ok, ive written afew responses to posts asking for the same thing, but what u want is a lil app called XNote Stopwatch

this and Camtasia (demo) is all u need..

Xnote allows u to adjust size and more importantly colour. U then allocate decent chromakey colours (ie red and green) or wahtever, and record the countdown with camtasia

THEN wack that into vegas, runa chromakey filter and voila, instant PROPER countdown overlay which can be messed with like any other piece of video

i DO this with Vox Pops every bloody week and i cant fault this workflow

Thanks for the suggestions. I was hoping for something that didn't involve a "pay for" product. Try before you buy is fine but I don't want to have to find another solution in 30 days time.
Mirage looks very complicated (and powerful). I'll certainly download & play. XNote Stopwatch is a nice simple solution and I'd happily buy it (I don't mind a small outlay) but then I still need Camtasia (see caveat about)

Other suggestions still welcomed.

go 4 minutes in to the project & place your edit line. then right click on the time bar above the time line & select "set time at marker" to 0. Then everything before it will count down to zero.

"Then everything before it will count down to zero"
Interesting, I never knew you could do that. Sadly, although it affects the time on the ruler (for want of a better word), it doesn't affect anything else as far as I can see - for example dropping a Sony Timecode effect on the clip still counts upwards.

Tim, see if this works for you.
Lay down 4 min. of black on the timeline.
Apply the timecode FX to it.
Go into the TC FX properties, make the text as large as possible and centre it on the screen.
Render this out as an AVI in <B>Best</B> mode.
Start a new project and import this clip.
Use Pan/Crop to make the numbers fill the screen (this is why I suggested rendering in Best mode).
Apply a velocity envelope to reverse the clip and render it again.
You won't have control over the font or colour but you can key out the black background out very easily.
HTH.

Mike

Tim, a couple of simple methods to create a few ideas; this not complete, just food for though;
1) using PH CS or elements or Corel, create a PNG file with alpha channel where every is blank, no data.
2.) drop png file on track, stretch file to desired time,
3). go back to PH CS or your photo editor, chose desired font, now create ten png files, one for each number 0 - 9 ---- suggest to make the png image larger that video project by 2x. Now create your time spacers.
4). now you have 13 PNG files that will let your create any timeline display. Now create a new track for each digit field ---- 5 new tracks. name then minute, tens,seconds---
5). using vegas timeline as a reference, drop the number 4 on the minute track, stretch png from 4 to 3 minute, duplicate for remaining minutes.
6) for the tens track, starting with the 6 PNG, stretch that for a 10 ten period, duplicate for 5 thru 1. Add any effects to these pngs now. For a short cut, you can render to a newtrack(with alpha) this one tens countdown for a minute. Now use the rendered avi on the tens track and stretch it for the remaining timeline.
7) for the one second time slot, start with 0 and stretch for 1 timeline second, then 9--- to 1. render to a new track. repeat stretching avi the desires length.

whats nice about vegas, is that you can stretch, rotate-slide, slow or speed up an avi event with ease. Now you can make adjustments or add effects on the AVIs as needed.