Vegas multi-camera joy

[Danny Fye]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

IF you need to spend $130 to make Vegas a usable multicam then in stock form it isn't very good.

Ron Evans

I use infinitiCam from VASST and it costs $69.00. I paid a little less because I had a coupon code.

I looked at the built in multi-cam of Vegas 8 and it is quite cumbersome compared to infinitiCam. Mostly has to do with what I am used to.

A nice thing about infinitiCam is that it is not limited to four cams. Thus the name.

It is also very easy to use. In fact the easiest!

Danny Fye
www.vidmus.com/scolvs

[Ron Evans]

To be fair to Edward I hadn't looked at Excaliber for a few years so just downloaded version 6 and tried on my quad core Q9450. Followed the manual instructions to create a 4 cam edit of 4 clips from the last project all HDV from FX1 cams. Compared to Edius it is slow and requires specific naming etc not needed by Edius which automatically takes track numbers which can be changed if needed. Edius can sync to timecode etc as well as manually moving clips on the timeline to sync up. Edius will run at normal speed in multicam without dropping frames showing 4 cams and master output. Changes to the tracks can be seen immediately one stops playback (pressing keypad number corresponding to cams will change on the fly like a video switcher ie switch points disable/mute clips on tracks not used at that time) With one button press one can then go back and play in normal mode to see full output on monitor. Fine edits can be performed again in multicam mode with the mouse by dragging marker nodes ( which only appear in multicam mode and are different from timeline markers which can be used as chapter markers in DVD creation later. While dragging the marker one can see all cameras in the monitor to fine tune a cut especially if timeline is expanded to 1 or two frame resolution to match an activity or sync to music beat etc. Again cameras can be changed in this mode by clicking on the appropriate camera PiP on the monitor. Because nothing on the timeline is moved, it finally appears as if one had laboriously gone through and split clips and muted the ones not needed , one can go and apply track FX or go to individually used clips and apply effects at any time. This doesn't effect the multicam mode and one can switch back and forth at will. No final rendering as Edius plays out from the timeline with no rendering for most DV projects and has a speed renderer for HDV. Once finished one can create a single track and continue to apply fancy transition etc if needed though the multicam can apply a default transition also.
Haven't changed my mind on a short test in the last hour.

Ron Evans

[Mark Stavar]

Originally Posted by Danny Fye

A nice thing about infinitiCam is that it is not limited to four cams. Thus the name.
www.vidmus.com/scolvs

Just for the record, Vegas allows up to 36 cameras.

Peace,

marks

[Ian Stark]

Note to self: Remember to white balance the other 34 cameras before use. ;-)

[Sherif Choudhry]

Paul, thanks, I've tried the copy suggestion and it worked fine. Ref the recommendations on other s/w I did find the Vegas multicam simplicity itself so I will stick with it - I am sure the other recommendations are good as well.