Rather than ask questions, I like to try to provide answers. If the cursor is not moving, then you can use the Delogo plugin inside of VirtualDub. Here is a tutorial I created for removing a small dust spot on the camera lens, but the same method applies to a larger object like a mouse cursor that is captured with the video:



If the cursor is moving, then you'll need to find software that does motion tracking and replacement. I don't know of any free or cheap software that does this, and unlike the removal of a static object, it will require an extraordinary amount of effort. If this is what you face, then you might want to try to re-capture the video without the offending cursor, if that is possible.

That's brilliant John!

Thanks for sharing.

Grazie

I just had an email from an old friend, also asking about removing static objects from video. In answering him, I thought of one other approach that sometimes works. The OP hinted at this technique in his question.

You sometimes can use a cookie cutter -- or the more sophisticated ability in Vegas Pro, using masks -- to let video from a lower track "show through" the mask and replace video on the upper track. The trick is getting the video on the lower track to be something that is less obnoxious to look at than the thing you are trying to remove. Depending on your video, and depending on whether the mouse cursor is in motion, you may find that you can use a combination of moving the video on the lower (replacement) track a few frames in one direction or the other, and also using pan/crop on the lower track replacement event to make the replacement video "line up" with your main video. By doing this, you are actually using video from nearby frames where the object to be replaced doesn't appear in the same position as the current frame.

You'll generally want to use quite a bit of feathering on your mask when doing this.

I've had to do a lot of this lately because I've been transferring and restoring dozens of hours of classic old NFL football games from the 1950s and 1960s. I use extensive restoration software to remove dirt and other artifacts from the old film, but there is one catch: no matter what settings I use, my dirt removal software insists on treating a ball while it is in flight as a very large piece of dirt, and it removes it. Not good. So, I do another complete restoration with all my tricks except for the dirt removal, and put that on the lower track. Because there is no dirt removal, the ball is intact, but of course all the dirt embedded on the film (I do clean the film) reappears. So, to keep most of the frame dirt free, but still keep the ball, I then create a small mask around the ball as it is thrown, and keyframe it in a few spots so that it stays within the mask during flight. The dirt still appears in the immediate vicinity of the ball, but because everything else is exactly the same, you really don't notice the few specks of dirt.

This is the same technique I might try for removing your mouse cursor if it is in motion, and if I didn't have access (which I don't) to motion tracking software.