Thanks... and a question on PIP and video sync

Tailwagger wrote on 12/31/2008, 6:04 AM
First, being new to the board, I'd just like to thank all of you for all the posts that I've been reading through in the past week. My initial experience with this software has been typical, very frustrating in the initial few hours, but thanks to any number of posts here on various subjects, I've think I've gotten a pretty good handle on the organization and usage of VMS. Having fought through, I find the software to be extremely well thought out and truly a joy in terms of the depth of its powers. I've come to assume that VMS has been refined over the years by the pro perspective, favoring simplicity and logical organization for the complex operations, rather basic ones. I'm really starting to like it a lot, bravo to you all for so generously sharing your knowledge and making that possible!

My primary reason for doing video is related to capturing in-car video from racing. I use the video coupled with a data logger which logs speed, g-force, engine revs, etc to determine what worked well and what didnt. Up to now, I've just used a single SD cam. I just acquired my first HD camera and I'm wondering if there are any tricks/gotchas I should know about for assembling video from multiple cameras of differing formats. I expect to have 3 cams, 1920x1080 (front views), 720x480 (hands and feet) and 512x384 (fender and rear views) largely doing PIP ( VMS9 platinum pro version). I'm assuming that I can initially sync my cameras by aligning an audio cue (like rev the motor 3 times). Are there any clever functions in VMS that might help me here? Any particular problems/tricks I should be aware of in terms of PIPing disparate video formats? Its few months til the season begins and I thought I'd run an experiment or two to get familiar with how to get this to work. TIA and again terrific forum, greatly appreciated!

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 12/31/2008, 7:14 AM
Make sure you set the 3 camcorder clocks right to the second. Instead of revving the engine, use a clapper (or car horn) for audio cue.
MSK wrote on 12/31/2008, 9:35 AM
Matching different aspect ratios and formats is pretty easy to do in Vegas. Different formats can be imported into the same project and even distributed on the same video track. You can later crop or stretch clips in your project if the Aspect ratios don't line up exactly to fill in any letterboxing or pillar bars. (Use the Event Pan Crop tools to 'Match Output Aspect Ratio'). It's also usually a good rule of thumb to set the project preview properties equal to the size and settings of the highest resolution clips in your project (which sounds like it will be 1920x1080). You can later render to different format if you need it.

Also, Vegas Pro 8 has features that may be useful to you if you are working on projects with Multiple Camera perspectives... not only can you create projects with unlimited Video and Audio tracks, but the software also offers the Multi-camera editing tools - where you can see multiple tracks of video playback simultaneously and edit between them on the fly.

When you're ready to test it, select from the Downloads / Trials and Demos link above.
Tailwagger wrote on 12/31/2008, 10:03 AM
Race car so no horn. One camera is outside on the nose, so a couple of quick blips of the engine before taking to the track is about the best that can be done. Thanks for the time sync suggestion.
Tailwagger wrote on 12/31/2008, 11:26 AM
Thanks, MSK. I thought briefly about Vegas Pro, but it seemed to be overkill for want I'm trying to do. While occasionally the results go up to youtube for something a bit more creative, the bulk of what I'm interested in is for review and self improvement, so while the main view is full HD out the windshield on the track, the second interior camera is pointed at my feet, while the third out on the bumper is used to see more precisely where the car is positioned in the corners. Its really just syncing all the sources and compositing the views into a single stream for analysis.
richard-amirault wrote on 12/31/2008, 2:47 PM
Race car so no horn. One camera is outside on the nose, so a couple of quick blips of the engine before taking to the track is about the best that can be done. Thanks for the time sync suggestion.

It doesn't have to be something installed in/on the car. How about just slapping the hood with your hand real hard? OR .. if you're worried about denting the hood ... just clapping your hands together? Whatever you do it would help is you did it with an audible countdown like ... "Countdown, three, two, one ... (clap/slap/whatever)"

The smaller / shorter the audio clue is .. the easier it will be to sync the tracks together. Engine blips will not get you as close as one sharp noise.

Tailwagger wrote on 12/31/2008, 9:07 PM
Clapping, at least with the engine on wont likely be heard in cockpit, let alone out side the car. Bear in mind that there is zero sound insulation, the interior is gutted and the engine and transmission are connected via solid metal mounts, not the rubber bushings found in a street car. It is noisy and LOUD. And then there are gloves on as well. While I could do this, gloves and engine off, at least for the interior cams, by the time one straps in, grids, and gets on track it could be upwards of a dozen minutes or more of wasted recording. Thats problematic as I carry a netbook with limited storage to the track and unless I come armed with a extra hundred gig of sdhc, I'm forced to edit all that out before saving. This really means that I have to have a cue that occurs right before I get underway. I think I might be able to sync the outside camera at least to within a few tenths visually via start finish line. Guess I'll just have to experiment.
richard-amirault wrote on 1/1/2009, 4:32 AM
How about one of those air horns that fans often use?
Tailwagger wrote on 1/1/2009, 6:52 AM
Cant really carry around extraneous items that could fly around the cockpit. Cornering regularly exceeds 1.5G and peaks around 1.8G. Just to give you an idea of what the environment looks like, here's a video from last summer of an driver's ed enduro session, done with a Canon FS100 and produced with WMM. Instructors and top students out at full tilt, eventually. http://vimeo.com/1318301.

BTW, is it possible to time compress video? I see where in the the lower left corner I can time compress to scrub, but is there a way to apply this effect to the final product? Thought it would be interesting to show just how long it takes to get strapped in and out on the track, but I'd like to compress the 5-10 miniutes into a 1-2 minute video.

[EDIT] Okay I think figured it out. You edit the event properties and change the playback rate. Tres cool!
Tim L wrote on 1/1/2009, 8:17 AM
Okay I think figured it out. You edit the event properties and change the playback rate. Tres cool!

You can also ctrl-drag the end of an even to speed it up or slow it down.

Put your mouse on the end of the event, hold the CTRL key, then click and drag the end of the event. Drag it to the left to make it shorter and speed it up, or drag it to the right to make it longer and slow it down. You can make it as much as 4x faster (0.25 x as long) or 4x slower (4x as long).

The only thing to watch for when altering the playback via "Properties" is that the video will "loop" until you adjust the end again. For example, if you have a 20 second clip on the timeline, and you right-click, select Properties, and then set the playback to 4.0, you will end up with a clip that plays back 4x as fast. This means the action is now 5 seconds long instead of 20 seconds. However, it will still be a 20-second long event on the timeline, so it ends up repeating the same action 4 times, until you drag the end of the event back to the first "notch" in the event and make it end at the natural end of the video clip.

On the other hand, if you do the control-drag method of changing the playback speed, you necessarily have changed the length of your event. If you are dealing with the entire clip, this is probably what you want. But if you just had a 10-second clip in between two other events, and it was already timed to music or something, then you would need to drag (not ctrl-drag) the end of the even back out to 10 seconds to fill out the gap.

Each method has its own advantages, depending on the situation.

Tim L
Tailwagger wrote on 1/1/2009, 10:21 AM
I see. Thanks! That seems simpler. With the method I chose, I had to monkey with the audio properties independently. If I do it this way does the audio compress with the video?

Heres a quick taste of getting out on track sped up. http://vimeo.com/2688487. Somehow the upload resulted in some interlacing artifacts not present locally, but you get the idea.
mike_in_ky wrote on 1/1/2009, 3:09 PM
Tailwagger...

The Vimeo video is listed as "private" and so I wasn't able to access it.

mike_in_nc
Tailwagger wrote on 1/1/2009, 4:35 PM
Indeed... now public.
mike_in_ky wrote on 1/1/2009, 5:38 PM
Tailwagger...

I see what you mean. These are neat videos, kind of a bird's eye view if you will. I enjoyed them.

mike_in_nc
RCDuggiedug wrote on 1/4/2009, 6:26 PM
Would it be possible to use a visual sync item such as a camera flash?
richard-amirault wrote on 1/5/2009, 2:25 PM
No. What the original poster failed to mention in his original post was that he wants/needs to do this at the begining of a race .. while he is on the racetrack! (just before the start of the race)

He cannot have anything (for sync purposes) that is not already there (in/on the car) because he has no place to store that device during the race.
mike_in_ky wrote on 1/6/2009, 7:28 AM
That being the case (is already on the track for the beginning of the race), perhaps a simple revving of his engine would suffice as an audio sync.

mike_in_nc
richard-amirault wrote on 1/6/2009, 2:19 PM
That is exactly what he originally suggested.

I thought it may not be exact enough .. but, at the time, he hadn't fully explained his circumstances .. so we tried to figure out something else.

It seems it may be his only valid choice.