Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 4/6/2011, 12:58 PM
Television sets all have "overscan," which crops a small percentage off the picture.
Software players do not overscan, so everything that is in the frame shows.
All analog video tapes have some dead area at the bottom, more or less depending on player tracking and tape condition.
It is common practice to crop this out dead areas during editing, especially if they will be played on a computer. Use a little Track Motion to accomplish this in Vegas.
Mike222 wrote on 4/22/2011, 1:47 AM
Thanks for the clarification. I guess "Video Event Pan/Crop" can be used just as well?
Mike222 wrote on 4/22/2011, 2:12 AM
I want to crop the picture to get rid of the overscan by using either track motion or the crop function. I've tried doing this by marking an entire event and then adjusting the crop or track motion function. But everytime I mark an entire event the cursor resets to the beginning which is not a good place to define the size of the cropping. And if I place the cursor in a suitable place somewhere in the middle of the event, then the entire event is not marked anymore and so the cropping will only be defined for that particular place in the event, and not the entire event as I want. And if I delete the keyframe that is created, I also delete the cropping. Anyone knows how to do this?
Chienworks wrote on 4/22/2011, 4:22 AM
Turn off the sync to cursor option in Pan/Crop or Track Motion. This is the icon on the left of that little window's mini timeline that looks like an I-bar and a padlock. With this off you can place the cursor anywhere in the event but still be affecting the whole event from the beginning. With it on, positioning the cursor creates a new keyframe wherever you currently are.

Alternatively you can leave it on, do your thing wherever is easiest, then delete the initial keyframe at the beginning of the event. The newly created keyframe will now become the first keyframe and will affect the entire event no matter where it is.
Mike222 wrote on 4/22/2011, 4:33 AM
Thank you for taking the time, it will surely simplfy my work. I still wonder whether the pan/crop function and the track motion are interchangable?
Steve Grisetti wrote on 4/22/2011, 5:45 AM
Well, one pans and crops an individual event while the other pans and crops over the entire video track, which is pretty significantly different.

But, yes, the basic function is the same.
Mike222 wrote on 4/22/2011, 6:47 AM
Thanks for all the help!
Chienworks wrote on 4/22/2011, 9:37 AM
There is one really big difference between the two. Pan/Crop retains the original source resolution right up to the final step of placing the finished size image back into the output. Track Motion resizes the original image to the project resolution first, THEN resizes to whatever you pick. This means that not only does Track Motion potentionally resize twice, but if you use it to zoom in then you'll lose a lot of resolution.

For example, let's say you put a 4000x3000 pixel photograph into a 1280x720 project, intending to zoom in on the center third of it. With Pan/Crop you'll effectively be resizing a 1333x750 section to fit in the 1280x720 frame. Not too bad, still working at full resolution. With track motion the 4000x3000 image is reduced to 960x720 first, then the center 320x180 section is blown up to 1280x720, which means that you end up with only 1/4 the resolution of the original image.

The names of the functions are pretty good clues to how they should be used. Pan/Crop should be used for cropping and Track Motion should be used for moving the track around.

Personally i almost never find any use for Track Motion. I normally accomplish almost anything i need to do with Pan/Crop only.