Pete, you’ve asked a lot of questions. You’ve asked good questions. My initial thoughts were to ignore your request – honest! But I couldn’t do it . . . that’s me.

My advice is threefold:

1 – Ask separate, discreet questions. One at a time. Hey, I recognise your enthusiasm – this is good. Getting what you want from this forum by asking many questions “at once” might not cut it for you here. I can imagine those that would help would just throw their hands up in the air and move on – yeah? Set yourself one item to nail a day. Then move on. You’re now part of a massive pro NLE product. Give yourself a break! You won’t learn it all in one go – certainly not in on post here. I’ve posted many, many posts here – and I still get it wrong, less now, but I still have learning blocks.

2 – If you haven’t downloaded the V4 manual and printed it off – then do it! I did. Apart from upgrading to V4, downloading the manual was the next best thing I did.

3 – Recognise that on this forum there are many, many willing hands. Individuals who have forgotten more about video editing than I will ever know. And there will be others who are just beginning. Think about this for a bit . .. .

Okay, here goes . . . . . [ this is my 3rd attempt to have a go at your question set . . AND I’m doing it in MSWord too! ]

1 – V4 doesn’t have a graphics package to create or manipulate graphic media - mostly. You can do some very very basic manipulation. But you’re asking about using an existing piece of media? A picture? Will the picture allow for the video to go around it? Within it? To be transparent? To create a “mask”? – Lots of options for confusing me here . . you need to be a bit more specific.

2 – Yeah of course I’m sure someone will post somewhere a layout for you to get a view to how some people do things. BUT – here is my advice - BE MESSY!! Ah go on . . . it’s the way we all learn. Sometimes this stuff can get awfully retentive. Find an approach that “fits” for you. I’m beginning to realise that I have a different approach for each project. But I’m also finding that some projects tend to fall into several project layouts, which I return to. Yes, go to the tutorials and “see” what others do. Have you downloaded the sample V4 sample projects file? You’ll get some neat ideas from that. However, just keep experimenting. V4 can take it – honest!!

3 – Auto Ripple and Shuffle edit – download the manual - ‘nuf said here?

4 – As 3

5 – Oh yes! What have you seen so far?

6 – This is an excellent question. It has been much discussed on this Forum. Here’s my simple approach:

a) – Ensure you have Auto Ripple ON - you will have learnt this by now [ see above ]
b) – Stick one piece of video on the timeline on track 1.
c) – Now, using the mouse cursor place it on an “open” area of the edit plane – i.e. the grey area, no media. Left click mouse button. This will place the T/L cursor near to the Start point of your edit. Not in the correct position? Use the Left Right keys to get Frame Correct Start position.
d) - 2 methods for removal here:
a. Keyboard - Hold down the Shift key and use the Right key to increase the area to be removed
b. Mouse Cursor – Hold down the Right mouse button and move it to the Right to increase the area to be removed
e) - Go to the Cut icon – scissors – click this and the portion you’ve selected will go away AND the remaining media to the right will move Left to take up the gap.
f) - Now, multi-track work. Copy a piece of footage to track 2
g) Again, select as per 6d)
h) Edit cut or Scissors. This will remove the selection from both tracks.
i) Again, select as per 6d) – BUT this time, click on Auto Ripple and click on the drop down menu bar of this icon [ very tiny down arrow next to the icon ] and select the “Affected Tracks” option – this will allow only editing/cutting to the track we are going to next edit.
j) Place the mouse cursor over the selected portion on Track 2
k) Right mouse click - menu appears – select scissors from menu – voila! Just the section you selected from THAT track will be gone

Now, I don’t know if you knew all this already, I don’t know if it helps you at all. But it will give others a point from which to start jumping in.

I’ve now spent 2.5 hours getting my head round this – time to have a rest . . .

Best regards – it will get easier – promise!

Grazie

Some of my best friends are Newish

Another way to approach the issue is to purchase a good tutorial. I have the Douglas Spotted Eagle 4.0 workshop. I have also read good things about the Gary Kleiner release.

I have found that Douglas walks a new user through important steps in a way that you can easily understand. It helped set up the computer as well as learn techniques.

Much easier than fishing around for the right tutorial on a hit or miss basis.

Thanks SO much for taking the time to help me, i really appreciate it. I will most certainly print the manual, i will ask the printers at work to bind it for me. :)

In regards to the generated media, i was specifically reffering to creatin something akin to the black oval, but where the black is i was going to use some 'cheesy' faded floral arrangement for surrounding the begginning of a coupla wedding video i have to do, i just thought it woul easier in this instance, and for the future to be able to create this in which ever gfx program and then 'import' into the generated media tab - is this possible in general?

I have been experimenting, i was just thinking that i would be able to work more easily, or even gain something, and maybe learn some of the features etc, from working with the timeline a bit better - because i currently have only a 17in monitor and no other preview screen setup, efficiency is important. I resolved to buying a preview device in the near future.

For tutorials i have found the following and one or two others i foolishly didnt bookmark :(
http://www.creativecow.net/tutorials.html
http://www.videoguys.com/Vegas_Tips

Tip 6 is just awesome, this is exactly what i wanted to know, this had me a little stuck.

Like any new software, its getting you know your way around the UI, especially when i am not much of a developer, editor, publisher type person to begin with, i have a sys admin background, but i want to learn everything i can about vegas in the hope i will get good enough to make a dollar editing home/semi pro/minidv - i have been asked to fix up a few corp videos and a few wedding videos, shot by 'uncle john'.

kind regards and thanks for you assistance, VERY valuable.

A better link for http://www.videoguys.com/Vegas_Tips would be:

http://www.jetdv.com/tts

Videoguys are hosting the newsletters for me so my site links straight to those files. However, my site includes descriptions as to what is in each issue and is updated when new issues are released. You can also subscribe to it at my site so you will receive an e-mail when new issues are released.