I get the top track in the timeline only on the preview screen with the colored "active track" border and the track number and name listed on the screen, but none of the inactive tracks.

You misspelled "take(s)." ;-)

Just teasing. Sony chose what I think is a rather funky (or should I say clunky?) way of implementing multicamera editing. Vegas takes all the chosen tracks and converts them to takes on a single track. And then doesn't give us a simple way to "expand" them back to multiple tracks. This may be just fine for people who are accustomed to working with takes, but not so much for those of us that like to keep our clips separate.

Rob

I always worked with multiple tracks and at first found it to be cumbersome to use the multicam edit feature but as of late, I have really grown to like it. It is not difficult to use some shortcuts to choose different takes or to work with the footage. I always leave my audio untouched by the multicam so I can tweak it how I want.

j razz

That's exactly why Excalibur will remain my choice tool for multicam editing.

woo hoo! that sure makes a difference! i have not ever used "takes" for anything in the past and was not focused on the nomenclature in the help file. i just tried it in an edit i'm starting and was halfway through the piece before i realized it! what i did was sync up 3 clips as tracks (unfortunately no timecode present), saved each as a subclip, deleted the 3 clips out of the time line and then brought the subclips into the time line as TAKES and voila! i'm good to go on the preview when i switch on the multicamera function. being able to punch in the view i want on the fly makes it very fast to get a rough draft together and then go back onto the timeline for fine adjustments. does anyone know if you can do any FX (color correction, etc.) when you're in this mode, or should i try to get close prior to subclips? thanks again to everyone for the quick responses.

I too was looking forward to this feature (though it wasn't the main reason for me upgrading to Pro 8). I did give it a whirl though, and was also very confused when I first tried it.

I must confess I didn't really give it a good solid work-out. I guess I'm just too used to the way UltimateS does it so effortlessly.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but you _can_ see all 4 tracks at once.

When in multi-camera editing mode, you toggle between preview mode and multi-cam mode (using Ctrl-Shft-D I think). In multi-cam mode you see up to 4 tracks in the preview screen, which is divided into quadrants. Toggling back and forth is no problem.

In "split screen mode" you will only see the tracks in the multi-cam track; in preview mode you will see what would be delivered, including additional tracks, effects, transitions, etc.

Once a cut is made you still have access to the other "takes" on the track, and you can manipulate the cuts just as you would any other cut on the timeline.

I have just completed the edit of a concert (2 acts, 29 items, 4 cameras, plus a balcony camera from the matinee performance, plus separate audio track from the desk) and it worked an absolute treat.

Apologies if I have misunderstood you, but I think there is more functionality there for you to take advantage of.

Ciao,

marks

If you wish to apply , say, colour correction to a whole clip, apply the effect at the "project media" level. Or you can make adjustments on individual events. Anything applied at the track level is lost when you make the mutli-cam track.

Ciao,

marks

I agree with the clunky analysis but I too have grown to like the program. I just finished a 17 band performance shoot with 3 - 4 cameras and by the end was cranking them out quickly and looking good about three hours of edited video. I even went back and redid the first three bands because the workflow was much better at the end

I think sony has hit on a good approach but needs to put the ability to reference the original clips back in. It would also be handy to be able to apply an effect to the track and have it stay as preparing the multicam.

many terrific post on this...thanks! i had initially misunderstood the operation of this function...i was trying to get the split screen view with 3 or 4 TRACKS instead of TAKES. in earlier versions, i would have to toggle between tracks to find the cuts i wanted which was not efficient, to say the least. these forums have opened my eyes to many different ways of working the program and i am grateful.

How do you make a "take"? please?

I tried last night w/ 4 cams with audio and then a seperate 2 ch audio file and just got frustrated.

1) I dropped in all the files and lined up/synced all the audio to the frame (of course a little off ; )
2) Tools - Multicam mode

3) aqua highlight is around the whole preview window and all I see is the 1st video track.

What do I need to do? Totally Lost! ; ) Help!

Select all tracks (make sure all video tracks are highlighted on the left hand side).

j razz

Add the video and audio as needed and sync them up.

Select the tracks you want added to the multi-cam (CTRL-A will work to select everything)

Go to Tools - Multicamera - Craete Multicamera track

Then you can toggle back and forth between standard and multi-cam modes by going to Tools - Multicamera - Enable Multicamera Editing

jrazz, jetdv,

Thank you for your responses. It's guys like you that make this forum great!

Once again thank you for your quick response and kindness!

I'll try it out tonight.

Thanks, I finally got multiple videos to show up in the preview track. Still unclear how you actually edit though.

Has anyone done a tutorial on this? I think that's what I need, is to be able to see a quick demo.

Thanks again.

Make sure you have enabled multicam mode and then just press the corresponding number to the "take" you want to show on your edit as displayed in the preview window.

If you mess up, don't worry about it, just stop the playback, go back and choose the correct take at the right time. Later on you can go back to the timeline and right click and select a different take if you want.

Some hints: don't do audion in multicam mode- save it for later as it will combine your tracks. If you are going to apply fx, apply it at the media pool level or else you will lose it once you go into multicam mode.

j razz

Thanks jrazz, got it to work. Not particularly elegant but it works. I appreciate it!

Excuse me for jumping in here, but I'm trying this multi-cam thing for the first time. Thanks to all for all the good info so far.

My question is this...It looks as though all transitions between cameras are simply cuts. Is there a convenient way to do slow fades between cameras? Or go back, after multi-cam editing, and use the new track as a reference for doing slow fades where I want them?

Maybe I'm answering my own question, but let me throw this out for discussion. If I make copies of the video tracks BEFORE I enable multi-cam mode and create the multi-cam track, I can then use the multi-cam track as a reference to put in my transitions in the ORIGINAL tracks while preserving the color corrections and other filters that get lost in the multi-cam edit.

I like the multi-cam edit in that I can easily see the camera action and easily pick the desired output, but having to re-enter color corrections for each edited clip is a non-starter.

Comments, anyone?

Thanks!

Lee

Hold down the CTRL key when clicking on the camera angle and you'll get a dissolve instead of a cut. The length will be the length specified in the preference "Cut to overlap conversion"

**Hold down the CTRL key when clicking on the camera angle and you'll get a dissolve instead of a cut. The length will be the length specified in the preference "Cut to overlap conversion"**

Well, that's easier than the way I've been doing it for the last ten hours -- I was disappointed when I found that checking "Automatically overlap multiple selected media..." in Preferences didn't make that the default behavior for multicamera edit cuts -- I was making the cut, highlighting the clip, placing the cursor at the cut, then "/".

But thanks, that should speed up the workflow considerably. I really think there should be a checkbox in Preferences to make cut-to-overlap-conversion the default behavior for multicam takes, too.

Thanks!

That solves one problem (disolve vs cut) but what about the loss of all filtering on the video channels?

In hour plus concerts I do at least a hundred cuts & fades. That's way too many individual clips to have to insert all filters into each time I do a multi-cam edit.

Any suggestions there?

Thanks,

Lee

Option 1: Apply them to the MEDIA in the Project Media

Option 2: After applying effects on the timeline, render it out and then use the newly rendered version.

"Then you can toggle back and forth between standard and multi-cam modes by going to Tools - Multicamera - Enable Multicamera Editing"

So will this bring me back to a view of all the video and audio tracks? vs the combined track I now see?

Right now I am seeing 1 video track; all 3 tracks are combined into one. Cutting with this is So FAST!.....but....I want to be able to go back and tweak my edits, change some hard cuts to slow dissolves etc.

How can I do this? Thanks!