I have Vegas 6. Im new to it and figured out most basic stuff. However i still dont know how to insert text within video. all i can do is put text with the background color, but i cant seem to make it transparent. I need this feature for the documentary i am currently editing to show the names of the people i interviewed so please help.

thanks

In the generated media tab there are different options. To the left in the explorer window are things like scrolling text,solid colors, etc. One of the options at the bottom is TEXT. When you click that the tab opens and in there are various optional backgrounds. One of them is transparent with the words SAMPLE TEXT showing. That should take care of it for you. (at least thats how it is in version 5)

Don

You can either start with a template that already has a transparent background (seen as chequerboard BG) or make a coloured background transparent by opening the Properties tab of the Text Generator, finding the vertical panel under the word "Background Color" and pulling the little triangle down to Zero.

One thing to make sure:

Track 1: TEXT (with transparent background)
Track 2: Video that shows behind the text.

Multiple ways:

Insert - Video Track
CTRL-SHIFT-Q
Right-click the timeline - Insert Video Track
Drag the video to a blank area of the timeline (i.e. where there are no tracks)
Drag the text to a blank area of the timeline (i.e. where there are no tracks)

You can also rearrange the track orders by dragging the track headers.

My favorite way to add video or audio tracks is to customize my toolbar, so there are always convienient buttons for this.

To do this: Double -click on the toolbar to the right of your last icon and the Cusytomize Toolbar dialog comes up. Find the tool you need and click Add. Hit Close. Done.

Gary

adding the new video track also did the trick for me. thanks