Let me make certain I understand you...

Both cameras shot the same action at the same time, just different angles. You have the camera A pic and sound in the time line and the camera B pic and sound in the time line beneath camera A's.

That being the case, I would use the "split" key and simpy go through and cut where I wanted to change angles and delete the corresponding footage that wasn't needed. The result would look like an A-B roll of film. On the time line you would have a shot above a blank space, a shot beneath a blank space, kind'a like a checker board.

I'm sure others will have better suggestions.

J--

When working on wedding videos, I use an envelope on the top track to fade out and reveal the bottom track wherever needed. That way you can still see the thumbnails in the tracks.

JBJones

Both of these are good techniques for 2 cameras. If you get to 3 or more cameras these techniques get much more difficult. I usually use the "Master Track" approach by moving the desired clip up to the top track.

I have used excaliber on a similar project using two cameras on a marching band. It is surprising how easy it is to use (once you get the setting right but that was a personal problem) and how great the results are.

Thanks for the responses.

Somebody gave me one tip which was to use the opacity on the top track when I want to change angles. My only problem with this is that it will only allow for straight cross fade transitions. I would like to have the full range of available (transitions) options open to me.

I've now read JetDVs article and it still leaves me with little hope that what I want is available. I was aware of these three methods, I usually use the third one - the master track, but I hoped there was an easier way than cutting all the clips up.

One thing I tried last night was to "expand" a single video track to show the A, transition and B parts. This is more the style I was looking for (if I could have all clips from the two cameras in parallel), but when I tried to drag the video from the second track up to the "B" track it didn't seems to work. Admittedly I haven't tried too hard on this, but I think that it may not work in respect to having the two video streams in parallel and instead only function in a similar look to the "checkerboard" approach but using a single track.

Any other thoughts?

Contact me at jay[at]gooddogproductions[dot]com

It pains me to see you struggle with this because 90% of the work I do (and I am in this full time +) is multi-camera editing, and it is SO easy with Vegas.

Basically, it goes like this:


1) Sync your media on the timeline
2) Create a reduced size (PIP) version of each track with track motion so you can see all the cameras at once.
3) Place markers where you want your edits (and use the marker names to denote cuts, dissolves, etc)
4)Ctrl/Arrow to each marker and split all but the bottom video clip
5)Delete out the pieces the are on top of the tracks you want to see
6)Add disolves where needed.

Excalibur GREATLY speeds up steps 1, 4,5, and 6.

Gary

Remember that you can also drop transitions onto dissolves. So, if you remove a section of the clip on track 1, add a dissolve on the clip(s) remaining. Then drop a transition onto that dissolve.

I still consider the "master" track the easiest and, personally, use Excalibur for my multi cam editing - no more splits as until ALL edit points have been decided.

Does anyone have a script for Step 2 above?
2) Create a reduced size (PIP) version of each track with track motion so you can see all the cameras at once.

Scripts currently cannot control Track Motion.

Create some presets and you can quickly set them up manually.