I have been trying to figure out the pan and zoom effect with not much luck.
Does anyone know of a tutorial or guide to the basics?

What version of Kdenlive are you using?

Waynevid

The basic idea is to use so called keyframes. Keyframes are represented by small red triangles in the horizontal slider at the top of the Pan and Zoom Effect user interface. The slider also has a small gray rectangle that you can drag to navigate within the clip that has the Pan and Zoom effect.

By default there is one keyframe already created on the left side of the horizontal slider. You can create/delete more keyframes as needed at other positions in the slider.

At each keyframe you can specify the zoom level and the x,y position you need. There is automatic interpolation of x,y position and zoom level between keyframes. So for example if you specify 100% zoom at keyframe 1 and 300% zoom at keyframe 2, the image will gradually enlarge from 100% to 300% as the video playback goes from keyframe 1 to keyframe 2. If you set x,y to 0,0 at keyframe 1 and 100,100 at keyframe 2, the top-left corner of the image will gradually shift from 0,0 to 100,100 as the playback goes from keyframe 1 to keyframe 2.

I am using 0.7.7.1 on ubuntu V10

Thanks for your help....
I wonder If I am using the wrong affect.
I dont see any horizontal slider bar or triangles.

see attached screen shot.

Sorry, I didn't realize you were using prehistoric kdenlive :-). My explanation makes sense for the recent development kdenlive. See pic below.

I am at version 0.7.7.1 and I thought that was the latest.
Am I missing something else?

You are using the latest version. tidris769 was just joking as he uses the current development version.
In 0.7.7.1 Pan & Zoom is not keyframable.
You might use The Composite or AffineComposite transition instead. If you use MLT 0.5.6 use the AffineComposite transition as it will be much smoother.
Here is a tutorial on how to use the composite transition (Affine is very much the same):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4vXxRgMiLA

Thanks. That tutorial was very helpful.
Using composite I need to have a fake clip hidden behind the thing that I am panning on.
Is there a way around that or do I wait until 0.7.8 to come out.

You can select "with track black" in the transition tab in top right to get a background without a background clip.