[Mike Kujbida]

as usual, Edward filled in the gap in my instructions.
I’ve done 3 videos over the past 2 months that were shot in widescreen.
I also added a number of stills to each video and, in all cases, selecting “Match Output Aspect” guaranteed that they came out as they were supposed to.

[Mike Kujbida]

Are your project properties set to widescreen?
Have you right-clicked in the Preview window and selected Simulate Device Aspect Ratio?
Have you used a script or the Pan/Crop tool to match all your images to a widescreen aspect?

[Mike Kujbida]

I have no ideas about a ducker but there’s a PPM meter as part of the Blue Cat’s Freeware Plugins Pack.
Be sure to read and follow the Using DXi plug-ins in Sony Vegas tutorial.

From their site:
This tutorial will teach you how to use any DXi plug-in in Sony Vegas. Sony Vegas does not support MIDI automation, so if your plug-in supports the MIDI Dxi protocol, it is removed from the plug-ins list, and you cannot use it!

[Mike Kujbida]

Where did the video come from (i.e. camcorder, digital camera, DVD, etc.)?

[Mike Kujbida]

It’s now under View – Active Take Information.

[Mike Kujbida]

I just dropped some 16:9 footage into a 4:3 project and it letterboxed automatically.
If this doesn’t do it for you, open the Pan/Crop window on the clip and drag any one of the corners out until you get what you want.

For bettter slo-mo, take a look at Veggie Toolkit.
Time Bandit is one of it’s many features and it’s supposedly better than what comes with Vegas. A trial version is available.

[Mike Kujbida]

Unless you use a batch render script (and I think one comes with Vegas 7), you’ll have to do them separately.
As long as you use the same name for each one (eg. pete.mpg and pete.ac3) and render them to the same folder, DVDA will automatically load the audio file as soon as you load the video file.

[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.

[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.

[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.