Thank you, Edward. It's working now. I appreciate it.

Kinda makes sense, I'll look into using 'mask', it'll be nice to have a clear understanding someday as to the differences between the 16:9 crop function and a mask...

As an aside, if I only choose the 'match output aspect' for each individual clip, (not adding a 16:9 crop), then the images do match up on output, however, it seems to come at a cost of potentially losing some of the image that is already letterboxed, but, at least everything renders and plays back dimensionally identical!

Shawn, you can easily create a mask by capturing one frame from the letterboxed video.

And then replace the video with the transparent color/alpha channel in Photoshop.

It will be a perfect match.

Photoshop? yikes, there has to be an easier way within Vegas. Indeed, I _could_ do that, but I'd really like to believe that creating a mask in Photoshop would be reinventing the wheel to some degree... no?

Grouping Audio and Video Tracks?
 

I deleted my original audio track with a video I recorded and placed the one I recorded with my IRiver instead on the timeline. The problem is, I can't get them to stay grouped together...if I [S]plit a scene, the audio splits, but not the video, or vice versa. And when I drag the video track, the audio does not follow, or vice versa.

I don't have the 'ignore event grouping' button pushed so I can't seem to figure out what the problem is. I'm tired of the audio and video coming out of sync with every single edit I do. Can someone offer a solution? I'm sure its got to be something simple.

Thanks!

In first - two different fragments (events) are two different fragments
In second - specify you Vegas
In third - to groupping 2 differen events - select audio and video files on timeline (Ctrl + left click on first and second event) after this right click - > Group - > Create new (or simply press G)

PS Sorry for my english

Thanks Newdjeen,

Worked like a charm on individual clips. I just wish there was a way to do it for two entire tracks.

I've never tried to group an entire track or group two tracks together, but if you select all the events on one or both tracks and press G to group them all together, maybe it does it -- I'm not sure.

As for splitting one event and not another, if you hit S when you have one or more events selected, it splits only those events that are selected. You do this, for example, to split the main audio and video, but leave a music track intact. On the other hand, if you have no events actively selected, it splits every event the cursor touches. It sounds like you want to do the latter. Click in an empty space below all tracks to deselect, then move the cursor where you want and hit S.

Yes, if you select a BUNCH of events and press "G", they will ALL be grouped

Splitting usually also splits everything else in the same group as well as the selected event. You can override that too, though, by turning on "Ignore Event Grouping". I would make sure to turn it back off, though.

Guys... I still need help here...
 

I can't get my computer to capture video...

It starts... but then will randomly just drop a frame and stop.

I am using vegas5-- comp stats: dual xeon 3.2mhz, 2gig ram, 750gig storage (RAID 5) and a PCI Xpress 256meg for video.

I have tried removing the 1394 in system device manager and letting it re-find it... no luck... it still drops

I have tried each of the 1394 ports.. (there are 2)--no luck

I have tried 2 different 1394 cables... no luck


HELP!
ANY IDEAS????

What motherboard? There is a huge prob with a couple of the Xeon MBs....



ash =o)

Not sure... this is a DELL Precision Workstation 670...

It captured absolutely fine when I had the system setup as RAID 0

but I have no moved to a RAID 5 because I had a system crash and had no redundancy.

I would start by trying the disc on as much computer / standalone DVD players
as I can. See if they all have the problem or not. If they do, try burning the
exact same project to another BRAND of DVD and repeat the steps above.

If the problem still persists through all that then there must be some problem
with the project or the source files.

Vegas can edit your MPEG files natively, no need to convert. Except perhaps
the audio, since it cannot edit AC-3 audio (mostly used on DVD's).

It is generally not a good idea to use such a highly compressed inter frame
compression algorithm for editing. So if you still have the original AVI sources
then use that.

Otherwise simply load the MPEG and output as WMV. Make SURE you use the
same framerate and progressive/interlaced setting. The movie should not
stutter (unless you go to 15 fps for example). Resolution / quality loss will
be a thing you'll have to live with though.

Also see my letterbox page:

www.visuar.com/letterbox/calc.htm