SpeedEdit demo software?

[compressor]

Will there be a demo version of the software?
It would be a good marketing move, IMHO.

[Paul Lara]

We agree it helps in marketing to have a demo version, but there are licensing arrangements that must be cleared up before we can do this.

[jfigura]

In other words "we didn't think to figure out how we could registered demo versions".

It's a shame. Alot of folks would like to see the hype but will wind up on the sidelines due to lack of foresight.

[Jim Plant]

Nope...it's not about registration at all. We've known about the 3rd party licensing issues for a long time... It just takes time. We would appreciate your patience.

Jim Plant
President and CEO, NewTek

[Mike Maier]

If it there's a downloadable demo I will sure buy it if I like it, but if no demo is available I'm not taking a shot in the dark, that's for sure.

[Seattle-HotShot]

Thanks, Jim, for taking time to post on this subject.

That is what is so cool about a company like NewTek, you get EVERYONE involved on these lists! I'm always amazed when I read the "credits" on these posts.

Keepin' the Faith :)
Carlin

[DonN]

Go see a demo -
sit down, adjust jaw strap,
and be prepared to be amazed.

[Mike Maier]

Go see a demo -
sit down, adjust jaw strap,
and be prepared to be amazed.

Not everybody lives within driveable distance from a NewTek dealer. An online demo is a must!

[Jim_C]

Thanks, Jim, for taking time to post on this subject.

That is what is so cool about a company like NewTek, you get EVERYONE involved on these lists! I'm always amazed when I read the "credits" on these posts.



Especially when the respond to the inane, rude and ridiculous.

[Seattle-HotShot]

Are there any recent online streaming videos of a demo session that people could go see? The above post, re distance to a dealer is valid, I think. I know I got pretty excited watching the stream from NAB... and I'm a Toaster user!

[DonN]

Especially when the respond to the inane, rude and ridiculous.

I see that the poster, jfigura, has exactly one post to his credit on this list.
Condesending remarks don't cut it here.
Not an auspicious beginning.
Lets hope he has joined the group to learn something and not to bash NewTek.

Jim Plant speaks like a real gentleman. Being respectful here matters.
Thanks Jim.

[wvp]

Are there any recent online streaming videos of a demo session that people could go see? The above post, re distance to a dealer is valid, I think. I know I got pretty excited watching the stream from NAB... and I'm a Toaster user!
Better still, for those that can't get to a dealer...
See if a dealer will demo it for you on-line! SpeedEdit may not be able to, but VT4/5 can live stream. A smart dealer would stream the SpeedEdit desktop to you and you could ask questions via tele while he shows you!!
Next best thing to being there! :)

[Seattle-HotShot]

VT can stream the Output, but we'd need to be able to actually see the desktop / application. Or you could demo on one PC and do a screen capture to a VT? something like iVGA I guess.

[steveg]

better question is why don't we have the real thing since the actual product was suposedly debued last week. Why are we still wanting to see a demo of it?

[Nyle]

I noticed that this particular thread seems to have started on 10-24-2006. I've been a big Newtek supporter coming from my Amiga background and watching the company grow and mature.

I never actual had the opportunity to get into video editing myself until that last 5 years and the home use products are very limiting.(Pinacle Studio, Ulead Video Studio, etc.) Speededit looks phenomenal and I'd really just like a change to try it out before I outlay any money.

I understand that the problem has been a licensing issue with certain 3rd party codecs. Has there been any progress on negotiating a demo with them since 2006?

Thank you. If I was able to demo SpeedEdit, besides using it to edit my wife's Elementary productions and home video, I was hoping to demo it to our graphics departments here at our two main technical centers and try to get them to use it as their primary editor.

[ssdcinc]

Thank you. If I was able to demo SpeedEdit, besides using it to edit my wife's Elementary productions and home video, I was hoping to demo it to our graphics departments here at our two main technical centers and try to get them to use it as their primary editor.

FYI,

one of the dealers (Jim Davis; DVS Direct) is offering a 30 money
back garantee, just buy it from them and dont register it,
you have 15 days trail, and you can return it if you are
unsatisfied with it. He is even thowing in FREE SHIPPING.

You should really take him up on it, he a great dealers and
a standup guy, give him a call if you have any questions.

[Tony R]

Yeah, I bought my first VTNY from Jim and the VT 2.0 upgrade from him too. Gave me a great deal and all went well.

Tony

[SP00]

Any word on a Demo. I don't want to buy and ship it back if I don't like it, too much of a hassle. Can you at least release a stripped down version without all the codecs? I more interested in getting a feel of the work flow.

[Paul Lara]

Any word on a Demo?

Nothing to report yet.

[ted]

Spoo, the workflow is great. Buy it, you'll like it! :thumbsup:

[SP00]

I'm glad to hear that a lot of people are positive about it, but I need to make sure that it is right for me personally. I've brought stuff base on recommendation only to have it sitting on the shelf, so I would like to experience it first hand. I don't understand why a demo is not out. It should be standard practice to release demos onto the market. I'm trying to compare Vegas to SE right now, and a demo is release on the day Vegas Pro 8 is out, but there is no way for me to decide if I want to go SE except for user feedback. The feedback on Vegas Pro 8 has been positive too, so it hard for me to pull the trigger on this.

[rbartlett]

I find that Eugene (Scorpio Productions) has a good perspective on these things. He certainly shows a great depth of dedication to his pre-purchase decision making. Here is my tuppence, fwiw:

I use both Vegas Pro 8 and SpeedEDIT. If I had to drop one of them, it'd currently be SpeedEDIT. If I was buying fresh and to my ideals for what I perceive as my production values and with no vendor upgrade history to bias my decision then I'd buy SpeedEDIT and BobFX's LWConnect (for owners of LW). Simply because it would always give me the opportunity to make a unique piece of work out of a project (assuming I consistently had the time to conjure the creative effort up to that fine a degree - I certainly wish that were always true).

Your tag line says New York, so possibly you are travelling distance from:
http://www.vartotechnologies.com/

?


You would indeed benefit from seeing a demo of SpeedEDIT. A lot of the power of the NLE hits you when you see the sample projects and the GUI being driven. Now Vegas is great for me because I can install it on my home office PC, my laptop, my wife's PC, my older edit PC, my new Core2 Vista PC. All on the single seat license because it is just me, or at least for a couple of years. Then perhaps I'll be editing on one machine and my son may be editing on another. He's only 6yrs old right now though. At which point I'll buy another seat or I'll do my SpeedEDIT segments until he wraps up what he needs to do.

SpeedEDIT isn't as flexible in regard to licensing as Sony Creative Software products. VT[5]'s SpeedEDIT-VT will be better as the VT hardware will be the dongle. (I know, why is a hardware dongle suddenly a good idea. Well, Vegas Pro 8 doesn't need a hardware dongle but has a mature policy AND I can edit via Remote Desktop or VNC - SpeedEDIT only works with VNC). Moving SpeedEDIT requires a call to Texas and presumably a conversation where you explain yourself and give assurances that the previous install has been removed/revoked. I've sold many of my work colleagues on Vegas just from being able to show it outside my home studio.

Now I love SpeedEDIT's CG templates and the flexibility of the control tree throughout. Also I like SpeedEDITs true-to-interlace presentation within a window and via VGA-preview. That saves having to dig out DV or VT derived monitoring - although SE also supports quasi-HDV monitoring if that helps you - which it certainly could in-the-field.

Both NLEs crash out. Vegas seems to whenever I do anything in-depth in the new Mixer. SpeedEDIT does when I use something other than a typical videographer or LW file format. It has also had some bad remarks from folks from the LW oriented workflows due to the 4:2:2 codec bias. Generally speaking SE is an 8bit app with very little notion of capture or preview unless it is VGA, DV, HDV or VT. Yet it adopts some really good approaches to tackling many bread-and-butter editing requirements.

I cannot suggest that you buy both. That won't suit everyone at all. Some have said that the solution for those in a quandary over SE vs Vegas should perhaps be taking a look at Final Cut (Studio), perhaps on an iMac or Mac Pro. Both can run the app, despite the clauses. A Core2 CPU is an imperative (not a Core Solo or PPC).

A lot comes down to what you intend to do with an NLE and also how tolerant you are towards learning curves, quality and obstacles like workflow hoop-jumps. Part of the learning curve with SpeedEDIT is in the way it doesn't look like a standard Windows app. Part of the nuisance of Vegas is that it excels with some of the furniture and mannerisms of a Windows app.

I'm confused by the licensing requirements of law abiding companies. WMP doesn't support MPEG-2 and DVD-Video as shipped. VLC does both and is free to download and there is no sign of DVD-Forum members or MPEG-LA trying to sue them into submission. A good many graphics cards have paid their way with MPEG-LA with their hardware support for decoding various MPEG formats. Vegas Pro 8 is available as a trial for 30days. So does Sony just risk this on a whim or has their been an agreement based on the take-up-ratio. ie Sony saying "Hey MPEG-LA, if we offer a fully featured downloadable demo, I think we'll get 500 new registrations per month. OK, 400 will be renewals so they won't add to your coffers, but would $500 per month in MPEG licensing fees be enough to let us off the hook?". I'd imagine Thomson's EDIUS is (now) smaller fry than Vegas but they offer full feature demos too.

One option for NewTek would be to offer a demo as a download and ask the tester for a deposit (via paypal or CC) that could be redeemed with NewTek or any dealer if it was later purchased. They could turn a small profit on this to service the administration requirements. In this they'd also pay the licensor. We needn't know the actual figure or try to assume the value breakdown of the entire product.

The other approach is to contact your local dealer and see if it is possible to purchase the software and that IF you do not register it, that after the trial period (that is supported by the software itself in its standard form) you get yourself refunded.

Don't forget to mention how you think you'd use SpeedEDIT. Then it will be easire to say whether it is a must-have or a time-waste. Although neither description actually fits IMHO. I'm pleased with my single seat.

[KiloWatkins]

Richard, thanks for your thoughts. The only thing I can say to it is, I HAVE NOT LOCKED UP OR CRASHED SPEEDEDIT, for a VERY long time, even with LWconnect.

Where is your SE cache and temp directories? I know this would be different on a singel drive laptop.

TakeCare

AMD64FX 2gigRam 250megPCIe.... a demo witout saveAs would be cool

[Titus]

AMD64FX 2gigRam 250megPCIe.... a demo witout saveAs would be cool

And a demo WITH saveAs would be a little better :thumbsup: .

[rbartlett]

Don't get me wrong Kilo. I find SpeedEDIT stable. Not absolutely all the time, but nearly always where I stick to popular acquisition formats that a videographer would generally turn to. A dealer demo is the closest thing to what this thread is about, at this moment in time.

[SP00]

Thanks Rob for your time and information on Vegas vs. Speededit, but at this time, I'll stick with Vegas until a demo of Speededit is release. Thanks.