How to add different video clips on the same audio track ?

[AAC]

Hi there,

I'm new to video editing.

I used two mini DV camcorders to capture one hour acdemic seminar video. One capture the speaker's image and the other recorded on screen Power Point presentaiton and students in classroom.
I would like to know which user friendly software (less expensive) can help me to add different video clips on the same audio track like what I seen on TV news. What I mean is the background sound track is always the speaker's lectur but video picture could be mixed up with video captured by two mini DV camcorders. Sometimes showing the speaker, sometimes showing the students and Power Point presentation.

After recording, I used to transfer footage from camcorder to PC and saved as AVI format.

Many thanks.

[tmh]

Many editing softwares will do this just fine - look thru the tools section for advanced editing software. I use Magix movie Edit Pro and you can buy an older version (MEP 10 or 11) for very cheap on ebay. But again, most will handle this job.

You'll want to add the avi of the speaker with the sound from that source to make sure the sound and video are in perfect sync. Then in another track add the other video. You should be able to expand the view so you can line the two up close to perfect ( I use the wave look in the soundtrack to line up peaks/valleys, pretty easy). Then you can "ungroup" the sound from the video for this second track and delete the audio.

Now you'll have two video tracks and one audio. Simply split/cut/fade etc between the two video tracks and you'll have what you want. It will take some playing around in any program, but it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Then you need to output the created video to whatever format you'll need -that's a seperate discussion.

Good luck. Search those editing programs before asking too many more questions or folks here won't be inclined to help much - mosy like to see some effort on your part to follow advice!

So, now with

[AAC]

Thanks for the advice. I will try it out.
I have Premier Element and hope it works.

[AAC]

Now you'll have two video tracks and one audio. Simply split/cut/fade etc between the two video tracks and you'll have what you want. It will take some playing around in any program, but it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Hi tmh,
I took your advice and get the MEP 12 and imported two 1 minute test video to test the two video and one sound tracks effect. I could ungroup them and reached 2 video and 1 sound tracks. Each video gave me 5-6 small picture in the Edit page. Unfortunately, after numerous attempts, I couldn't break (or split) these 2 video tracks and merged them in one desired video. What I need is to merge or re-arrnge the sequence of differnt shots in these 2 video tracks because they were captured by two DV camcorder from different angles. I read the manual but no luck. Could you give me more hints ?

Many thanks.

[AAC]

What a dummy I am.
After several attempts, I gave up the Magix EP 12 becasue I just couldn't (or didn't know) trim the video chips. I then turned to Premier Elements and it's more user friendly.
However, I still don't know how to syn the speaker's lip with the original audio track if more video clips (like audience's reaction, slides..etc) are inserted in between. I can keep the original audio track running when inserting 1 minutes other video clips and but hard to keep the speaker's lip syn to the audio track after insertion. Is there any special trick that I missed ?

[guns1inger]

I do this type of thing reguarly in Vegas. I start by syncing all the tracks based on the audio, so I know they are all correct. I then choose one audio track to work with (in most cases), then cut back and forth between the main video and the secondary clips. What you have to avoid is cutting the audio and video, then inserting clips in between. You need to only remove a section of video, and replace it with video from another clip.

I haven't used Premiere in years, but in Vegas this is easily done by using Envelopes, and controlling the opacity of the top track on the timeline without cutting. I can then cross fade, slowly or quickly, from track to track, without altering the position of video relative to audio at any stage.