I like the way Vegas does multicamera editing for the most part, there's a few things that could be improved, however. Here are a few suggestions that I think would help things. Feel free to leave your own, and hopefully some of this will end up in future updates.

 

1. The entire process of enabling multicam could be streamlined.

Buy a Shuttle Pro and program one of its buttons to enable/disable multicam. Program another button to revert back to split tracks. You would still have to select the tracks you want in multicam and I prefer it that way. There are project where I use a take from another day only to patch up performance errors from the day I use in my multicam.

One of the DAWs I use is Propellerhead's Reason. One cool feature they have, the timeline actually has multiple modes. Press one mode, you see all of the audio and midi (media) tracks stacked on top of each other, as you do in any DAW or NLE. Press another, and all audio tracks collapse down into one track, which makes editing the entire composition as a whole a breeze. It would be nice if Vegas had a mode like this, so I could press one button and all video media collapses into one track and all audio media onto another. Pressing the standard timeline button would bring it all back out again. Having to group tracks into multicam tracks, then enable/disable multicam mode from a menu (there should be a button for that near the preview monitor) seems redundant.

2. We need a way to lock the multicam edit to a track even if the media on that track changes.

Learn how to concatenate files and you will have no sync issue. Depending on your camera model, use the software provided to concatenate split files. Same applies to point 3.

When I am editing files stored on SD cards, which span ever 4.4GB into a new file, if I am on that angle in multicam mode, and I hit the point whre it spans clips, Vegas will automatically cut to another angle, rather than staying on that track. That means I have to manually go back and make vegas stay on the angle as it spans media files after I'm done editing.... for each and every time any clip on any track spans at the wrong time.

3. Some way to account for sync loss between spanning clips.

Some cameras, when the clip size reaches 4.4GB and it spans into a new file, lose a frame of two of sync in the process. It would be nice if Vegas could detect this, and adjust the clip's position on the timeline to account for the lost sync. Even cooler would be the ability to try to fill in the 2-3 frames of black (or cutting to a media track below) that occurs when you adjust that sync and it leaves a gap... some sort of frame interpolation that could be enabled would be awesome. It would be nice to be able to set my sync on one clip and not have to worry about losing sync each time the clip spans into a new file. It would be even cooler if there were some sort of tool built in that could help make achieving that first sync less time consuming, as well. I know FCPX has that.

4. Fade to/from black commands, or the ability to map transitions to keys on the keyboard.

See my reply to point 1.

The ability to map various effects, transitions, etc. to keys on the keyboard which could be used to trigger them in multicamera mode would be great. All I can seem to find is the ability to trigger a crossfade by holding control when clicking on the take I want. Another cool thing would be the ability to trigger a file, such as a lower third, to appear when I want it during a multicam edit just by pressing a keyboard or control surface button.

 

Any other ideas?

If you import your SD card files correctly, you should not have the clip size / spanning problem. I use a Canon AVCHD camera and I use the VIEW>DEVICE to import from the camera. The scene is brought in as one file.

Why not make the NLE do it, and not have to go through any import process... when in a rush, I prefer to just drag and drop files to dump onto hard drives. When filming a festival, we can fill up several terabytes over a few days and don't have time to do much other than throw the SD card into an external USB reader, drag and drop the files into a folder, format the card, and go back to filming. As far as I can tell, my cameras don't have a "proper" way to import that merges the clips.

Oldsmoke, these are suggestions to improve the UI in software, I'm aware I could buy hardware to do these things, I was just trying to figure out ways to make doing it in software easier. Sometimes I'm editing on a laptop in a hotel room/RV/tent and don't have room to set up hardware interfaces. If you wanted to omit tracks from being joined, you could still do it the old fashioned way as well. As for joining the files, I can't find anything made for doing that with my Gh2, HMC40, or GH4 files (EDIT: looks like MPEG streamclip can). GH5 seems to record files bigger than 4.4gb, so no problems there. That said, Vegas should be able to do this. I shouldn't have to use external apps, there should be an option to merge files upon import in Vegas.

If you import your SD card files correctly, you should not have the clip size / spanning problem. I use a Canon AVCHD camera and I use the VIEW>DEVICE to import from the camera. The scene is brought in as one file.

I see no such import setting anywhere?

Vegas can actually detect many AVCHD cameras. Have you tried the "Device Explorer" (CTRL+ALT+6) in Vegas? If it works with your camera or camera's SD card it will show split files as one scene.

Have you tried connecting the camera via USB instead of copy and past the clip files? The camera my put important metadata in a separate file, data important to concatenate the files.

I'll give that a shot. Unfortunately, connecting our cameras via USB isn't always an option, many times they remain in the field recording while someone runs cards back to the media area to dump, so we have to use card readers.

Oldsmoke, these are suggestions to improve the UI in software, I'm aware I could buy hardware to do these things, I was just trying to figure out ways to make doing it in software easier.

To be honest, I do a lot of mulitcam projects and never came across the need to change the Vegas UI. I would however appreciate a camera sync that really works and not just based on audio but video... if that is even possible. At a large venue, like a figure skating ice rink, the cameras can be as far as 250ft away from the sound source and the next camera. At that distance, syncing with audio is not accurate anymore and I have to use visual cues.

I'll give that a shot. Unfortunately, connecting our cameras via USB isn't always an option, many times they remain in the field recording while someone runs cards back to the media area to dump, so we have to use card readers.

Panasonic doesn't offer a camera browser or similar to copy content to the PC? Have you tried Catalyst Browse? maybe it can read the SSD files properly. I have search the web and it seems even Adobe doesn't do well with Panasonic files.

I run across that same issue, though I'd be thrilled if it could just get me a nice audio sync so I would at least have most of the work done before I began to fine tune it.

As for the UI, it works... definitely not saying it has to be changed to be functional, but a few extra buttons to make certain multi-step tasks become a single step task wouldn't hurt.

The ability to join files from an SD card import (just reading from the card, not having the cam hooked up) would be a huge thing for me, though. In the mean time, I'm going to check out that MPEG Streamclip app to see how well it works.

Are the split files AVCHD or 4K XAVC or?

A mix, HMC40 and GH2, they are AVCHD. GH4, they're either MP4 or MOV files, H264.

"Panasonic doesn't offer a camera browser or similar to copy content to the PC?"

I'm not sure, to be honest, but it still wouldn't help much because we also use Sony cameras when importing video at these festivals, and so the ability to ingest everything with a simple copy/paste folder dump and have vegas be able to merge the clips later on would be invaluable to us. I don't really have time to fire up a panasonic specific app, then a sony app, etc. to import files properly.

It would be cool to be able to tell Vegas to merge upon importing the file from the hard drive, or to merge them while on the timeline.

Found this. Seems you are not alone. I use Sony cameras and when recorded in AVCHD, Vegas will read the card correctly and concatenate the files on import. XAVC files are as big as the come.

As for the UI, it works... definitely not saying it has to be changed to be functional, but a few extra buttons to make certain multi-step tasks become a single step task wouldn't hurt.

Well, you can wait for MAGIX to implement it or buy a Shuttle Pro as suggested and save time and money until MAGIX makes a move. I have a Shuttle Pro and it makes editing so much easier.

I don't have to do it straight from the camera, I can put the SD card in a reader and it reads it as a device and connects the video properly.

I'll check that out... if that's the case, it may make things a lot easier for us.

So, I finally tried this, and... it doesn't work. The Device Explorer will not recognize my memory card, even if I browse to it to tell it where the card is (it will let me browse to the card, but I can't select it or any folder within it). I'm not connecting the camera direct to the computer, as I said that is not a viable option for me when I'm out in the field and the cameras are in use, so I guess this is just a no-go. I'll have to try one of the other methods of joining these files.

Hmm, I wonder what the difference is because it works here. There is a cmd to join files that I believe Set has suggested. I don't know it myself.

So, I finally tried this, and... it doesn't work. The Device Explorer will not recognize my memory card, even if I browse to it to tell it where the card is (it will let me browse to the card, but I can't select it or any folder within it). I'm not connecting the camera direct to the computer, as I said that is not a viable option for me when I'm out in the field and the cameras are in use, so I guess this is just a no-go. I'll have to try one of the other methods of joining these files.

That unfortunately is a Panasonic issue; it’s the way they organize the cards and write the files. There are many forums talking about the same issue.

Maybe Sony’s free Catalyst Browse can do it?

Oldsmoke, thanks for the additional information.

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, Catalyst Browse couldn't do it. When I told it to join sequential relay clips, it said the clips were different formats or the timecode wasn't continuous. something was wrong with the program's display as well, everything was zoomed it so much that a large portion of the GUI was beyond the borders of my screen, I was only able to clearly see the disk selection menu in the middle of the screen.

Going to try some more options...