[Matt Crowley]

Vegas always assumes that you want the input media resized to fit the project frame size, so 640×480 dropped into a 1920×1080 project gets scaled up to 853×480 for example.

You can shrink the 640×480 media back to original pixel size using Track Motion. Change the Height parameter to 480 (or whatever your media height is) and the width will reduce proportionally. You can then move the small video around in the output frame to suit.

Put each of your small media files on separate tracks and repeat the Track Motion for each to create your “video wall” style effect.

Argh, Jim beat me to it, and with screenshots… 😉

Yes, this works in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum (probably also the basic Movie Studio). I’m using VMS-Platinum 10.

[Matt Crowley]

If you haven’t already tried it, then render your project using the Sony AVC format and the “Internet 720p” presets (25p if that’s definitely the source frame rate). That should give an MP4 file with pretty good quality for 720p or HD source.

The general opinion here seems to be to avoid WMV unless you specifically need to use that format.

[Matt Crowley]

It looks like you’ve got velocity envelopes or time stretch/compress on a lot of events/clips in that video. Do you have a slight time stretch/compress on that clip at 1:16?

If yes, and it’s only a small change of speed, then you might just be seeing the jerkiness that results from dropped/added frames. There’s not a lot you can do about it in Vegas, but if you disabled resample on that event, try enabling resampling – that allows Vegas to blend frames to produce intermediate “fill-in” frames instead of just dropping/adding full frames. It might give you a blur or smear kind of look, though.

For ultra-smooth speed changes, you need to consider something like Twixtor which synthesises intermetiate frames using motion tracking and all sorts of image processing that Vegas can’t provide natively.

[Matt Crowley]

If you have a video event on the timeline that uses only part of the video clip/file, then all you have to do is drag the edge (left or right edge) of the event to trim off or reveal more of the footage.

If you try to extend the event beyond the length of the video file, Vegas will either repeat (loop) from the beginning, or freeze the last frame if you disable looping (right-click event, then select Switches>Loop).

[Matt Crowley]

Do you want to remove a transition completely, or edit the transition, or change the transition type?

You can remove a transition completely by dragging the event edge until there is no overlap. As soon as there is any overlap, you automatically have a transition.

You can change a transition by right-clicking on the transition and selecting “Transition >” to change the type, or “Transition Properties” to adjust settings on an existing transition.

You can also change the transition to one of the presets by dragging that preset from the Transitions browser/preview window to the timeline.

[Matt Crowley]

Unless you particularly need the portability of a laptop, you’re best to stick with desktop machines for video work as they are generally more powerful for a given price.

I don’t know what’s hot or not at the moment in terms of PC specs and components, but plenty of others here have bought or built systems for video editing and can give advice.

[Matt Crowley]

Disc space and system memory aren’t the problem (though lots of both is good), it’s sheer bone-crunching processor power that you need.

I have a similarly spec’ed laptop and it really doesn’t cut it for HD editing, which is much more demanding than standard def editing. Desktop quad-core machines are about the minimum you need for smooth HD editing.

There’s not much you can do to make editing smoother apart from using a different video format. You can try converting your AVCHD footage to the Cineform (separate purchase) or HDV formats, or if you’re going to DVD then try converting to an SD format like DV.

[Matt Crowley]

K-Lite and similar codec packs are known or suspected to cause problems for software like Vegas – there’s a chance you’ll overwrite or corrupt settings for one or more of the Vegas-supplied good-quality codecs or the normal Windows ones that Vegas might expect to see. The general advice is only install a codec if you have a specific problem with that video format or you need to add support for it.

You may need to reinstall/repair Vegas after removing the codec pack to get things back the way they were originally.

[Matt Crowley]

You either need to change the pan/crop aspect ratio to match the project (Right-click on the pan/crop window and select “Match Output Aspect) or use track motion to move/scale the picture.

[Matt Crowley]

Haali must have been installed by you or as part of another application or codec pack – FFDShow, Media Player Classic and other software might use Haali, but as far as I know it’s a separate install.

Vegas shouldn’t need it for MP4 files, but it will probably get ised if it’s available.

Can you try uninstalling Haali? You should see it on your Start menu or in Programs in Control Panel.

Incidentally, I have Movie Studio 10 and Haali installed on an XP machine and have seen Haali being used for some videos in Vegas but with no apparent problems.