Belated appreciation - Vegas Multicam

PeterWright wrote on 8/18/2008, 9:09 PM

I'm doing my first multi cam since VPro8 came out - I've successfully used Excalibur and UltimateS in the past, but the built in multicamera function is so simple.
Using Takes makes it so easy to change your mind about which camera, adjust the moment of the cut or dissolve and also use any other of the Vegas features such as colour correction etc.

Also, my audio came from two HDV cameras (Sony Z1 & A1), an EX1 in SP mode and a feed from the desk onto my Zoom H4. A few variations in length, but the old Ctrl drag to stretch made synching easy - do they have this feature in other NLEs - if not, how do they do this?

Nice one SCS!

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 8/18/2008, 10:11 PM

Peter,
Your post describes my workflow almost exactly, except our board feeds go straight to the cameras, and the H4 via its built-in mics, is used for a stereo ambient track in the back of the room for rear channel 5.1 in the final mix.

I've found the sync is easier if I split the ambient track into 20 min. chunks and adjust them individually. Now, if only the H4 accepted a timecode sync!

I haven't used the other plugins for multicam, but I agree with you about the ease of using takes in V8. With a little practice, I've learned to do the whole rough cut in a couple of realtime passes. Before V8, the same job would take me several days of work.

Marc S wrote on 8/18/2008, 10:44 PM

I agree the new multicam RULES! The ability to jump in and out of multicam mode and the Takes feature is really slick.

Spot|DSE wrote on 8/18/2008, 11:08 PM

***unless you need to go backward. the new multicam tool is great, but many have found they like the ability to go backwards easily, thus the benefit of Excalibur and US4, InfinityCam, etc. These tools make it *much* more efficient to go backwards.
That said, as one of the partner/developers in US4, we have a dog in the hunt.

Rosebud wrote on 8/19/2008, 3:37 AM

About synching :
I made a script for this task : “ Sync Events Script ".

Gilles

megabit wrote on 8/19/2008, 4:54 AM

Guys,

I'm about to start my first multicam project in Vegas. Must confess I'm not very fond of reading manuals, but since the project is serious and has deadlines, I'd be very grateful for some links to a good reading on Vegas Pro 8 multicam workflow...

Thanks in advance,

Piotr

[PS] This is a live music video, so the perfect synch is a top priority!

farss wrote on 8/19/2008, 5:51 AM

Getting perfect sync can only be achieved with cameras with genlock.
You can get it within +/- 0.5 frames with Vegas, that is generally good enough depending on what you're shooting and how you cut it.

If you're mixing audio from multiple recordings in theory you want it sample accurate, that's when things get expensive.

Bob.

jetdv wrote on 8/19/2008, 5:55 AM

Peter, Excalibur also creates Takes on the "master" track so that's not really a new thing. I think the biggest advantage of the built-in version is the ability to simply click on the preview screen. Otherwise, at this point I still stick with the script versions as they have much more functionality than the built-in version.

bsuratt wrote on 8/19/2008, 6:25 AM

PeterWright

FYI - It has been noted in other forums that the Zoom H4 sampling speed is not accurate and thus difficult to sync with video over time. I tried the Zoom H2 and I find it syncs almost perfectly.

PeterWright wrote on 8/19/2008, 8:29 AM

Regarding the Zoom H4 - I knowingly chose 48 Khz / 24 bit, hoping to get a slightly better recording, but aware that the resulting length may differ from the camera sound, but it really isn't difficult with Vegas to adjust the various events so that they are in synch.

musicvid10 wrote on 8/19/2008, 8:32 AM

bsuratt,
There is no difference I know of between the clock stabilities of the H2 and H4.

If you got an H2 that is "close" to your camera audio, congratulations. That is no guarantee that someone else's camera or recorder are going to sample audio identically to yours.

As has been stated many times, any two clocks not synced by a wire will drift. There's no voodoo in this.

On my latest project, the H4 drifted apart from genlocked XLH1's by a net factor of .0000680091. Darn near perfect -- yes. Needs correction -- yes. Doesn't sound like much, but that amounts to over 1/2 second net drift by the end of a 2-1/2 hour program.

The deck-size Zoom HD16CD has MTC capability, but alas it only records 44.1 kHz.

Peter,
Recording at the same sampling rate and bit depth as your camera audio is the best thing to do, in my case 16/48.

DavidMcKnight wrote on 8/19/2008, 9:20 AM

Regarding the multicam, I'm in agreement with both Spot and Edward. While it is cool to click right on the preview window to choose your camera, I almost always have to still work with the original tracks after the master has been created, and find it's easier to keep using the script-based tools that have worked with the last several versions of Vegas (UltimateS from vasst in my case)

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/19/2008, 9:57 AM

i only do REALLY SIMPLE multicam, so I've only used the built in one for the 30 seconds I needed it, but the big "downer" is that the built in multicam affects ALL tracks. All tracks seem to be enabled for multitrack editing (besides the master track). Forget if this happens with Excalibur or now.

PeterWright wrote on 8/20/2008, 12:54 AM

Edward I hadn't realised that - has that always been so?. I originally was going to use Excalibur, but for some reason it shows lots of functions greyed out and "expired", and I didn't have time to sort that out, and gave the built in multi cam a try.

jetdv wrote on 8/20/2008, 6:15 AM

Peter, it's been that way for years now. Send me an e-mail and I can discuss your other situation.

PeterWright wrote on 8/20/2008, 6:29 AM

Thanks Edward, I've just had a fiddle and fixed it - somehow it had lost the registration code, but when I re-pasted it from my unlock email in January, it is again registered.