If there’s one thing that’s good for the film and video landscape economy, it’s more competition. While we have plenty of camera brands in a continuous arms race for better, smarter, and cheaper digital video cameras, to many the video editing space has been focused on three major legacy brands: Adobe’s Premiere Pro, Apple’s Final Cut Pro, and Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve.

Yet, there are still other contenders which—while often overlooked—shouldn’t be completely ignored.

VEGAS Creative Software has announced a new integration partnership with BorixFX Mocha into its video editing and compositing software suite which is set to provide new editing, compositing, and tracking effects into VEGAS Pro 21.

Here’s everything we know and what you might want to consider about this NLE offering.


VEGAS Pro 21

With a focus on content creators, VEGAS Pro is designed to be a creative powerhouse for any or all video editing needs with its all-in-one timeline and acute asset-management interface. With its first version being released all the way back in 1999, VEGAS Pro certainly has a long enough track record to rival its more popular competition these days.

However, with its complicated past. After being purchased by Sony in 2003 and then bounced to MAGIX in 2016, the brand has undergone several changes and a bit of inconsistency which has left it out of the mainstream NLE conversation.

Is this new partnership and integration enough to bring it back to mainstream relevance though? Let’s explore what’s new.

BorisFX Mocha VEGAS Apps

VEGAS Pro with BorisFX

VEGAS Pro with BorisFX

Credit: VEGAS

With a partnership specifically tailored around supporting VEGAS Pro 21 with a new custom interface that allows for instant access to BorixFX’s planar tracking technology, there should be plenty of new features and plugins available to any current (or interested) VEGAS Pro users.

Along with this new tracking app, BorisFX will bring a Smart Masking plugin to help analyze user’s video frames and utilize new AI tech to identify and track individual objects as a way for users to make use of the Bezier Masking plugin as well for more advanced compositing needs.

There will also be new features like cloud-based text-to-speech options as well as an AI-powered Z-Depth plugin for separating foreground and background layers, which can then be used to place text in the foreground or background with refined bokeh and color correction.

There are also tons of other large and small features and updates which BorisFX plans to integrate across the VEGAS Pro app and overall suite, with undoubtedly more to come.

How Much Will This Boost VEGAS Pro Though?

That’s the real question here though, to be honest. Part of that answer might still come down to the pricing along with how it compares to its biggest NLE competitors. The VEGAS Pro 21 Creative Software Suite itself is available now for $34.99 a month (or $191 annually), which isn’t much cheaper than Adobe’s Creative Cloud offering.

However, you can also buy a perpetual license for $299, with an upgrade version available for $199. The VEGAS Creative Software Suite also includes a ton of other tools and features including Sound Forge Audio Studio, Acid Music Studio, Mocha VEGAS, BorisFX Primatte Studio, 50GB of cloud storage for subscribers, this Cloud-based Text to speech tool, and even 20 royalty-free HD video clips from VEGAS Content.

A VEGAS Pro Edit option is also available for $19.99 a month (or $143.88 annually) alongside a VEGAS Pro Post option for $44.99 a month ($300 annually) as well. Solid price points for sure, but mainstream video editing audiences might have to take some time to warm up to what might ultimately be an underdog in the NLE space.

However, as mentioned at the start, any competition is good competition, and it should help keep the video editing economy in a good space with plenty of options to consider.