Lost Video Island

[Belle MacFarlane]

I just managed to get Sony Vegas 7.0!

*does happy dance*

But as I'm used to the simplicity of Windows Movie Maker, it's all a bit confusing ... can anyone give me any advice on getting familiar with it?
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[Aislynn]

Congrats on getting Vegas 7!

Here's the link to the Vegas all-in-one help thread that collects the answers to the original Sony Vegas help thread (which is the place if you have specific Vegas questions ).

Even though the help thread was originally for Vegas 6, most of the basic things usually remain the same from one version to the next, though if anything doesn't seem to work the same, always feel free to ask about it!

Anyway, my advice is to start with something small just let yourself get familiar with how Vegas works. My actual very first Vegas vid wasn't one that I showed people, it was just a little practice thing for me to figure out the basics, how to get my episodes/clips imported, how to use the trimmer to cut out the clips then get them to the timeline, how to try to hit the beat, how to do the basic effects then finally how to render it all.

So that's what I suggest starting with, even if nobody else sees it, to sorta get familiar with the basics then build on it from there with figuring out the more advanced moves like split-screening. It's hard 'cause it's so tempting to want to do the fancy stuff right away but I was glad I took just a day or so to try the absolute basic things first before I started trying to figure out the more advanced effects.

Vegas' main difference from WMM, in my opinion, is that Vegas does not cut the clips for you automatically like WMM does. That's where you'll want to get comfortable with using the trimmer right away, because that let's you take out the scenes you want from your eps/clips without having to drag them whole to the main timeline and try to cut them there (which you can do, I just find it a lot more unwieldy to do it that way ).

Any questions at all that you have, don't hesitate to ask; we all had to start somewhere! Again, congrats on getting Vegas! Once you get the hang of it, I think you'll love it! ♥!