The offset pixels at the bottom of the frame are due to head switching on VHS (and BetaMax) machines. They have always been there but were masked by the overscan when viewing them on standatd TVs. There is usually some "grunge" on the left and right of the frame, too, so I always just zoom in a bit using the Pan/Crop tool (not the Track Motion tool.)

Also, make sure you have a deinterlace method selected in the "Project Properties" so Vegas will deal with the video as separate fields. I normally choose "Interpolate" but since it isn't actually deinterlacing, either "Blend" or "Interpolate" will give identical results.

Put a small black bar around the offending edges. No messing with interlacing, no real thinking required on your part and nobody will notice/care.

I've done it using both of the previous two suggestions (pan/crop, or masking with bars). Of the two, I recommend masking, for the reasons already given: you avoid scaling any of the pixels in the main video. This scaling operation can cause additional degradation beyond that which you will get from the rendering process. Scaling may also take longer than masking, although I haven't run a test on that and I could actually be dead wrong.

[edit]

Mask Example

You can right click and download the above 720x480 image. Put it on a track above your video, and set that track's compositing mode to "subtract." It should provide a nice black bar over the bottom of your video, hiding the head switching garbage. You will have to right-click on the mask and set it's pixel aspect ratio to 0.9091 to match the PAR that I assume you are using for your VHS captures.

Thanks all for your responses.
JohnMeyer, I downloaded the black mask, set the PAR to 0.9091and compositing mode to subtract. It does mask by adding a small black line at the end. However the offset pixels still show up. How can I make the mask bigger ?

I am also trying to create a mask in paint editor and adding it. Thanks again.

How can I make the mask bigger ? There isn't too much of a secret on how to do this. You use your photo editing program (or at least that's what I did). You start by creating a new image at exactly the project resolution. In this case it is 720x480. Don't worry about the pixel aspect ratio, because you'll change that in Vegas, as you did with my file.

Then, select the fill tool in your editing program. Change the painting to pure black and turn off any anti-aliasing or other edge-modification. Fill the entire screen with black. You can also simply "paint" this, or use any other technique you want.

When used as a subtraction mask, pure black will let the image on the track below "shine through" completely, without alteration.

Then, select your paint tool, or a tool that lets you draw straight lines. Select pure white. Pure white "blocks" the image below.

Here's the key to getting what you want: simply choose a wider line than what I used. Actually, you can start with my image, if you want, and simply paint a line at the bottom that is a little taller than what I had. If you are using the line drawing tool in your program, almost all Windows programs follow the convention that if you hold the Shift key (sometimes the Ctrl key), you will "constrain" the line being drawn so that it is either perfectly horizontal or perfectly vertical.

Hope that helps!

When TheHappyFriar made his recommendation several posts up, my mind went immediately to the Sony Border FX - might be easier.



Note: I put a red (rather than black border - just to make it more obvious).

...Jerry