Re-position video clips in Vegas 7 to be aligned.

[brek]

Hello.

Okay, the problem.

I have multiple video clips captured from a screen recorder.
The problem is that some clips have a few pixels of the window on the left or top etc.

I want to crop these, but when I do, it will scale them up to fit the screen. Obviously this causes some of the clips to appear slightly zoomed in more than others. (the footage I'm capturing is very similar, so any zooming or positional differences are easily spotted)

If I deselect scale to fit screen, the mask then appears to become de-coupled form the video. when you have the scale linked, you can move the video clip's position, when you deselect the scale the video stays put and the mask moves.

All I want to do is be able to move the video clip up and to the left a few pixels so that it is aligned with the other video clips. (due to this particular video having a few pixels added to the left of the capture)


It appears you can do this with the Track Motion, but then you need to have the video clip on a separate video track, which means the crossfades no longer work in the same way. (when both clips are on the same track they crossfade into each other, when you drag one of the videos onto a different track they fade to black or whatever track is running)


Anyone know how to re-position video's? Am I making sense?

Imagine I have video clip 1 on the table, and Imagine Sony Vegas's Rendered output is a camera positioned above the table looking at the video clip.

Video clip 1 is aligned nicely with the rendered output (fit's perfectly) but video clip 2 isn't. I want to nudge it without scaling so it fits within the rendered output.



Sorry if that's a massive confused ramble. I just can't seem to find any info about how to do this, it should be something incredibly easy to do. In Premiere, i'm pretty sure you can just position it and that's it.
In Vegas? no idea.

[guns1inger]

Do you need to crop, or can you just mask with an overlay. That would be the simplest fix, and would avoid potential scaling issues if your source is interlaced.

Otherwise, put all the clips on separate tracks and use Track Motion to align them

[brek]

Hello, thanks for the fast reply.

not sure what you mean by mask with an overlay.
The track/Pan event is masking isn't it? That's what I've been using to effectively crop the image to what I want.

But when it does crop it scales to fit the window, if I uncheck this, then it no longer allows me to position the video clip, the mask becomes de-coupled from the video.

I don't have scaling problems with interlacing.
The problem is that In the capture software I'm using makes you have to drag an area to capture, so each time I capture a new video, it's very hard to ensure you capture exactly the same dimensions and starting at the exact same top left position.

I think I may have to put each clip on a seperate track and use track motion, but that seems to defeat a lot of the cool features of Vegas with it's transitions and dragging to overlap etc.

[guns1inger]

Instead of cropping and rescaling you could use a media generator to put a black bar over the parts you want to hide. This won't affect the original video's scale at all.

However the fault, it appears, has nothing to do with Vegas, but everything to do with the way you are capturing your footage.

[brek]

Yes, the reason the fault is there is mine.

But it appears there is little one can do to correct such faults in Sony Vegas, which seems odd.

The old adage of garbage in garbage out springs to mind, but I thought a video editing package would... you know, allow you to edit video.

I suppose it does, there appears to be a way to fix the problem, but it's not a simple fix. But I suppose it does some things in a faster more intuitive way than Premiere so it all balances out, cosmically speaking.

[guns1inger]

If you captured your footage in a consistent way, Vegas would not have a problem. You cannot blame Vegas for what you have created. No editor will easily fix your problem.