An Easy editing Program

[Habby]

For years I have used Pinnacle studio. I went from 8 to 9 and now 10. The trouble is, I am now using two camcorders which is Studio 10's limit. I plan to add a third cam, so what program is out there similar to pinnacle that has more than two video tracks? Pinnacle is so easy to manually syncranize two clips of the same event because you can see the audio clips. I don't have a lot of time to relearn if you know what I mean. It's wedding season.

[edDV]

For years I have used Pinnacle studio. I went from 8 to 9 and now 10. The trouble is, I am now using two camcorders which is Studio 10's limit. I plan to add a third cam, so what program is out there similar to pinnacle that has more than two video tracks? Pinnacle is so easy to manually syncranize two clips of the same event because you can see the audio clips. I don't have a lot of time to relearn if you know what I mean. It's wedding season.

By three cams you mean three primary video tracks. Time to move up to the next tier of editors. Premiere Pro comes with multicam support. Try the demo.

[cdb]

Vegas 6.0 ($99 at bhphoto.com) can handle unlimited video and audio tracks.

You can stack multiple angles of the same scene over each other (this is what you are talking about with multiple cams?), drag back and forth to synchronize (turn off "quantize to frames" if needed to get the audio perfectly synced), and then easily edit them to choose which one you want at any point. Basically you position the cursor where you want the cut to be, "split" across all the tracks, and then when you're done, create a new top level track to hold whatever cam/angle you want at each point. There's a guide I saw somewhere that explains this technique in very simple terms. If I can find it I'll post a link.

[edDV]

I agree Vegas can do it but Premiere Pro 2 allows you to monitor and trim multiple camera sources at any point in the timeline. IMO Premiere wins this one. I may get CS3 mainly for this feature.

I found a tutrorial on Multicam.
http://www.zoom-in.com/tutorials/Adobe/premiere/multi_cam/index.php?part=1


Edit: Well that never got to the point but described setting up for Multi-Camera.

Here is the quick demo that they usually do.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/newfeatures.html
Play the swf.

[cdb]

That demo on Premiere Pro 2.0 looks impressive.

Here's the link on several ways to edit multicam in Vegas.

http://www.videoguys.com/Vegas_Tips/TTS01-09.pdf

You could set up 4 tracks to preview simultaneously as PIP, and then remove the PIP effect on your final track to put it back to fullscreen, but that's nowhere near as elegant as what they were showing with Premiere. If you do a lot of multicam editing it looks to me like Premiere is the way to go.

[edDV]

I've done "manual" three camera in older versions of Premiere and in Vegas. Event type shoots are easier than weddings. I've never been paid to do weddings but often get asked. Weddings are tough. It's all about multi-cam* if you want to do it right.

* also audio pickup, lighting and fighting the still cam clueless idiot for shooting position. Today I only shoot weddings on the condition the still camera person is directed by me and that I get input on lighting and microphones.