another RAID, and next thing I know, I have hundreds of terabytes on daisy chains. There’s only so much power you can get if you’re working, for example, on an iMac, which I was for a long time. Still, this ThunderBay 8 that I just bought I will do a full review on it and I’ll let you know how much I like it, or maybe I don’t like it, but I think I’m gonna love it because 128TB is gonna make my life a lot easier. Anyway, go to blog.macsales.com check out Rocket Yard, and if there’s any equipment that you’re interested in, of course, go to macsales.com.

And before I go any further, I want to give a special thank you to Larry, Chris, Mark, Jennifer, Teddy, Simona, and all the wonderful people behind the scenes team that helped keep me on the fast track with OWC Radio. Thank you guys so much. I’m looking forward to many more of these, and we are past, I don’t know what number this is we are in the 60s now. This is great. Thank you, guys, for listening every week. Please subscribe to owcradio.com\subscribe, pick your favorite podcast aggregator. Whether it’s our iHeart, Spotify, Apple, Google, or wherever you go to listen to your podcasts, go ahead, subscribe, and you’ll get an email every week letting me know when we have a new episode available for you. Also, please feel free to comment. I love the comments. And if you have any suggestions for guests on our show, those are always welcome as well. Write to owcradio@catania.us.

And now, for our feature interview of the week, Gary Rebholz of Vegas Creative Software. He’s going to give us an update on all the major upgrades that would have been announced to NAB, but he’s talking to us about it here and guess what? There are free trials available for all their software, just go to their website, vegascreativesoftware.com, and you can immediately download all of the apps and the software and work on it for free for a while and see how much you like it. Where did the name of Vegas come from, is it from Las Vegas?

That’s a long story that stretches way back to the very beginnings of Vegas Pro back 20 years ago. It started out as the original codename for the product when we were first developing it. Back when we were with the original company that developed Vegas Pro, a little company called Sonic Foundry. It was the code name, and when it came time to choosing a name, I guess the company was maybe more driven by developers than marketers back then, and they decided to stick with the code name, and so it became Vegas.

What does Vegas do? Because I know you have a lot of different solutions on the website. But in general, what was it programmed to do when you first started? And how has it evolved over the years?

Well, Vegas has evolved from a single product into a brand, so we have to be careful what we’re talking about when we talk about Vegas. The original Vegas product was Vegas Pro. A little known fact is that the very first version of Vegas Pro didn’t have any video editing at all. It was a multi-track digital audio workstation. The company that developed Vegas Pro back in the day was a little company, as I mentioned, called Sonic Foundry, and we had at that time some really great audio software. And at some point, we began to look around at the market and didn’t like what we saw, the approach others were using for video editing software, and we thought, why not take the logic of audio editing and put it into the video editing world. And so that’s what we did. And we came up with a unique approach to editing videos that were very different from anything else at the time back in 1999 or 2000.

A little known fact is that the very first version of Vegas Pro didn't have any video editing at all. It was a multi-track digital audio workstation. Click To Tweet

If I went to your website, which I did, you have Vegas Pro, and you have Movie studio, you have various categories of software included within the whole Vegas family. Can you go over some of that with us and tell us what to expect when we go, and what the different aspects of it are?

Yeah, sure, the Vegas brand has evolved from the original Vegas Pro into a whole series of products, and you mentioned a couple of them. We have Vegas Movie Studio, which is essentially our consumer-level version of Vegas Pro. And we have three different versions of that and three different versions of the Pro product. And so we have a pretty wide range of the Vegas Pro, Vegas Movie Studio, non-linear editor products to try to fit in for all users. One thing that’s unique about our Vegas Movie Studio line is that it’s built directly off our Vegas Pro technology. So if you start with Vegas Movie Studio, let’s say you’re a brand new editor, you’ve never edited before if you start with Vegas Movie Studio, the easiest version. And you learn that and you’re ready to step up to the next higher version, well, you simply just step up, you don’t have anything new to learn except the new functionality of the higher version. And that holds true from the very bottom of the line at Vegas Movie Studio all the way up to the top Vegas Pro. You can move so comfortably from one to the other because it’s exactly the same technology. It’s just that we pull some of the advanced features out for the basic version. As you move up, all you have to learn is the cool new tools that you get from moving up.

Vegas is an NLE, correct? It’s a non-linear editing system. 

Yep, that’s right. 

And if you would say like, I think that every NLE has its sort of personality. If you think about some of the other NLEs that are out there and some of their typical consumer customers, people that use their software, how would you describe the typical Vegas customer? Why did they come to you, and what are they looking for?

That’s a cool question. Yeah. As I said, Vegas comes from a different DNA. It comes from an audio DNA. So anybody who’s ever used an audio tool, like our own Sound Forge, or any other DAW, if you’re used to working with audio on a timeline, and you come into the Vegas world, and you start working with video. You’re really right at home because we just took the audio model, and we applied it to video editing. So for instance, even after 20 years, as far as I know, no other non-linear editor is doing this, but in Vegas Pro, if you want to create a transition from one clip to the next clip, you do just what you do in a digital audio workstation, you overlap them. And the amount of overlap dictates the length of time between the fade-out of the first and the fading of the second, you create an automatic crossfade, no messing around with trying to put next to each other and then hope that the software makes the right decision for you, you just make that overlap. And it just goes. It’s so intuitive and so easy that I’m just amazed that no other editor has copied into that model yet. But it’s those kinds of things that we brought over from audio editing and applied to video editing that I think intrigues, especially people who used audio editors before, but even people who are learning for the first time are just more intuitive, and it’s faster. One of the things that we constantly hear from our users is I can edit faster in Vegas Pro than I can edit anywhere else, it’s just fast. The technology gets out of your way, so you have room to be creative, instead of wrestling with things on your timeline, you’re just moving things around and flying things in and out. And your creative brain is in full gear, while your muscle memory is handling the putting things where it belongs, you just don’t have to think about it. And that’s one of the things that people consistently say is I can work so much faster in Vegas Pro than I can in other applications.

Because it comes from an audio base, I have a question. I’m just curious about this because I do a lot of dialogue editing and audio editing because of the OWC Radio every week. But then in documentary films or television stuff, if you’re working with visuals and bringing music in, does it automatically adjust the levels? Or is it intuitive that way too? Or do you still do manual adjustments? I mean, obviously, you’re gonna have to at some point, but I’m just curious because you said when it works together so well, I was just curious.

Well, yeah, you pretty much have to do everything manually. But we certainly remember the first version of Vegas was a standalone digital audio workstation multi-track audio editing, mixing, recording, and multiple bussing everything you’d expect from a multi-track digital audio workstation. All of that audio stuff is still in Vegas. We have plenty of people who still use Vegas Pro as a digital audio workstation to record and edit multi-track music projects. They never touched the video because they just love the audio of it. Anything you need to do with audio related to your video is a piece of cake, and it’s natural to do in Vegas Pro. So, if you need compression or need a reverb ambiance or something, you can add plugins in. If you need to automate your mix, it’s super easy to do either manually with envelopes and keyframes or automate in real-time where you ride the fader as it goes along and bring it up bring it down. All of that power is behind the scenes in Vegas Pro. I’m glad you mentioned it because it’s one of the things that often gets overlooked with Vegas Pro. It’s such a powerful video editor that people don’t start to think of how robust it actually is as an audio editor. So, yeah, all that stuff is still there.

Wow. I’m smiling big. I have to tell you, sound is oftentimes the weakest link in some of our projects because we’re so used to using a sound mixer or somebody to come in and engineer it for us. And then when we go out in the field like if I’m shooting for Nat Geo or something, I’m by myself, and I’m always stressing out about whether or not I’m getting good sound, and the idea that you have an NLE that kind of helps you with all that because you guys then become the audio engineer, and I’m the creative person that just makes it work the way I want to hear it the way I want to see it. That’s really good news. I didn’t know that. This is so cool. I’m learning things from you today. You know, with the quarantine, I’m working right now from my study at home, which is normally the room where I go to, to do my creative writing, I collect fountain pens, and I’ll come in here early in the morning, and I’ll put all my deepest thoughts down on paper. And now I have two sets in here. So it’s very crazy.

It’s encroached upon your creative space. That’s hard.

It has. I love what I do, but I think for all of us, like, I think you’re the only one in the office today, right?

Yeah, I’m the only one in the office for probably two months. I’m the site manager here in Madison, so I’m babysitting all the equipment and everything, making sure the place looks lived in. I’m actually more isolated here than I would be at home. So I guess it’s safer that way. 

Yeah. Well, your family at home with you at least you have some company there that you have kids that are home from school too. 

Yep, exactly. 

Yeah. My grandkids are all home from school, and my daughters are trying to do their jobs remotely and it’s an interesting time. I’m isolated here at my house. 

Yeah, that’s hard.

But we’re making it work. We do things like you and I are talking right now. We do Zoom family calls, and I’m making the home office work as best I can.

That’s all you can do, right?

Yeah, that’s all you can do. And I don’t dwell on it. I just figure okay, this is what I have to do, and you just make it work. And it’s nice to talk to people like you that are teaching me something new. This is great. And the reason I got into quarantine because, in my crazy head, I was thinking about the fact that a lot of millennials and Gen X people are going more and more into gaming during this time. And they’re doing more and more of their own creative stuff, and I’m wondering how Vegas deals with 360 and VR and HDR and all that stuff that not just filmmakers, but gamers always want.

We have 360 tools built into Vegas, it isn’t the most popular with our user base, but it’s there, and it works. And we’re constantly watching the VR market and the 360 market and are in a position to react to improve what we have if the feedback shows that we need to. But yeah, we’re constantly developing new things. And you mentioned HDR Vegas Pro has actually been on the front edge of HDR development over the last couple of years. And we have a complete HDR workflow, including scopes and color correction and all that stuff from beginning to delivery. We can go HDR. It’s been an interesting ride, and an interesting process. I’ve mentioned the original company that owned Vegas Pro a couple of different times well, and we’re actually now onto our third owner. Four years ago, a German company called Magix bought Vegas Creative Software. And honestly, they gave us the chance to resurrect the product. The former owner had all but given up development. They were a major hardware manufacturer. We’re putting their efforts into hardware and decided to go in a different direction with their software development. And Magix came along at a critical moment and picked us up, and they’ve been wonderful, and if not only kept us going, but we are back and thriving better than ever right now. And so we’re able to now start working on those leading-edge technologies like HDR, 8k support, all the stuff that, all the buzzwords that are in the industry were working on all of that. And some interesting ideas floating around with artificial intelligence and just all that kind of technology. We’re working on all of it.

When I was on your website, I noticed that in 2011, you were the first to have open CL for GPU accelerated hardware. How does Vegas work now with eGPU and the new hardware that’s out there? Does your history help with the new hardware as well? I mean, you do say the new owners are helping you get more involved in the creative community, but I’m assuming that because of the GPU’s foundation, there is a connection here for the new hardware. Am I right, or am I off track with that? 

No, absolutely. I mean, we have great relationships with the major vendors, AMD, Nvidia and also Intel actually Vegas Pro with the update that we released a month ago or a month and a half ago, became the industry’s first NLE to support all three of those manufacturers, AMD Nvidia and Intel on both the decoding side. So footage on your timeline and the encoding side, rendering out a final project. We’re in close contact with all those guys, and we’re working closely to keep up with their latest and try to make sure that we’re keeping our users up with the latest technology so they can get their work done even more efficiently.

Talk to me about some of my favorite people FXhome, you work very closely with them, right? Can you talk to me about what’s happening on that front?

Everybody who talks about FXhome talks about what great guys they are. I mean, it’s really true. They’re smart, and they’re just really a nice bunch of people. We go back with FXhome many, many years, I mean at least 15 years, probably more than that. Of course, they have developed plugins, video effects plugins, and so forth for a long time. And we often partner with various companies like FXhome, NewBlue, and Boris FX, some of the typical effects vendors, but we’ve always had a special relationship with FXhome in part. Because very much like us, they’ve sort of been an underdog in their space, right? They’re just this funky little company out in England somewhere, and they make these amazing products, and they’re going head to head with the big boys. And it just feels very much like the Vegas story on the other side of the ocean. And so we’ve always had a really tight relationship with them. I’d say maybe seven years ago or eight years ago or so we started working even more closely with them by integrating a direct tie from our Vegas Pro timeline into their HitFilm product for compositing and particle generation and all the cool things that HitFilm does. And so you can be on the Vegas Pro timeline and say, Oh, I want to open this clip in HitFilm and go do a bunch of compositing and then come right back, and it’s just a seamless round trip. So we had this really tight relationship with them in that way. And after we were acquired four years ago by Magix, and we kind of got the ball rolling again with Vegas Pro, and we got Vegas Pro back into the game. We started thinking about, well now what do we do beyond what Vegas Pro already does? And we started looking into the compositing space and the post-production space, and it quickly became apparent that we didn’t have the staff of engineers here to start from scratch. So we started kind of looking for partners, and FXhome just rose to the top as a natural partner. And so we worked extremely closely with them to release a product a year ago at NAB as when we announced it and was released shortly after that it was called Vegas Post. And Vegas Post is a combination of our Vegas Pro and two software titles from them called Vegas Effects and Vegas Image. And Vegas Effects is a compositing video effects tool, and the Vegas Image is a still image compositor so you can do compositing and tweaking of your still images. And we put all this together in one cohesive package underneath the Vegas brand in working hand in hand with those guys. And really, it’s the first true alternative to high end, post-production work from the timeline of an NLE to your compositing, and titling and image compositing work. And it’s all in a nicely integrated package that works really well seamlessly together. So yeah, we’ve got a great relationship with FXhome, and it’s only getting better. We’ve got big plans with those guys.

People who are learning for the first time are more intuitive so it’s faster and more efficient for them to grasp new information. Click To Tweet

That’s awesome. They have actually recently hit the 5 million subscriber mark. 

They’re just really smart and really talented. 

I think I saw Kirstie in one of the shots in your compositing video on your website. It flew by really fast, but I went, “That’s Kirstie. I got to ask her if that was her.” I bring it up because, for me, one of the reasons I do this show is so that I can bring people on and help spread the word about them, and I don’t talk to people I don’t like. There is an army of people out there who are incredibly creative that are developing new artists and new technologists that really need the support of companies like yours. It’s good to see you guys helping them. I think it’s really important. And what a lot of people from the other side don’t understand is that the technology companies that are creating the platforms for us all to work on, they put their whole heart and soul into it, this is your whole life. And the creatives, the people that are making the films or making the ads or creating the videos are getting all of the credit for the creativity, but I have to say, I credit you guys because, without you, we couldn’t be doing it. So it’s kind of cool.

That’s very kind of you. It’s nice to think that we’re making our own contribution to that kind of creativity. But you talk about these independent little guys, they’re not the big guys, but these little guys who share their creativity and they are scratching to make a few dollars or whatever is doing it. And I feel like companies like FXhome and us with Vegas Creative Software, we have a lot of sympathy for people like that because we understand what it’s like to not be the big guy and to have something really great that you want to show and you want to share with the world. And you’re constantly pounded down by the hands of the big guys, right? And it’s like, oh, why should I use that? Nobody uses that. Or why should I hire this creative guy, nobody uses him. They all use this lady over here or something like that. And I feel like that’s why we’re so powerful with some of those independent creators that we come from the same place, we understand what it’s like to be scratching against that door, trying to climb up against the odds. It’s very gratifying to see some of the things that these guys are doing with our tools. I’ve edited many videos in my time as the product leader of this group, but I look at what these guys are doing, I think, Oh my god, I’m in kindergarten, and these guys are all there. They just blow me away with their creativity. I think I kind of found my niche in the creative process by saying, Well, okay, I have enough understanding of the creative process that I can talk to the real creative people. And I have enough knowledge of the technical side that I can talk to my devs and I can bring the two together and say, This is what they say they need. This is what we can give them, let’s bring it together and let’s do it. And it’s been fun. It’s been rewarding to feel like I’m part of the creative process, so thank you for what you said because it matters.

We’re talking about the foundations and the technology. But when you go on the website, you do see some amazing projects. Can you think of some user case studies or some recent outputs that are wonderful or things that really resonated with you in terms of the projects your customers are working on? Give us some hints.

Yeah, there are a few people that I could point to that have been ongoing creators for us and doing just really cool work. The first lady who pops to mind is Faith Granger, and it was maybe ten years ago that she released it, but she released a movie called Deuce of Spades. And it was a totally independently produced thing, and the reason this lady’s story sticks out is it’s an incredible story. She knew nothing about most moviemaking, and she decided she was going to make this movie. She said about writing it, wrote it, acted in it, shot it, edited, did everything she did, and did the graphics for the box art and everything else. And it’s just was an incredible achievement for her and that movie Deuce of Spades just took the independent film community by storm, she won truckloads of accolades and awards for that. And she has done a lot of things since then, but she since moved into doing some really cool music videos like really cutting edge, kind of arty stuff, really nicely done. She’s been a Vegas user for all these years. And in fact, when she started, she wasn’t using anything she didn’t even have a video editor, and somehow she came across Vegas Pro and decided to try that, and she’s just been going strong ever since.

Anybody else that you can think of?

There’s another guy out in Northern California called Ole Schell. His ranch has been in his family for years and just makes great films and great commercials and so forth. And he did this really cool, and I don’t think it classifies as a commercial, it’s more like a promo film for, trying to remember if it was Mercedes-Benz Diesel Trucks or something like that, he got these trucks out to the salt flats. And then he did all these flyover shots with a helicopter and just these trucks doing these crazy things that you’d expect like a sports car to be doing all this stuff out in the middle of the salt flats.

This is the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah? 

Yeah, I believe so.  

Oh my god, I have never filmed there. I’ve always wanted to film there. That’s a pretty rad place.

Yeah. And it just was really cool and creative. And he did some sort of documentary film on the fashion industry that was done in Vegas Pro and was really well received. And it’s just guys like that, I mentioned their names and few people in your audience don’t know those names, but they’re doing amazing work. And it’s just really gratifying to see that kind of output. I believe there’s a guy, and I think he’s still in LA, Chris Brickler, who makes a lot of music, video stuff, and really nice creative stuff. He’s used Vegas Pro for years as well. So they may not be the most famous guys, but they’re doing really cool work.

They are the creative warriors that we’re talking about the unsung heroes of creativity. Yeah, it’s really nice when you find those people, I’m always, by the way, looking for people like that to interview. So if anybody listening has a suggestion, just right into owcradio@catania.us, and send us the names, and we’ll get in touch with them and see if we can bring them on the show because the main reason I do this is to get people that don’t normally have a voice and to give people that I admire a lot a chance to brag about a little bit because I can do it for you. So if you were at NAB this year, what would you have been presenting?

We were ready to announce some major upgrades to the Vegas Post product that I talked to you about earlier that we worked in partnership with FXhome. The two FXhome components Vegas Effects and Vegas Image both received some really robust updates that are going into the current version of Vegas Post. So I got a list here of a few things that we would have been talking about. In Vegas Effects, more of us particle generation some text and titling things more 3D modeling things. Just like all the stuff that Vegas Effects does really well, only more of it. And similarly with Vegas Image things like more robust light rays effects, some multiple-layer transform kind of things, halftone effects, distortion effects, just all the things that you would do to still image to either make it look better or modify it to make a special effect or things like that. And so it’s not a new version of the software, it’s still the original release, but it’s an update to the software and all those extras come for free in that update. Vegas Pro, which is the third component of the package, will be updated sometime within the next couple of weeks or months or so here. And so that will have updated all the components. And these are not the first updates of these initial releases. We update throughout the year, and we just keep adding more and more to it. And so that’s the bulk of what we would have been talking about. We would have been talking to people just like you who haven’t really heard about it before and need to be brought up to speed and are interested in what’s new and what’s going on. So that’s what our mission was at NAB this year. So we’re glad to be able to have you up and do it here with you now. But that’s what we would have been talking about.

Well, that sounds awesome. I’m actually going to learn more about it. Where does somebody go to get it? And is there any kind of a trial period or what’s going on with purchasing it? Can you explain that to people?

Yeah, you can go to our website vegascreativesoftware.com. All the Vegas products are available for learning about what they are and for trying them out. All of the products have a free 30-day trial version, and you can download that right from the website. Give it 30 days to try it out, and all the products are also available as a perpetual license for a purchase or a monthly subscription. So whichever model you prefer, you can get a hold of the software that way.

This has been very enlightening. I learned a lot, and I’m excited about it. I’m going to look up those filmmakers you talked about what platforms does this work on? Is it Mac, PC, does it work on anything? I’m curious about that.

We’re strictly PC at this point, the original founders of the software, one of them that the original technology officer came directly from Microsoft. What’s cool about our relationship through that with Microsoft is that he was very particular about making sure that we followed Microsoft guidelines for developing our software. And so one of the things that people noted and we’re sort of amazed at right out of the box was that when you sat down in front of Vegas Pro, you kind of knew what to do because it’s just using all the same techniques that you already know how to use from Windows operating system itself. And so we’ve had a long and productive relationship with Microsoft, on the Windows platform, and we continue with that. In fact, we’re in a beta phase right now with a new piece of software that we have called Vegas Stream. And we’re working very closely with Microsoft to integrate a lot of the cool Microsoft technologies like Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Graph and others, their streaming product, and so forth to integrate with Vegas Stream. So we’ve got a real good relationship with Microsoft, and we’re windows only at the moment.

One of the things that people consistently say about Vegas Pro, is that they can work so much faster on it, versus other applications. Click To Tweet

That’s great. I think that’s great. Everybody has to have their own niche, right? I think it’s wonderful. There’s a lot of millennials and a lot of Gen X that are using PCs now for their work. So I’m sure that they’re going to be happy to hear this if they haven’t already tried. So what URL do they go to to learn more?

Yep, it’s vegascreativesoftware.com.

And I urge everybody to go visit it, learn as much as you can try something new. And thank you so much. I really appreciate you, Gary Rebholz, product manager Vegas Creative Software. That was fun. I love talking to creative, smart people, don’t you like hearing what they have to say? Thank you for listening. And like I always say, get up off your chairs and go do something wonderful today.

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Important Links

• Gary Rebholz
• Vegas Creative Software
• Apple
• Boris FX
• Chris Brickler
• Deuce of Spades
• Faith Granger
• FXhome
• Google
• HitFilm
• iHeart
• iMac
• MacBook Pro
• macOS Catalina
• Magix
• Mario
• Mercedes-Benz Diesel Trucks
• Microsoft
• Microsoft Graph
• Microsoft Teams
• NAB
• National Geographic
• NewBlue
• Ole Schell
• Rocket Yard
• Sonic Foundry
• Sound Forge
• Spotify
• ThunderBay Flex 8
• Thunderbolt 3
• Vegas Effects
• Vegas Image
• Vegas Movie Studio
• Vegas Post
• Vegas Pro
• Vegas Stream
• Windows
• Zoom

Checklist

1. Establish a creative process for the work you do. Sometimes it’s challenging to create art when you’re not in your best element. But when there’s a deadline, it helps to have a system in place to uphold your professionalism. 
2. Determine the art style you want to highlight for people to recognize your skills more efficiently. Your specialization will act as your brand or niche. 
3. Stay up to date with technology. Gadgets and software get updates simultaneously. Being in the know will give you a better insight of what to really invest in. 
4. Prepare case studies if necessary for your business. These will serve as the proof what you’re offering is producing excellent results. 
5. Nothing is 100% original these days. Gather inspiration from other filmmakers’ work to get an idea of how you want to create your art or style your own way. 
6. Be more creative in this New Normal. Things are never going back to how they were. It’s best to look forward and find more ways to cultivate and promote art.
7. Invest in editing software that will help you produce your film in the best way possible. Sometimes raw film needs to go through post-production for it to show its highest potential. 
8. Find a community of like-minded people. The support they can give can help you go a long way in your work and craft.
9. Don’t focus too much on fame. Focus on producing excellent work. Being famous doesn’t mean you’re the best.
10. Check out Vegas Creative Software for some cutting edge video production.

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ABOUT OWC

If you work in tech and haven’t heard about Other World Computing (OWC),  you may have had your head in the sand. OWC, under the leadership of Larry O’Connor since he was 15 years old, has expanded to all corners of the world and works every day to create hardware that makes the lives of creatives and business-oriented companies faster, more efficient and more stable.  Go to OWCDigital.com for more information.

Here’s the company’s official mission statement:

At OWC, we’re committed to constant innovation, exemplary customer service, and American design. 

For more than 25 Years, OWC has had a simple goal. To create innovative DIY solutions to give you the most from your technology.  

For us, it’s as much about building exceptional relationships, as it is about building exceptional products.

Beginning with 100% compatible memory upgrades, reliably exceeding Apple’s maximum RAM specs, OWC’s product offering has grown to encompass the entire spectrum of upgrade and expansion possibilities, all with a focus on easy, DIY setup and installation. 

Our dedication to excellence and sustainable innovation extends beyond our day-to-day business and into the community. We strive for zero waste, both environmentally and strategically. Our outlook is to the long term, and in everything we do, we look for simplicity in action and sustainability in practice.