Hi Noknot
Most people don't use the trimmer, which is in any case a bit of a misnomer since it doesn't actually trim the clip. If you are in control of the edits it's usually just as easy to trim on the timeline. But if you do want or need to use the trimmer, open the clip in the trimmer window, select the part you want (easiest is by dragging) and then either press one of the insert buttons (make sure your trimmer window is wide enough to show the buttons) or use the corresponding keyboard shortcut (.e.g A to add media from cursor), or just drag your selection to the timeline. Or am I missing something more complex?

Not sure if this is what you mean, but if you have selected the part to trim and the blue highlight area disappears, hit SHIFT+L to reselect the area.

Despite what Rainer says, a goodly number of people do use the Trimmer when editing in Vegas. Used in conjunction with Batch Capture it works well.

When playing something in the Trimmer, identify the first and last scenes of your selection with the I and O keys to create a selection of the length you need. Pressing A wil then transfer this selection to where you want in the Timeline (in Pro, but I don't know about MS, pressing Tab before A allows you to select video only or audio only rather than the two together).

Richard

Thanks guys for all the help. This software sometimes gets overwhelming.

I have tried pressing I and O keys but I cant get any results. My problem trimming in Timeline is when I start dragging the scene to trim it , I have a hard time stopping at the spot I want to. There must be something I am missing that will allow to trim by an increment at a time so you can get it placed where you want it, or maybe I am not used to this software. I used Ulead VideoStudio for awhile and you could trim a second at a time or less. I guess that is what I am asking, is there some way of doing that without dragging. Thanks for everyone's patience.

One of the advantages of using the trimmer is that there, you get a much higher fps in preview.

I trim on the timeline only, and i do a lot of it. There are a few issues with getting the trim spot right where you want it but they're all easy issues.

Zoom in! The farther you zoom in, the easier it is to hit the right spot.

Snapping order is important. I you have snapping enabled then the cursor will jump to certain places such as other clip start/end points, vertical lines on the timeline, fade points, etc. You can hold down the shift key while dragging to disable snapping. If snapping really bothers you way more than it's useful you can turn it off completely under Options.

Snapping can be the best help. Place the cursor where you want the trim point to occur. The cursor has the highest snapping affinity, so that when you drag your mouse pointer will be attracted to the cursor and snap there most easily. The other nice thing about this is that you see the trim point in the preview window so you can find exactly what you want before you start dragging, and then dragging to that point becomes automatic.

Remember that alt-left & alt-right arrow keys move the cursor one frame at a time for precise positioning.

As an alternative to dragging, if you position the cursor first you can use a variety of keyboard shortcuts instead of the mouse. Pressing "S" will split the event at the cursor location. You can then click on the unwanted piece and delete it. Pressing "I" or "O" at the cursor position will set In/Out points or a selection. Do this at both ends and the part you want is selected. Press "T" to trim that selection and remove the unwanted bits.

As is true with most things in Vegas, There's More Than One Way To Do It. I find myself using combinations of all the above methods depending on how i'm editing that event, or just out of the whimsy of the moment.

Thanks so much Chienworks. I'll try your suggestions on next project. This is a very helpful and friendly forum.

Not sure why the I and O funsctions aren't working in the Trimmer. They should do as it is a standard keyboard shortcut - - - presumably you have the Trimmer Window as the current live Window with any part being played showing in the Preview Window?

You can use Alt with the L and R arrows to get frame accurate selections in the Trimmer as well and this avoids the need to zoom in or out on the Timeline. It also allows you to post the selected part as video (or audio) only --- or both) without having to make any deletions in the Audio .

Richard