Sony vegas issues?

[islandstyle]

So this is my first post.

I have just done a bit of a search through the relevant forums that i could find in relation to the issues i have been coming accross. However, even though my questions are quite basic i am struggling to find the exact answers i need... sorry in advance if i am asking questions that have already been dealt with.. im struggling with some of the techy jargon... anyway.. enough ramble..

I am making a few short films for a non-profit organisation called surfaid... i'm new to the art of video production.

my questions involve the use of my sony HC9 camcorder and the editing phase through Sony Vegas movie studio 9. I am importing in HDV. In the same project I am also incorporating AVI files taken from my helmet cam if this makes a difference?

1) How do I speed up my clips without strange jumpiness occurring?

when i try to shorten the clip without distortion of time (by holding control and dragging th clip shorter) a jerky motion occurs. It also limits the amount i can shorten the clip (for instance I took 10 mins of the full moon accross the sky, and wanted to compress that into a few seconds long). Is this even possible? I dont think my camera does time lapses....?

2) does anyone know how to do a time lapse with sony hc9?

3) I am losing video quality when trying to adjust the colour, brighness, contrast etc - again I am coming accross this strange jumping within the clip....?

thanking you in advance for any feedback at all.

Best. M

[guns1inger]

Holding the Ctrl key while dragging the end marker does affect the speed of playback, which is why you have the limitations of how far you can go. Drag with out holding down keys to change the length of the clip, or even better, find the frame you want to cut on, and hit the S key to split the clip at that point.

Vegas Pro uses an effect called a Velocity Envelope to adjust the speed (faster or slower) without ill effect. I don't believe the consumer version has an equivalent option.

When you talk about jumpiness, is this in a finished, rendered video, or just in the preview window ? Your PC is not really up to real-time preview of HD material once you start applying effects. Drop the preview quality back for smoother playback.

If you are losing quality when you render then your output settings are wrong. Simple as that.