Turn on ripple editing, select it to ripple EVERYTHING, select the dead space, and press delete.

You cannot set individual keys for the individual tools within Excalibur in version 3. This is something that is being looked at for the next version.

1, 2, and 3 ARE used for jumping to markers. For example, to go to marker #3, you would press 3. To go to marker #23, you would press 23 on the top of the keyboard. So, yes, they ARE used. However, if you never used that functionality there's no reason why you can't use them for this. Personally, I used something like CTRL-ALT-1 which WASN'T assigned to something else.

Thanks Ed, won't that connect all the little scattered segments I have on tracks below? I need everything to move 'left' but all at their current position with respects to the main track?

That should move everything to the right of the gap by the exact same amount left. I won't "connect al the little scattered segments" - they'll simply be moved left.

Misfire-like plugins?
 

MB for Vegas doesn't (as far as I can tell) have the misfire plugin. Can anyone recommend any techniques or plugins for similar effects? Free plugins would be great, but any info would be great.

What's a "misfire" plugin?

From Red Giant's Website:
Misfire film damage back

Offers 13 different film characteristics, including popular tool like grain, splotches, and scratches—as well as projection artifacts like flicker and gate weave. Misfire’s use of custom damage resources accurately mimics damage of old film. In addition, to a master plug-in with 14 categories of control, individual plug-ins for all 14 effects are included in the package.

* Includes 14 different plug-ins for adding damage characteristics
* Enables users to quickly build old film looks with simple controls
* Works with both 8 and 16-bit/channel footage
* Supports After Effects, Final Cut Pro, and Premiere Pro.

The main Misfire plug-in offers controls for Fading, Funk, Splotches, Dust, Flicker, Vignette, Displacement, Grain, and 3 different types of scratches, Microscratches, Basic Scratches and Deep Scratches. Each category of effect can be turned off individually using the category switch. All of these effects are also offered as individual plug-ins.

The built-in film effects plugin can do a lot of those effects. There's also other possible tools such as Boris. I don't know exactly what effects it includes in this nature. Not sure if Pixelan offers anything of this nature.

rip video off DVD in Vegas 5
 

Does Vegas 5 have any tools for ripping video and audio off a DVD?

Thanks!

I've found that the built in Film Effects filter in Vegas gives all the damage effects you'll need. I don't even bother with FilmFX anymore within AE as a result.

Nothing specifically "built in". You can take the VOB files and drop then directly on the timeline. This may or may not give you audio as Vegas won't accept AC3 audio. If you don't get audio, you'll need to use some other program (such as besweet) to convert the audio back to WAV.

I like the scratches......thanks for the tip! What about doing vingetting? Any way to replicate light exposure type effects (film door light leak, beginning/end of magazime flashing) from within vegas?

Hmm, it was a no-go.

Any reccomendations for a dedicated program to rip the video and audio from a DVD? My budget is about $50.

water transition
 

Using Vegas 4- Is there any way to produce a wave/water transition? For instance- to go from one clip, one title, one logo to another with a water transition or dissolve. Hope I'm clear.