Vegas multi-camera joy
 

Just to say I do love the Vegas multi-camera function which is fantastic - used it for a 2 camera shoot. But i cant find in th emanual how to restore the original 2 tracks, they disappear leaving the final edited one. Anyone help in restoring the original tracks?

The newly created multicam track stays as one trcak after multicam editing is finshed/disabled.

What you want to do is, after you've sync'd up the tracks,and BEFORE you create a multicam track, duplicate the 2 video tracks, so now you've got 4 video tracks, THEN select 2 video tracks (one from each cam) and create the multicam track , you now got 2 spare video tracks, already sync'd to use as spare after completing the multicam track.
If you don't need them after then delete them.

Paul.

Download the demo for Edius and see how wonderful multicam can really be!!! All tracks stay there, post editing of cut points can be shifted with the mouse etc etc. Now for audio editing ...... stay with Vegas!!

Ron Evans

The "duplicate" tracks method paul refers to is too cumbersome for me as I will sometimes have a half dozen other supporting audio tracks synched up with the video.

I just synch everything up first before starting the multicam edit then do a "save as" making myself a temporary copy of the project. I then reopen the first project and make the edit. Once I'm done I just open the saved project with all the extra audio tracks in it, copy and paste those in the multicam edit. Being able to have multiple copies of Vegas makes this pretty painless.

I'm new with Vegas so if there's a more conventional way to do this with a lot of tracks I'd like to hear it.

Rick, I think Paul is only suggesting you duplicate the video tracks which you can lock to the audio tracks. I may have misunderstood, but creating a whole separate veg appears to be even more cumbersome. I had a bad night though, so my brain is numb this morning!

Hmm... Maybe the Edius users should download Vegas and the scripting multi-cam solutions like Excalibur or Ultimate S and then THEY could see how wonderful multi-cam can really be!

While multi-cam is built-in in Vegas Pro 8, multi-cam has been available for over 5 years in Vegas!

Edward, Excaliber is a wonderful product but it isn't part of Vegas its a $130 product that integrates with Vegas. The multicam in Vegas 8 and CS3 as standard both collapse the timeline in multicam mode which in my mind makes them useless. Edius does not and with one button one can switch back and forth between the modes at will and modify at anytime. If one wishes it too will collapse to another single track still leaving all the originals in place too something neither Vegas 8 or CS3 can do in their standard form as purchased. I have all three NLE's for different reasons, they all have their strengths and weakness.

Ron Evans

All you do is open a veg file. synch up camera on different tracks. Save it as camera tracks. Then resave as multicam under a different name. Then initiate the multicam edit process by making the multicam rack. All that is ever created is a simple .veg file, which is not made of video tracks, but is made up of instruction on what to do with raw original video tracks. What is cumbersome about that. You don't even open a new window, as the save as function does it.

Chris, it wasn't so much the creation of the second veg as the copying and pasting of the tracks back into the original that Rick talked of that I thought was cumbersome.

Rick said . . .:

"I just synch everything up first before starting the multicam edit then do a "save as" making myself a temporary copy of the project. I then reopen the first project and make the edit. Once I'm done I just open the saved project with all the extra audio tracks in it, copy and paste those in the multicam edit."

. . . which appears to be different to your method and involves more steps, hence my comment about it seeming more cumbersome than just duplicating the video tracks and muting/minimising them as required.

But to be honest, I'm not an event videographer and I haven't used (and don't expect to use) the multicam features of Vegas, so this was just an uninformed observation.

I see what you're saying but again, duplicating a dozen tracks just seems too cluttered for me. Maybe if I didn't have all the other audio sources I have it would be ok.

It's just a lot easier for me to open another instance of Vegas with the original synched timelines (before I invoked multicam)... copy all the audio tracks and paste them into the multicam edit. Takes all of 10 seconds.

This is a workflow I'm just carrying over from Premiere. I haven't quite figured out how to apply any CC filters to the footage before I start multicam though. I think I have to do in the project media window first.

Ah, I just meant duplicating the video tracks.

right. with just the video duplicated (and synchronized to the multiple audio tracks which have all been grouped to they don't get un-synced) then it should be easy to duplicate the video.

But I agree that the behavior of Vegas is annoying when the tracks get combined AND all the clip video fx (like color correction) disappear. Seems like it Vegas should have left the clip FX alone OR left the tracks where they were and just performed the cuts. I personally would prefer that the clips would be left on the initial tracks so I could apply track level color correction (media color correction doesn't work if lighting conditions change inside of the same clip).

I had to giggle at Ron's reply to Ed. Ron clearly wasn't aware that Ed wrote Excalibur. I'd be interested in hearing more about his take on all this.

My reply was specifically because I did know Ed wrote Excaliber and it is a good program. I have had Vegas since it was an audio only program so am well aware of the people who have written programs for Vegas over the years. But it isn't Vegas its Excaliber running in Vegas. As I mentioned Vegas and CS3 multicam are poor in comparison to Edius. IF you need to spend $130 to make Vegas a usable multicam then in stock form it isn't very good.

Ron Evans

I'm guessing they looked at it every which way before integrating the multicam feature as it is now. Keeping the FX on the track level would bring a 4 cam edit down to a crawl in the preview windows which incidently is what the Excalibur demo did on my system.

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

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

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

Peace,

marks

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

Copy the tracks...
 

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.