Eric,
Neither software is ‘better’ as you put it. It all depends on what you want to do and what capabilities you’re looking for.
In a nutshell, Premiere Pro is a really good NLE that isn’t hard to learn or work with. When combined with Photoshop, After Effects and Flash you’ve got one of the most used and powerful set of tools for editing and visual FX. Add Soundbooth and Encore then you get good support for audio and great support for DVD authoring.
With Vegas you get a very strong NLE with very good audio support built-in. Combined with ACID and Sound Forge and you get music and audio editing support that is rivaled only by top of the line software like Pro-Tools and the like. DVD Architect comes with it and it is very easy to use for authoring DVD’s.
I use both in my setup and take advantage of their strengths. Projects that require heavy VFX and Mographics I use the Premiere Suite. For projects heavier on the Audio FX side I use the Vegas Suite. Many times I use Premiere for one portion of a project and Vegas for another portion.
So as I said, it all depends on what you want to do. The important thing up front is either program supports your camera. After that, it all comes down to what capabilities your looking for and how much you want to spend. No NLE software is the ‘end all do all’. If you believe that, I got some swampland in Death Valley you might be interested in buying. Figure out what you want to do and run with that. As time goes on and you get proficient with the program, you’ll learn what best suits your workflow and look for stuff to augment it.
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