How to freeze a frame?
 

Installed Vegas 8 Pro last week, been having lots of fun with it. I'd like to have a video clip playing, freeze a particular frame for a specified amount of time, then the clip resumes playing. What's the best way to achieve this?

Thanks!

I tried the following and it worked, but am wondering if there's a simpler way.
I set the preview window quality to "Full-Best", put the cursor on the timeline where the frame is, click on the "floppy disc" icon at top of the preview window, saved it as either png or jpeg. I then drag that image to the time line, placed it within the video clip , lengthened it. Played the clip, the frame was "froze" for a few seconds.

Insert a velocity envelope on the clip (Right-click it and select Insert/Remove Envelope - Velocity).
You'll need to add two points at the 'freeze' spot (100 & 0) and two points at the 'resume' spot (0 & 100).

Where do I type in these numbers? I did the "velocity" selection, and saw a horizontal green line in the middle of the video clip. I right clicked the green line and selected "Add Point", and a "handle" appeared on the line, where I can move that line. But I don't see where to enter the numbers like you said.

Thanks,

You can right-click the point and select "Set To..." from the popup menu and type in a number.

I love Vegas, but this is such a commonly used function that there should be a command for it such as Premiere has. I think it's called Hold at End or something.

Velocity can also be changed via a script. For example, Excalibur has a function that will freeze frame at the cursor location.

If you're wanting to freeze on the last frame of a clip, right-click the event, go to "Switches", and turn off LOOP. Now the very last frame will be held for as long as you make the event instead of looping from the beginning.

If you want looping turned off by default, go to Options, Preferences, Editing tab, and uncheck "Enable looping on events by default"

double post sorry

once again in the vegas common sense point of view as opposed to other nle's...i have no prob with the way premiere or final cut tackle clip speed...i love to edit on those systems...but to not have to split clips and just use an envelope over the event/clip just makes more sense and visual sense in the overall control...imho vegas always wins out in these areas...

I tried this method which is the fastest but keep having this problem. If I have to delete the last frame or two from a clip (which I use split and delete), and then stretch the clip, the last frame, which I had deleted keeps showing up on the event and that ends up being the frozen frame. What am I doing wrong?

Another new one for me, thanks Edward. It's a pity this doesn't work at the beginning of a clip as well (ie so you could stretch and hold the first frame backwards in time). I am just in the process of building a sequence where I want three speakers on the screen in separate PinPs and have them frozen until the appropriate time. Envelopes are completely usable for this but the 'no loop' method would be a lot quicker to build.

It always freezes the last frame of the clip. If you want some frame other than the very last frame to be the "last" frame, you have to create a SUB-CLIP - then it will freeze the last frame of the sub-clip instead of the original clip.

I guess this was the wrong assumptiion I was making. When I capture clips from the camera, I have scene detection on. However many times there is a frame or two of overlap from clip to the next. I had always edited the clips on the timeline and would use split then delete to get rid of the extraneous frame or two. I had always thought that those frames were gone until I stretched the clip, and like magic that extra frame was back. Couldn't figure that one out. Anyway I guess the only way to really trim a clip is to do the sub-clip in the Trimmer and not my way of split + delete. Go figure....

Nope. Trim it as desired on the timeline, right-click that event, and choose "Create Sub-clip". Now you'll have two takes: The original and the sub-clip with the sub-clip being active. Now stretch it as desired and your last frame will be the last frame you specified instead of the last frame of the original event.

Couldn't you also just save the frame as a picture, then just insert that picture into the track?

Joshua, you can do that as well.
Just make sure to set your Preview window to Best/Full before doing a frame grab.