By popular demand...

[Edward Troxel]

I like it! (I just don't like any of the shortened versions - to my friends, I'm Edward)

[Terry Thompson]

OK enough thanks (Thanks Chris-by the way),

Edward,

Can you do a short descrip of the Multicam thing. Does it cut and assemble tracks automatically or what? Is it limited to four cameras?

Tery

[Edward Troxel]

There are two multi-cam products currently available and both offer:
1) Assistance with syncing
2) Auto creation of PIP'd view
3) Camera buttons for easy switching of cameras via the toolbar, keypresses, or other devices such as the ShuttlePro.
4) Live switching on Vegas 6.0b
5) Tally system showing which camera is currently active
6) Auto updating of tallys should a marker be moved.

Ultimate S 2 from VASST does the above for up to 4 cameras.

Excalibur 4.5 at www.jetdv.com/excalibur does the above with presets for up to 25 cameras.

Naturally both do a little more than is listed above and each does a couple of things the other doesn't. For example, Ultimate S is less restrictive in the track naming convention and will allow moving of the markers after the master track is created and then will readjust the master track to match.

Excalibur does want specific names (i.e. 1 for camera 1, 2 for camera 2...) and, instead, adds all alternate angles as Takes so you can easily change any segment to a different angle after the fact. Plus edits can be easily slipped by holding down the ALT key and using the mouse.

A couple of additional features in Excalibur are that any crossfade can be of a specified length. You can use the default length (which you can specify) or specify an override length. Plus any transition can be assigned to any crossfade. Another cool feature is that the tally will actually dissolve the same length as the specified crossfade on playback giving you a visual indication of the length of the dissolve.

For more information, you might want to look at Vol 1 #9, Vol 2 #2, Vol 2 #7, and Vol 3 #1 of my newsletter.