UCanCallMeAl
Level 1 (18 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Any tips for Syncing 4 camera angles?

Hello All,

I have to sync 4 camera angles of a sporting event and it is maddening.

Any tips ?

 

Thanks,

Al

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

Posted on Oct 14, 2014 1:28 PM

by Meg The Dog,Solvedanswer
Meg The Dog Meg The Dog
Level 6 (11,168 points)
Video
A:

Also, you need to get the mp4 out of the mix. FCE does not work well with it, that's why Apple created AIC. Convert it to AIC.

The DV stuff is going to more trouble - unless you mean it was HDV - because it will either have to be scaled up to fill the HD frame, or the rest of your material will need to be scaled down to fit in the SD frame.

 

MtD

Posted on Oct 15, 2014 1:33 PM

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UCanCallMeAl

Q: Any tips for Syncing 4 camera angles?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Meg The Dog,

    Meg The Dog Meg The Dog Oct 14, 2014 3:20 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 6 (11,168 points)
    Video
    Oct 14, 2014 3:20 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    In Final Cut Express?

    Are the 4 camera angle continuous clips?

     

    MtD

  • by Ian R. Brown,Helpful

    Ian R. Brown Ian R. Brown Oct 15, 2014 12:18 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 6 (18,660 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 12:18 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    This is probably not what you want to hear but the best way is to use Final Cut Pro X which makes the whole process a doddle.

     

    If this is a one-off multi cam project you could download the free 30 day trial to complete it.

     

    http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/trial/


    Using FCE  is extremely fiddly and time-consuming as you have discovered.

  • by David Harbsmeier,Helpful

    David Harbsmeier David Harbsmeier Oct 15, 2014 2:43 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 7 (30,024 points)
    Oct 15, 2014 2:43 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    Line up all 4 clips on 4 video tracks so they're in-sync with each other.  If any of the camera were paused and restarted during the shoot, you'll need to re-sync at each point a camera was paused.

     

    Resize (scale) each of the clips to 50% and position them so one clip is in each corner.  Depending on the video format and your system resources, you may have to render the Timeline in order to play it smoothly.  As you play through the video, place a cut at each point you want to switch to another camera angle and delete any unwanted portions from the other cameras.

     

    Once you've deleted all of the unwanted clips, select (highlight) all clips on the uppermost track (track 4) and hold down the Shift key while you drag the clips down to the next lower track (track 3).  Now do the same thing for track 3 (shift-drag down to track 2) and then shift-drag all clips to track one.  Rescale all clips to 100% and centered to 0 / 0.  Add transitions if needed.

     

    -DH

  • by UCanCallMeAl,

    UCanCallMeAl UCanCallMeAl Oct 15, 2014 6:07 AM in response to David Harbsmeier
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 6:07 AM in response to David Harbsmeier

    Hey all good tips there.

    Using FCE is challenging for this as Ian mentioned. Project is about 1.5 hours long. Would love to read how FC X makes this easier as there will probably be a next time.

    Cam 1 , Cam 2 and Cam 3 are all continuous but started at different times.  Cam 4 is occasional closeups. I've moved Cam 4 up to track 4.

    Cam 2,3,4 are all 1920x1080 but Cam 1 is 720x480 (16x9) so probably won't use Cam 1 that much unless I put out a smaller sized version of the project.

    They will need a web version and youtube size though.

    Cam 1 had the wireless mic though so will use it's audio. I assume mixing sequence sizes somehow would make me go more bald.

     

    Was wondering if I change the render RT options could I get faster render times during the editing/syncing phase ? Appears not to be the case.

    I tried lowering the opacity of clip so I could put them on top of one another and sync visually but this only got me in the ballpark. Then I turned on audio waveforms and tried to sync in the canvas that way and it helped. Very slow.

     

    Gonna try Davids 50% idea .... In the past when I've done this after I make the cuts I leave unused portions on the timeline and just lower the opacity to 0

    in case I want to use that portion again.

    Thanks a bunch,

    Al

  • by Ian R. Brown,

    Ian R. Brown Ian R. Brown Oct 15, 2014 8:43 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 6 (18,660 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 8:43 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    FCE is a cut-down version of legacy FCP and as such it had the multi cam and certain other features removed.

     

    David's excellent description is unfortunately just a workaround and as such is very complex.

     

    FCP versions 1 to 7 were able to deal with multi cam editing fairly easily but the revolutionary FCP X makes it an almost automatic process though every possible adjustment is available for those requiring it.

  • by Meg The Dog,

    Meg The Dog Meg The Dog Oct 15, 2014 10:58 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 6 (11,168 points)
    Video
    Oct 15, 2014 10:58 AM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    UCanCallMeAl wrote:

    In the past when I've done this after I make the cuts I leave unused portions on the timeline and just lower the opacity to 0

    in case I want to use that portion again.

    Another way to do this is to click on the portion you've cut out and want to hide, then type Control-B which toggles "Enable" on the clip.

     

    MtD

  • by UCanCallMeAl,

    UCanCallMeAl UCanCallMeAl Oct 15, 2014 11:46 AM in response to Meg The Dog
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 11:46 AM in response to Meg The Dog

    Hi,

    I've got things in sync.

    What I'm struggling with now is my 2008MBPro seems too slow for editing this .... is it because I'm using 1920x1080 ? I'm getting beach balls on everything.

     

    I have 4gig of ram but would add more if it would help.

     

    Is there any change I can make in Rendering that would allow me to play back at less quality but quicker renders so I can get everything edited before a final render?

    Thanks for tip Meg.

     

    Thanks,
    AL

  • by Meg The Dog,

    Meg The Dog Meg The Dog Oct 15, 2014 12:06 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 6 (11,168 points)
    Video
    Oct 15, 2014 12:06 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    If you are simultaneously trying to play 4 1080 streams, it is going to tax the system at several points - 

    what codec is the original material in? Since you are in FCE, I'm assuming AIC or HDV?

    is it stored on an external raid?

    How is the raid connected to your computer?

     

    You can try changing your timeline settings to

     

    Final Cut ProScreenSnapz001.png

     

    Low Playback Quality and Quarter Frame rate, to see if that helps, (screen shot from FCP-7, don't have FCE loaded) - but you need to get your media on a fast drive system with a fast connection to the computer.

    AIC 1080 is about 112 mb/s per stream so you need to connect to the drive system  with a connection that exceeds 450 mb/s.

     

    MtD

  • by UCanCallMeAl,

    UCanCallMeAl UCanCallMeAl Oct 15, 2014 12:39 PM in response to Meg The Dog
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 12:39 PM in response to Meg The Dog

    Hi MtD,

     

    2 Angles are in AIC.

    A 3rd  is Mp4. This came from a Sony that was shot in m2ts and the only way I could get it into FCE was to import it into the latest iMovie and then export it. I didn't see an option to choose what format for the export. It turned out to be mp4. I brought one of the AIC formats in via an XML from iMovie 8.

    4th camera is NTSC DV.

    Storage: Connected to one external HD using FW 2.

    I tried changing to Low and Quarter and then tried a render to see if it would be faster but no change in render times.

    I don't see an option for Multiclip playback like your pic.

     

    This project is really quite a mess now that I think about it.

    Thanks,

    Al

  • by Meg The Dog,

    Meg The Dog Meg The Dog Oct 15, 2014 1:25 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 6 (11,168 points)
    Video
    Oct 15, 2014 1:25 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    It sounds like you have your hands full.

    From the FCE manual:

     

    SafariScreenSnapz002.png

    SafariScreenSnapz001.png

    MtD

  • by Meg The Dog,Solvedanswer

    Meg The Dog Meg The Dog Oct 15, 2014 1:33 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl
    Level 6 (11,168 points)
    Video
    Oct 15, 2014 1:33 PM in response to UCanCallMeAl

    Also, you need to get the mp4 out of the mix. FCE does not work well with it, that's why Apple created AIC. Convert it to AIC.

    The DV stuff is going to more trouble - unless you mean it was HDV - because it will either have to be scaled up to fill the HD frame, or the rest of your material will need to be scaled down to fit in the SD frame.

     

    MtD

  • by UCanCallMeAl,

    UCanCallMeAl UCanCallMeAl Oct 15, 2014 6:18 PM in response to Meg The Dog
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 6:18 PM in response to Meg The Dog

    I've been wondering what is causing my FCE to slow down, maybe it's the mp4. Always thought that was an Apple codec but someone in another thread explained to me mp4 isn't.

     

    So I'm using Mpeg Streamclip to convert them to AIC, choosing best quality and 29.97 frame rate. Did a short test and it worked like a charm.

    We'll see tomorrow how things are in the timeline and read up on rendering. Converting over night.

     

    Other than having to re-render if I scale 3 cams down to match the DV is there any other future problems if your footage doesn't match the sequence size?

     

    Al

  • by UCanCallMeAl,

    UCanCallMeAl UCanCallMeAl Oct 21, 2014 6:49 AM in response to Meg The Dog
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 21, 2014 6:49 AM in response to Meg The Dog

    Just wanna thank everybody for the help. Project is under control. Converting the mp4 into AIC made a big difference. Mpeg Streamclip did it quickly and I discovered I was down to 19.2 mb of HD space !!!! Once I fixed that speed came back.

     

     

    AL