Previewing multiple tracks simultaneously

johnric30 wrote on 4/26/2004, 8:31 PM
Hi All,

Anyone know a way to get a preview of track 1 and track 2 at the same time? I have a wedding flimed by two different cameras. I have lined up the vid/aud and now I am looking for an easier way to locate those perfect fade points. track 1 = camera 1; track 2 = camera 2. I want to be able to view the two simultaneously.

Comments

ricklaut wrote on 4/26/2004, 8:46 PM
How about using Track Motion to shrink both and reposition - i.e. Track 1 in the upper left; Track 2 in the upper right. If you do it often, there are products out there like Excaliber that help with multi-cam editing (among other things).

Rick
johnmeyer wrote on 4/26/2004, 8:48 PM
ricklaut is correct: track motion is the usual way to preview multiple tracks at once.
GaryKleiner wrote on 4/26/2004, 8:56 PM
Check my demo video of Excalibur to see Vegas Mutlicam editing in action. It's at www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com. I regularly do 6-camera shoots and breeze through the edits with this method.

Gary
dust wrote on 4/26/2004, 11:57 PM
What you can also do, making things even easier:
- create an empty video track called "Upper Left" in a new project
- put some video track below it
- making the later one child of the upper ("Make Compositing Child" button in track)
- In (empty) parent track, select "Parent Motion" button on the left (this only appears for parent tracks)
- Adjust it the way you like the "upper left" PIP effect
- Remove child track; the "parent motion" button disappears, but obviously the parameters you entered are memorized in case the track becomes parent track again
- Repeat the process for further empty tracks (Upper Right, etc), to you needs
- Save the resulting project consisting of empty parent tracks.

Now, whenever you start a new project, start it with this template.

And you can now put your actual video tracks under the corresponding "PIP template tracks" and, by a simple mouse button click, make them "child" of the parent track (ie, activating the PIP effect), or "un-child" it again (ie, deactivating PIP effect).
johnric30 wrote on 4/27/2004, 5:29 AM
Thank you for the great suggestions everyone!
TomE wrote on 4/27/2004, 8:07 AM
Gary,

Speaking of your video demonstrating Excalibur --which I use a lot to remind me of what Excalibur can do. Is there one for Neon?
jetdv wrote on 4/27/2004, 9:04 AM
One issue of my newsletter discusses multiple ways of doing multi-cam editing. My current favorite method is using Excalibur.
GaryKleiner wrote on 4/27/2004, 9:25 AM
>your video demonstrating Excalibur --which I use a lot to remind me of what Excalibur can do. Is there one for Neon?<

Not yet, but there will be eventually.

Gary
Caruso wrote on 4/27/2004, 4:39 PM
Looked at your demo. Here's my question: In the demo, the sync points for the three sample clips were apparently selected visually. I assume that Excalibur relies soley upon the marker positions in order for the wizard to line up the clips - is that assumption correct?

I find that my visual skill in lining up clips isn't nearly as accurate as using my ear.

I would assume that Excalibur doesn't actually compare the wave forms in the area of the markers to fine-tune the alignment - is that correct?

No doubt Excalibur is a fine tool - I'm just curious if I would actually benefit from the sync wizard.

Thanks.

Caruso
busterkeaton wrote on 4/27/2004, 4:45 PM
I think you manually select the sync points, either visually or aurally, your choice and then set the marker.
Excalibur just uses the marker.
GaryKleiner wrote on 4/27/2004, 4:47 PM
As Buster says, the markers are only as accurate as you make them. Sync Wizard is a fine tool, but the real fun begins with Multicam Wizard.

Gary