I don't know what you mean by 'ghosting'. The term is usually only relevant to video that has been broadcast and two signal arrive at the receiver at slightly different times.
What you will see are interlace artifacts. The video stream comprises two fields, each of half the lines, one after the other. Because the preview monitor only works in progressive scan the two fields are combined and you see combing on the vertical edges of moving objects. When the video is displayed on a TV or external monitor fields are displayed in sequence not combined.

Anyway, to capture a still, first make certain the preview monitor is set to high resolution. Save As .png and then open in Photoshop and apply the De-Interlace filter and the artifacts are gone. I think there's a way to achieve the same result from within Vegas, check the manual / On Line Help.

The biggest problem though is the resolution is going to be very, very poor. Several reasons:
1) Limited resolution of video to start with (720x576 or 720x480)
2) You then threw half the lines away during de-interlacing
3) Slow shutter means fast motion gets blurred.

There is a reason why camcorder with optical image stabilization it is more expensive that with digital image stabilization.Due the nature of digital signal processing the analog signal will be processed faster that digital.Unfortunatelly, most consumer camcorder come with digital signal stabilization what makes a fast moving object blurred(ghost).
There is not much you can do unless you are willing to go frame by frame preview and cut off the very bad frames.Try render it as avi and see what happen.
have a fun

Ghosting, I mean double images of the players, offset from each other about one half a body width.
The best action stills seem to do this ghosting, and it is those that I want to snapshot. Thanks, John.

In that case it's probably due to the slow shutter speed of the camera. If possible try using a faster shutter speed will help if there's enough light.

If that's not it then, as I said before it's most likely due to the interlacing, in that case you'll need to de-interlace the image.

Thanks again for your reply. I pulled out the manual and am jacking up the shutter speed. It was set at 60 and the range goes up to 10,000. Any ideas what to set it too. I'll try 180, and hope for the best. I am shooting outdoor outdoor fields and stadiums, so lighting properly is out of my control. Thanks again. John

Just learned lower numbers are faster shutter speeds. higher are slower and gives more smear, not sharper. Thanks John.

What you are seeing is the effect of interlacing and it is perfectly normal.

There are two components to video resolution, the first is "spatial resolution" which refers to the number of pixels in the image, in the case of NTSC video, this would be 720x480 pixels per frame. The other component is "temporal resolution" which is how many individual images are captured per second. The higher the temporal resolution, the smoother the motion. Video uses 29.97 frames per second, but each frame consists of two fields which gives you an effective temporal resolution of 59.94 individual "snapshots" of the action per second. In the first field, it captures the action at that moment in time and writes the data using all the even horizontal lines (ie. lines 2,4,6,8,10...). 1/60th of a second later, it captures another image and interleaves this image on the odd lines (ie. 1,3,5,7,9...) Therefore, a single frame of video consists to two individual shapshots taken 1/60th of a second apart. A single frame of video consists of two images of 720x240 spatial resolution. The compromise of higher temporal resolution is at the expense of 1/2 the vertical spatial resolution. Of course, when you play the video on a TV, the TV paints the first field followed by the second field 1/60th of a second later and everything is fine. On a computer monitor though, it displays a full frame which means that it shows both fields simultaneously which accounts for why you see the "ghosting" on the still images in your fast action video. Just capture your interlaced still frame in Vegas and then load it into an image editing program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro and apply the "deinterlace" filter. This will separate the individual fields and eliminate the "ghosting" effect.

John

(I really don't get the sudden fascination with 24p video, you get twice the vertical spatial resolution at the expense of less than half the temporal resolution. Horizontal pans and fast action are jerky and have a strobe effect. it just doesn't make sense. Now, 60p, that makes sense, but this is all the subject of another post.)

If you look at your video on an external TV monitor, and if you advance fast-moving video one frame at a time, then you will definitely see ghosting. As already described, this is due to interlacing. It is totally normal, and your video should look absolutely normal if you just go ahead and edit, print to tape, and then view that tape on a normal TV monitor.

So the step I was missing is the deinterlace filter in Photoshop. Thanks for all of your help. John

"Just learned lower numbers are faster shutter speeds. higher are slower and gives more smear, not sharper."

??? Just like in photography, the higher the number, the faster the shutter speed. 1/1000 is much faster than 1/30.

By way of example, I shot some footage at the Detroit Gran Prix a few years ago. One spot was in a tight corner where the cars were down to around 40 mph. At standard shutter speed, everything was a blur. I cranked it up to 1/2000 and I could count the tire treads :-)
The trade off is that you will miss some of the action occurring between frames. Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned. Try a test shoot with all the sppeds your camera offers and see what works for you.

"the deinterlace filter in Photoshop."
It works. Just be aware that you're losing half your resolution doing this.

Mike

Good eye John, as I read the post everyone was talking about video capture. LOL

So is it safe to assume that we all have this ghosting issue on our preview window on fast motion vids? If not is there a workaround?John

If you want to see your preview without the "ghost" you can change your project settings to:

Frame Rate: 59.94060
Deinterlace Method: Interpolate
Field Order: Progressive
(I'm assuming you started with the NTSC DV preset)

Then make sure your preview window is sets for Best (Full) and size it so it is displaying the full 720x480 image.

Then right click on the preview and make sure that Simulate Device Aspect Ratio is checked.

Now you can advance frame by frame in the project (ALT + ARROWS) and choose the best still. It will be composed of a single field of video, interpolated to create a full frame. You can save stills from the preview window by clicking the floppy diskette icon. Saving as PNG will preserve the most quality.

All looks great now! And saved as a preset template. Playback rate is way down, but it is clear. My eye doctor curses you, but I thank you. John

>>>Playback rate is way down

I solved that problem with a really fast computer:
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/cgi-bin/getframeletter.cgi?/2004/04_apr/reviews/5bhm8ltr.htm

Worked like a charm. ;) Just had to mortgage my house is all...