clip length

[Mike Kujbida]

i should explain that Velocity is my Editor…

That explains everything 🙂
I thought I recognized your name.
I used to edit exclusively on Velocity (we have 2 at the college I work at) but hardly use it anymore.
Once I got used to the way Vegas operates, I haven’t looked back.
I do miss the realtime feature of Velocity but that’s about it.
The audio features of Vegas run circles around anything velocity has to offer, even now.
The “Ken Burns” effect has been available in Vegas for a long time but Velocity forces you into DFX or AE.
There was a thread on the dpsVelocity users group the other day about multicam editing and, when I read about some of the problems users were having, I had to laugh. Once again, Vegas can do this reasonably easy without a plug-in but, if you add Excalibur, it becomes a walk in the park.

Edward Troxel’s newsletters may be of some assistance to you as you get used to Vegas.
The Sony site has some excerpts from their Seminar Series training DVD. It’s for Vegas 5 but most of it is still applicable.
Finally, you have a great user base here who is always willing to help out in times of frustration.

[Mike Kujbida]

John, two more things to add (in case you haven’t run across them yet).
You use the S key (Split) to cut clips as Vegas doesn’t have a razor blade like Velocity does.
Unlike Velocity, titles go on track 1 (the uppermost). That one threw me completely the first time I used Vegas.

[John Culleton]

thx Mike, have to say i’m enjoying Vegas, i’m cutting looong shows, 2hrs plus and no real problems so far, audio is particularly sweet!!!

oh yeh! what’s the ‘Ken Burns’ effect then?

[Mike Kujbida]

From Wikipedia:

The Ken Burns Effect, made famous by American documentarian Ken Burns, refers to a technique of embedding still photographs in motion pictures, displayed with slow zooming and panning effects, and fading transitions between them.

I just call it zooming and panning of still images 🙂

Glad to hear that you’re liking Vegas. I recently got a new quad core computer for home use and Vegas FLIES with it, especially on renders.