Can I do A/B switching of multi cams in post-edit?

[bobnh911]

Hi all, I am getting back into video after a few years away. I was involved with recording services, weddings, etc. at my former church (2 Canon XL1's into Videonics MX-1, then to S-VHS). I am trying to setup something similar at my current church, but doing more digital.

I just bought a GL-2 and have a long list of equipment we want, but cannot get yet, including camera #2 and a switch. In the short term, however, if I run more than 1 camera, can I effectively do post-editing with A/B type dissolves and still keep things in sync without spending weeks to create the final project? Is anyone doing this right now and can they share some tips or tricks to ease the pain?

I have downloaded trials of Ulead VideoStudio, Pinnacle Studio Plus, and Vegas 5.0, and I am just starting to try them with sample video. Studio Plus claims it can do mutiple cam tracks, but the trial version only has overlays for 2nd track.

Also, does anyone have a church "setup" that works well for them now, and is willing to share? I'm looking for a good schematic as well that shows the pieces and how they all fit together.

thanks
Bob

[pijetro]

In the short term, however, if I run more than 1 camera, can I effectively do post-editing with A/B type dissolves

I'm not sure that A/B type is preferred during the cutting stage. Perhaps output the edited video, and add dissolves to spice up..

In essence, multicam setup requires that you put a marker at similair points of the video (like a cough, or hand clap), and overlay on top of each other. So at any point you can switch between video layers and keep synch..
A crude explanation, but the "Total Training" series for Premiere Pro offers a fantastic lesson in Multi Cam Editing..

Good luck!!

[Richard_G]

I do this using Ulead Mediastudio Pro, the process should be very similar with different software. I shoot stage productions using 3 cameras but take a composite video feed from one camera and feed it into a VHS recorder. I then take a clean audio feed directly from the sound mixer and feed this into the same VHS recorder. This means I end up with 3 DV video streams from the cameras with audio that includes audience sounds and background rubbish and a further video stream (captured as DV using one of the cameras as a passthrough) with identical video to that from one camera and a 'clean' audio stream.

I place the 4 streams on the timeline and sync them roughly using the video as a guide (any stage pyrotechnics are ideal for this but you probably don't use pyros in church!). By displaying the audio from each stream as a waveform, I can then adjust the relative positions of each stream until they are approximately in sync. I then select a pair of streams (disabling the other 2) and pan the audio from one fully left and the other fully right. Playing from the timeline while listening on headphones, I can hear which audio stream is ahead. Adjust one or other on the timeline until they are properly synced with each other. Disable one of these streams and enable another and do the same. Repeat this process until all 4 are in sync then pan all of them back to centre. It takes time, but once done should sound fine (even 1 or 2 frames out is very noticable), it also means that the video is perfectly synced too.

Once this is done, I have 4 streams that are all syncronised to within a frame and I can adjust the relative levels to give decent quality audio (by using 60 - 70% from the clean feed) but keeping the audience sounds there (by using 10 - 15% from each of the cameras). I then have to split the audio from the video on each stream so that I can edit out chunks of video (to cut from one shot to another) without cutting the corresponding audio. Finally, I delete the video that came from the VHS recorder just leaving the audio.

In your case it should be much simpler. Record everything from both camcorders (don't ever stop them). Transfer the video by Firewire. Place the 2 video streams on the timeline and get them in sync using the audio (by panning one fully left and the other fully right). A handclap every so often to confirm you are still in sync could be useful, but shouldn't really be necessary. Different cams can drift very slightly in speed but if you are using two identical cams it is likely they'll drift at the same rate.

[bobnh911]

Richard & pijetro,

thanks. I did line up the two audio streams pretty closely last evening using Vegas 5 using the method Richard suggested. One track is cleaner than the other, so I muted the poor one.

Now, I am trying to find a way to cut between video tracks, back and forth, using dissolves in some cases (maybe A/B switch was not the right term). Do all the programs require me to cut chunks in/out?

Is there no way to select a set of frames, or time, from one track as the main selection and then go back and forth that way? Seems easy in my head, but it was not intuitive with Vegas. I downloaded Ulead MediaStudio Pro last night to try as well, but have not loaded in yet.

thanks
Bob

[Richard_G]

I've never used Vegas so don't know how you do it in that. In Mediastudio Pro you cut sections out. You can either do a simple cut or (as I tend to do) a short crossfade. I use a 10 frame crossfade which isn't too drawn out but not to sudden either. Once you have something that looks right, I save the finished footage as DV avi (MSP only re-compresses anything that has changed, it doesn't touch the rest so no loss of quality) ready to import into my authoring software to turn it into DVD compliant format. That was I still have the original raw footage and the dited footage both in as best quality as possible.