Thanks Mike.

I tried to use pan/crop but I can't find any way to use the pan/crop tool on multiple tracks at once. The only way I can find to use motion on multiple tracks is with track motion.

I need to be able to move the fridge .jpg and the video layer in sync w/ each other....

1. Insert a new video track. On this track, put a solid color/generated media for length of desired effect.
2. set all tracks to be synced at once as children to the top/new video track.
3. Put top/new video track in Mask compositing mode.
4. Use the Parent Track Motion to control movement of all child tracks simultaneously.
5. Keyframe as desired.

Done.

Thanks for the response....

I just tried this and I'm getting the same result. I think "Parent Track Motion" on the mask is doing the same thing as track motion on the top layer track. The quality doesn't seem to be any better....

You're zooming in exceptionally deep, and then resizing the image of your subject. On the subject, are you using track motion or pan/crop? You should be using pan/crop on the subject, and track motion on the parent to control the two simultaneously.

But, any zooming, using track motion, will always sample the finished project material. This makes no difference when your souce is video. When using SD DV NTSC video, it is 720x480. If you zoom in by a factor of 2x, you have 1/4 the resolution (1/2 x 1/2) or 360x240. It doesn't matter whether you use track motion or pan/crop for the event.

However, if you have material which is higher resolution than 720x480 (like JPEG still photos, or media generated within Vegas, like text, gradients, solid colors, etc.), these start out at much higher resolution than 720x480. However, they are eventually sampled down to 720x480. Unfortunately, this re-sampling takes place BEFORE track motion is applied. Thus, even though you started out with a super-high-res JPEG, it will look horrible when you zoom in using track motion. I think this is true, even if you use the method recommended by Spot (DSE), although perhaps the parent-child relationship changes how high-res media is resampled.

By contrast, if you zoom using the pan/crop control, the media is resampled after it is zoomed. Thus, you get access to the full number of pixels, and your picture looks crisp and sharp and un-pixelated, even when you zoom in.

You sure as heck don't want to first reduce the size of the video for your "magnets," using pan/crop, and then zoom in on that using track motion. That will definitely not look good.

Thanks guys...

John...the method you said I should avoid in your reply is exactly how I'm doing it.

I want to be able to pan around on the fridge and show different 'magnets' or video clips. I will need to move multiple tracks in sync w/ each other so that the videos appear 'stuck' to the fridge background pic.

The only way that I know to accomplish this motion is using track motion....which kills my video quality.

I'm trying to jazz up a routine slideshow movie but it's giving me more fits than I expcted.

-Jason

OK...I did some more playing around and I've gotten some improved results. On the example below, I used 3-D parent track motion rather than the standard Source-Alpha. Is there a difference in the way 3-d motion is handled that would explain the improved quality?

Here's the Original

Here's the 2nd Version

OK, you have the thumbnails on the 'fridge that you zoom into. Once you are zoomed in then cut to a full resolution copy of the clip on an independent track. If I understand your problem correctly this will do it.

Yeah, I'd second that. What helps is that you've intentionally put the pictures at an angle on the fridge, so once you've zoomed in almost all the way you can just dissolve to the actual video without any tilt. It will look like you meant to do that anyway.

I think using small jpgs left as original size would be good then mask em out in vegas.

I too have re-sizing probs and thats all I can think of to get my task done.

I'm using text so its easier but I thought about the image issue and I've been using a jpg as you.

My thoughts were; similar to your idea. If I could keep the image small then mask it and then animate it with keys then I could keep the original image intact. So I set up a 740x480 image but the image I want to mask is only a small fragement of the whole image.
Now the image remains sharp BUT I SUCK AT ANITMATING!!! ARG!