Beginner with mp4’s: frustrated!

[Jeremy Rasnic]

Based on your previous thread, it sounds like you need a more powerful processor and more RAM.

To magnify your timeline (zoom in on it) use your scroll wheel of your mouse. Click anywhere on the timeline and then use your scroll wheel to zoom. The further in you zoom the more you can see. Then just use the arrow keys to move one frame at a time.

If you want a simple explanation of pan/crop look in the help file that comes with Vegas. It also has valuable information for just about every feature in Vegas. Simply put though, Pan/Crop will allow you to “pan” a camera across a video or picture and it will also allow you to crop the footage or picture. Unless you want to do either, you don’t need to use it.

The “s” key is how you perform cuts in Vegas.

I hope this helps.

j razz

[Liz Margoshes]

Thank you so much! I have now managed to expand time (!) and split the video in two. Then I deleted the second piece, the piece I didn’t want. However, deleting seems to erase the “content” from the time, but now when I play the video it is still “playing” that time, only it is blank. I trust you know what I mean (?). In other words, if I had a 30-second video, before, seconds 1 through 15 were red and seconds 15 through 30 were blue, now I have 15 seconds of red and the next 15 seconds are black, empty, but still “playing” as if there were something there. How do I “expunge” that time that is now empty and extra? I have used Audacity, the audio program, and the same thing happens. I have to do something along the lines of “trimming” I think, but then I always wind up erasing what I want and keeping what I don’t want. Ugh.

God, I have a feeling this makes no sense. I’m sorry.

THANK YOU for getting me this far!

[Jeremy Rasnic]

If you double click the “event” (that is what clips are called in vegas) it will draw a selection above it (a blue line with two yellow ends). These are expandable by simply clicking and dragging. When you choose render, you can place a checkmark in the box that says something along the lines of “render selection only”.

However, with that said, there is no need to do this if you only have what you want on the timeline. Vegas will not render the blank portion of the timeline. It is smart enough to know when to stop. The selection is mainly used for rendering out a portion of your timeline or to build a dynamic ram preview.

Hope that helps.

j razz

[Terry Esslinger]

If your time line continues to play beyond waht you feel should be the end of the projetc or time tine its possible that you may have something (a piece of video or audio etc) out where you can’t see it. Try this: Have your curser at the beginning of the time line but not playing. Hit the go to the end icon or button (the one with the arrow running into a line to the right). Your curser should go to the end of your clips. If it goes beyond you need to look for something at that point. Expand your time line and see if there is a sliver of an event there. Make sure that you can view all the tracks. It could be on a track that you have hidden.

[Liz Margoshes]

So are you saying that only after I “render” (which I take it means save in another format)(?) can I play this video without the “blankness” at the end?

It seems strange, because I can edit out portions all through the video and easily link them together by dragging them to the left,thereby “covering up” all the other “blanknesses” I’ve created, EXCEPT at the very end of the video, because now there are no more pieces left to drag over it?

It seems strange that, at the end, I”m left with a long piece of blankness that is the length of all the pieces I’ve taken out.

Does this make sense? maybe I’m supposed to be rendering before I save the file? It seems like there should be some easy way to do the equivalent of “justifying” as a text editor does, something like “hey, we’ve just done all this cutting and pasting, can’t you, the powerful editor, neaten it up a little more?”

Maybe that “rippling” function has something to do with this?

thanks,

Making My Way in the Dark here

[Allen Zagel]

Also for someone sitting next to you, I have your ideal solution. There’s 3 sets of DVD tutorials for Vegas that I know of. First one is Class on Demand. But the better of the three and with much more detail (like having someone next to you) is either the set from Gary Kleiner or Vasst’s set. I have Gary’s complete set plus a few single DVD’s from Vasst. Gary’s set is priced right and I like his style of training. Plus it you have a laptop you can set next to you you can follow along with the instructions and do it as they show it.

Gary’s site:
https://www.vegastrainingandtools.com/

Vasst’s Site:
https://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?for=1&entity=16&category=Training+Video&sort=priority

Make sure you get the entire URL. Otherwise just go to
http://www.vasst.com and look for Vegas Training.

Allen

ASX Media Group, Inc.
https://www.asxvideo.com

[Jeremy Rasnic]

If you are thinking along the lines of a word document, think of the extra space the same as the rest of a blank page when you only have type that covers a third of the page. If you double click the event on your timeline and double click the selection (blue bar with yellow ends) then click back on your event, it will only play within the bounds of your selection. You can also click the loop button (next the the play button below your timeline) and it will start back at the beginning when the end is reached.

I hope that helps clarify a bit. The empty space is not rendered unless you have it included in the selection (blue bar with yellow ends). Rendering is what you do once you have your edit how you want. Look it up in the help file. You will render to your output format once your edit on the timeline is how you want it.

j razz

[Liz Margoshes]

hi again,

I did try rendering and it does then just play the “footage.” So: yay.

Here’s my next question: I now choose a place to split the video, and I split it. Then let’s say I would like to delete the second piece completely. I delete it. Fine. NOW here is what I find: If I put my cursor on the end of the piece that remains and “pull” it out, there’s the stuff I deleted! and it plays! Is this “normal”? Then I sometimes try the “post edit ripple” but I can’t really say if it makes the cuts “permanent” or not.

Am I really not permanently deleting the footage?

Also, sometimes when I edit (I’ve been editing the same file over and over again, for practice), I get FRAME — gray space — FRAME — gray space — etc. What is that gray space?

I feel that I have no control over this situation, and have faith that a DVD-type NON-interactive tutorial is not what I need. In my experience, the experts tell you what to do and show you that when THEY do them everything works as predicted. Then we students do these things and voila, something’s screwy! Because (obviouslY) all of these generalized situations have to be personalized to one’s own computer setup, how one has shot the video, etc. etc. (excuse that mini-rant, I’m still frustrated).

I need a teacher. Unfortunately everybody in New York City seems to be walking around with a Mac and Final Cut Pro and that’s what all the schools seem to teach (or Avid).

It’s sort of delightful to be here, where it’s apparently acceptable to admit that one is editing video on a PC!

(end of whine)

[Liz Margoshes]

Sorry,

Going insane.

Most important issue:

after I split, then delete, I have a blank amount of time(let’s say I deleted a portion at the beginning of the video). So now I push Play and it begins with that empty time. If I deleted the first two seconds of video, I now have two seconds of no picture and silence.
How do I get rid of that empty time??

Once again, I have tried to “pull” with my mouse, the video that remains, to the left, so that it begins at the beginning. But what happens is, it RESTORES what I deleted!

So, to sum up: I don’t get it. (and no tutorials I have read or watched or the Vegas manual I have read addresses this question)

(thank you for any insights)

[Mike Kujbida]

Vegas has several ways of eliminating the gaps after trimming a clip.
The easiest way is to grab the event (aka clip) and drag it to the desired position.
The drawback to doing this is that there will now be a gap between this clip and the one next to it.
One way around this is to make sure “Ripple edit” is enabled.
This is a toolbar icon.
The usual recommendation is to only enable it when needed though as you can run into unforseen problems if you forget that it’s still on, especially since, depending on how how far you’re zoomed in, you might not see the entire timeline.
Another way is called “post edit ripple”.
To do this, double-click in the empty space so that it’s highlighted.
Now do a CTRL+Shift+F.
This will eliminate the space and shift the clip to take up the gap.