Rating: 
Summary: This Eagle Soars!
Review: I've had the privilage of attending two of Douglas Spotted Eagle's seminars, in particular with Vegas. This book carries many of the topics he covered, but with greater detail. One of the great things is the fact he points out issues in hardware that you need to be aware of, for an optimal setup. He also points out preference settings that normally would be missed or never thought of, for new NLE / Vegas users.
All in all you will find lots of great tips and general details on how to use Vegas.
Douglas has always been consistantly generous with his time and knowledge of the NLE and Audio world of software and hardware products by being active on various forums, answering simplest of questions to the noggin buster questions.
I heartily recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: This Eagle Soars!
Review: I've had the privilage of attending two of Douglas Spotted Eagle's seminars, in particular with Vegas. This book carries many of the topics he covered, but with greater detail. One of the great things is the fact he points out issues in hardware that you need to be aware of, for an optimal setup. He also points out preference settings that normally would be missed or never thought of, for new NLE / Vegas users.
All in all you will find lots of great tips and general details on how to use Vegas.
Douglas has always been consistantly generous with his time and knowledge of the NLE and Audio world of software and hardware products by being active on various forums, answering simplest of questions to the noggin buster questions.
I heartily recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have!
Review: If you use Vegas you must have this book. Superbly written, and comprehensive in context: This book has been anticipated by the Vegas community for some time. Douglas Spotted Eagle is to be applauded for the breadth of discussion in this book. There is somehing for everyone---the beginner to the advanced editor. It doesn't get any better!JTH
Rating: 
Summary: Poorly written. Lacks depth
Review: In a short period of time this book has given me the tools I need to know to use Vegas effectively. I recommend this book to any person using this program. Douglas does a good job of balancing the audio and video aspect of creating a project with Vegas. The book is easy to read and I found his examples helpful. Great Book!
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: In a short period of time this book has given me the tools I need to know to use Vegas effectively. I recommend this book to any person using this program. Douglas does a good job of balancing the audio and video aspect of creating a project with Vegas. The book is easy to read and I found his examples helpful. Great Book!
Rating: 
Summary: a newbie's perspective......
Review: Let me start by saying I have only given this 4 stars to date as I have not quite finished but felt the need to give some immediate feedback from my newbie perspective. After finishing an increase to 5* will perhaps be needed.For those who want to cut straight to the chase my closing line in this review is "If you are a newbie, buy it and you won't be a newbie for long." If you are a little more interested I purchased this book with a degree of apprehension. I understand DSE to be a 'guru' of Vegas and was a tad concerned that when imparting his knowledge in this book it may go straight over my head. However as the only book dealing with Vegas I bought it anyway and ploughed straight in. My concerns were unfounded when in the opening chapters he deals with setting up your system and gave details of some invaluable tweaks that have improved performance no end. Also there is great info on simple stuff to many but to a first timer trickier topics such as DV basics, capturing Video, basic transitions etc before he touches on other more involved stuff. Some phrases and techniques often talked about include cookie cutters, compositing,slow motion ripple editing etc. I kind of knew what these were but the book explains then very well in simple easy to understand language. What surprises me most is that whilst as a newbie I am able to follow quite easily the topics , I note several 'experts' also rate the book very highly. Seems to me that DSE has pitched it just right, easy enough to understand for the beginner and enough for the advanced user. That is quite a talent. In summary a great informative read so far, very useful to me and explains things far better than the manual. If you are a newbie, buy it and you won't be a newbie for long.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for Basic to Intermediate and some Tips for Pros
Review: Like everything in the Vegas family (and it is a family) you get something unique that outsiders sometimes just don't get. I met Douglas Spotted Eagle at a convention once and his knowledge of Vegas is nothing short of phenomenal. Over the years, Vegas users have begged him to write a book and finally he has done it. Over the years Douglas has been giving free advice to those who want to know. I did want to know, I did learn, and now I teach Vegas to others at a public access TV station. For clients who are interested in editing I always recommend Douglas' book. It covers the basics from Computer setup and getting started with Vegas 4 - to audio, compositing and color correction for intermediate and advanced users. We are in the information age and Douglas (known as DSE or Spot on the boards) communicates information needed to operate Vegas 4 in a clear and consise manner. Just in case, he hangs out and answers many questions at wwug.com on the Vegas forum. If you are a Vegas user, congratulations you have the best video editing program available today. If you buy this book and have a little determination, congratulations you will have the best editing program and the best instruction. To join the Vegas Family, you only need desire and a little determination. swarrine
--stephen
Rating:
Summary: On the Spot
Review: Nobody has read this book yet, as it has not been released at the time of this writing - but all you have to due is check out the Vegas forum at CreativeCow.net to know that Grammy-winner Douglas Spotted-Eagle (Spot) knows Vegas inside-out. Sonic Foundry's Vegas 4 is very different from Premiere, Edition, Avid and Final Cut Pro. Once you've spent time with it and Spot's tips, tricks and short cuts, you'll never look at another NLE.
Rating:
Summary: Something for everyone
Review: One of the best things about this book is that it is useful for anyone from a complete beginner to extremely advanced editors. Vegas, although easy to use, has an incredible array of features which put it up there with any NLE on the market. Rather than assuming that readers are already some way along the learning curve, DSE covers every aspect, from setting up a computer for DV editing, getting started with the basics of editing with Vegas, through to using the many advanced features, such as Colour Correction and Compositing. Vegas can output to almost any video or audio format there is, and this book includes tips about how to get the best results from each. It's a complete reference work for anyone wanting to start, or finish their productions with this superb software.
Rating:
Summary: You Gotta Get this book if you use Vegas!!!
Review: Spot hits the mark with this book! From start to finish this book is a MUST HAVE/MUST READ if you use Sony's Vegas Video. He starts with simply crawling with Vegas and moves to a full on sprint as the book progresses. As far as the previous post regarding this book ignores the more novice editors or assumes that the reader has previous NLE experience??? How can this even be said? Spot spends the first three chapters on setting up Vegas properly before even getting started using the e program! How much more basic than this can you get? As far as the sound aspects of the book go, have you ever `listened' to a Hollywood film? The sound in a video can be as important (and sometimes more important) than the video signal. Take the sound out of an Alfred Hitchcock film and you'd have a film that was quite boring! Sound is ESSENTIAL to a video. The author UNDERSTANDS this fact and imparts his pearls of sound wisdom in the book. By the way, he's a Grammy Award winner so he KNOWS SOUND! Spot, the undisputed guru of Vegas (this guy as I understand it, works and or has worked directly with the programmers at what was Sonic Foundry - now Sony Vegas). With this kind of access to the core programming, Spot almost literally has his fingers on the pulse of Vegas. He knows his stuff when it comes to Vegas (and other things) and this book downright proves it. I'm SO GLAD that I purchased this book (I waited for what seemed like forever for it); it has definitely helped me move up the editing ladder. This book is a bonified bargain at twice the $34.97 price when you consider that you get a CD with a ton of examples to help you learn Vegas more quickly! This book WILL help you squeeze more creativity from your brain and improve your overall workflow so you will be editing projects more quickly. I knew that Vegas had a deeper set of editing tools; but until I bought this book I never knew that it was as deep as it is. TRW
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