Hi - I've got Sony Vegas pro 9.0 and been experimenting for a couple of months, but I don't want to upload a video until I know all the fundamental aspects properly. There have been a few things that have been holding me back with Vegas and I haven't been able to find help via tuts etc. So thought I would ask my questions here - rather than create separate threads.
1) How do you edit on just one track without it affecting the other tracks (inc audio.) If, for example, I want to cut the audio short then it also deletes the same area of the video or vice-versa. The same happens if you want to manipulate text above a video track. This is causing me all sorts of problems. I have tried right-clicking audio> ungroup, but the "ungroup" option isn't available. How do I avoid this problem?
2) I've noticed on youtube that some videos are automatically shown in HD (high quality and biggest screen.) I usually upload mine in HD 1280X720, and when they appear on youtube, it offers viewers the option to see it in HQ, but it isn't automatic. How can this be done?
3) When I try and apply a split screen effect I'm having two problems. Firstly, I go to the plan/crop and pull the dialogue box out to make it smaller. This is successful in making it smaller horizontally , but vertically from top to bottom, it actually makes it too small. This leaves black showing in the video, which should be full. I’ve tried adjusting it, but if I try and make the length bigger, it won’t keep the vertical length. Any ideas how to fix this problem? For example - are there specific settings that I can input which do this? The second problem I have is that when I do a split screen, feathering doesn’t always cover up the fact that it’s a split screen (due to different backgrounds.) Is there any other way this can be done, or does your source material have to always be similar (similar/same background so it blends?)
4) Often I see videos on youtube where only a small aspect of something is changed -I.e. the colour of the face or hair. I assume this is done by masking. The only problem I have is no matter how careful I am masking, it never looks quite perfect. Especially if you’re doing an irregular shape. Is there anyway, tools or anything that can making masking more accurate. Feathering is a problem because unless you change the colour of the masked area to something different, then you can tell feathering has taken place as it leaves something of a white outline. I’ve also noticed if I try masking a face and then put it back to where it was originally it doesn’t quite look right. For example:
The first example shows what result I get when I merely mask and then feather a picture. The second shows what happens when I change the colour of a specific aspect of a picture, Obviously that’s a picture, but videos are much the same. Any ideas?
5) I’ve seen FX where a person or thing is shown and then a second (often slightly transparent version of said thing/person) moves forwards. Can anyone explain how this is achieved?
6) Final question! Phew. Visual effects. I’ve managed to achieve some decent text effects just using the pan/crop tool. However, I’m not sure whether I’m doing it in the correct way. I insert my vid on the track below and then insert text media on the higher track. Sometimes I want to do an effect where the letters of a word appear slowly and individually or where I want a sentence to appear word by word. To do this I insert text media and use a different one for each word, then set it by key frames time-wise and place each individual one above the video. Is this the way I’m supposed to do it - or is there a more sophisticated way?
In addition, I’d sometimes like to make an area of text glow (for example.) There doesn’t seem to be the facility to do this on Vegas. Are there any text effects plugins that would be useful for this.
And that’s it! Sorry about all the questions -I’ve still got a lot to learn. Any help with the above would be hugely appreciated.
Editing questions - Vegas 
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