Rachel,
i can’t really answer your questions as I have never really used the equipment that you speak of (the Sony cam, Sony Vegas, etc.) But, I would suggest you check out http://videopia.org
Post your questions on his forum..
Eric Franks (videopia.org) is a technical genius and he uses Sony Vegas. I believe he has worked on their manuals for the program or at least training at one time or another. I would start there. He has many great resources and explanations of video for the web, compression, authoring to DVD, etc…..
