first multi-cam edit

richard-amirault wrote on 1/23/2009, 4:13 PM
I am in the middle of my first multi-cam edit using Vegas 8. I had done one previous with VMS 8, but this is the first time I've tried the built-in multi-cam features of the pro version.

I used two camcorders and an external digital audio recorder for the sound. I was able to sync things up properly .. well mostly ... the sound was a little off but I will tweak that after the multi-cam edit phase is finished.

The editing went fine .. at first. There came a point where the video (at least one of them) and the sound were completely off.

I suspect this happened because the event I was shooting was longer than one hour .. thus I had four tapes (two from each camera) ... AND .. there was an about a half-hour intermission in the middle where all the devices were shut down.

I *thought* I had cut the video and audio tracks to sync up for the entire length .. but I guess I was wrong (must be harder to do than I thought)

What I did when it started to go wrong:

I made cuts in every track so that the "good stuff" was intact. I rendered just that part to avi dv (boy that's fast...but BIG!) I then closed the current project .. started a new project with the just rendered avi, and now will import the previously unedited footage and sound .. sync that up .. and edit that. Then drop the new footage at the end of the previous avi footage.

I thought that it would be best rather than try to figure out how to split up a combined video track to re-sync it.

I don't expect this situation (multi-camera shoot with more than one tape per camera) to come up more than once a year. Next year I'll just do it in two seperate edits (two tapes each) rather than try a four tape edit.

Comments

PeterWright wrote on 1/23/2009, 5:57 PM
It sounds like your workaround will get you back on the rails.

Although the ideal situation is that all cameras run simultaneously, this isn't always possible, so when synching tracks, it's simply a matter of finding where a camera stopped/started, splitting and resynching the next portion, then moving along checking till all you footage is in synch - no need for separate projects.

farss wrote on 1/23/2009, 9:04 PM
I can only add a few tips.
Try to have something that you keep recording for the whole show, maybe stop if there's a interval. I use a HDD audio recorder. I treat that audio as a master track and lay everything else in against that.
It helps no end the less anything (cameras & audio recorders) stops and starts recording.
Turn off AGC on everything. It makes it impossible to sync by matching waveforms.

I've done a couple of shows using Ultimate S's multicam however of late I don't use any multicam at all. Depends how tight and fast you like / need to cut I think.

Bob.