Fraps/Sony Vegas quality problems

[WeeklyGameZombies]

Hello. I am a YouTuber who makes gaming videos, and I try to present the best quality content to my viewers.
But lately I have not been able to... Since I switched to a desktop computer, when I record with fraps and I import it in SV afterwards and render it in 1280x720 it has black bars on the left and right AND on the top and bottom which makes it really hard to watch, which is why I set it to widescreen which makes it widescreen but still crops some parts.
Also, I record in HD, but after editing it its quality drops a lot. I mean, it still says HD but even when you set it to 720p it honestly looks horrible.
Has this anything to do with me having to convert it twice?(The fraps files are like 20gb and after rendering the video is also about 20gb which is why I have to convert it before and after editing)
Please check my channel trailer or whatever to see what I'm talking about, since I can't add any links here...
Hope somebody can help me

 

[G-Man]

I personally record video and only convert after editing, yeah it is pretty heavy file, but maybe that way you could get better quality :?

 

[unknown_user54684097890]

I usually compress the raw recordings with VirtualDub before I edit. I can usually compress a 5gb file to about 900mb in about 5 minutes so there's no complaints.

I don't use vegas anymore, but when I was, I'm sure there's a "Maintain Aspect Ratio" option when you Right Click your video layer. Just uncheck that option, and if your Project Properties are 1920x1080 or 1280x720 etc then it should fit the screen perfectly.