Multicam Editor Questions

Eldor

Member Location: Montreal, Canada Joined: Feb 27, 2015 10:13 Messages: 112 Offline

Solved by

Mar 09, 2015 15:44

I sure hope I'm doing something wrong here...

I'm playing with the Multicam Editor for the first time and I've placed my four clips into the editor. I sync'd them using audio and that appears to have worked quite well. Then I pressed Record and tried to click on the camera I wanted (1-4) for each part of the resulting compilation. That really didn't work well... The Preview window seemed to freeze although the audio continued, and clicking on different cameras didn't seem to switch the preview to them.

I changed from High Preview Resolution to Normal resolution in hopes that this would help, but it doesn't appear to.

My resulting compilation didn't show what I had wanted. From the Timeline I right-clicked and chose to Edit in Multicam Editor and now I'm trying to review my recording, splitting it in sections and selecting another camera. Well, that's not working right for me either. The preview window isn't updating correctly.

As an example of what I mean, the attached screen capture shows that the scrubber (is that what it's called?) is on top of the last segment which is from camera 4. Yet the preview window STILL shows (clearly) video from camera 1.

This is most frustrating. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong here or how to fix it.

The computer has 16gb of ram, i7, Win7 64-bit. NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 with the latest drivers, but with the three older files re-installed as per messages here to re-enable hardware acceleration.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks!


Filename	Multi.png	Download
Description	Screen Cap showing camera 4 should be used but it's camera 1
Filesize	567 Kbytes
Downloaded:	90 time(s)

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Mar 09, 2015 16:13

Hi Eldor -

PDR13 isn't with me right now, so I'm just going on what you've posted.

In your screenshot, it "looks" as if Camera 1 has been selected (i.e. clicked on) in the library. What happens when you select that last clip in the timeline and play?

I don't doubt that what you say is happening is happening, at all. Depending on the properties of the clips you're using, there's a lot of work in processing 4 clips simultaneously.

What happens when you sync the clips in the main timeline and manually split & mix clips (i.e. outside MC Designer)? Does PDR give you the same lagging & stuttering? Shown here http://youtu.be/xTH8X9VnqUA

Cheers - Tony
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Eldor

Member Location: Montreal, Canada Joined: Feb 27, 2015 10:13 Messages: 112 Offline

Mar 09, 2015 17:15

Remember, I'm a real beginner with video editing and PowerDirector...

I just enabled ShadowFiles to see if that improves things and in the Multicam Editor it doesn't appear to have changed anything.

If I do this manually in the main timeline (splitting and mixing clips) is there any "forgiveness"? In order words, if I split a clip and then delete a section, if I make a mistake or later change my mind about the split, do I have to start all over again? My impression (as a beginner) is that the Multicam Editor would allow going back and making such changes (if it works).

Also with doing it manually in the timeline, what do I do about my audio? My best audio comes from camera 3... Should I separate the audio from the video in that track, copy the audio and paste it into another (?) audio track, sync everything by audio (or should I have done that first?) and then delete or mute the audio in the other clips?

My computer isn't the most powerful out there for video editing, but I guess it's more powerful than 80% of the computers out there. Could the power of my computer be the problem?

Quote: What happens when you sync the clips in the main timeline and manually split & mix clips (i.e. outside MC Designer)? Does PDR give you the same lagging & stuttering? Shown here http://youtu.be/xTH8X9VnqUA

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Mar 09, 2015 17:27

Hi Eldor -

In asking that question (about doing it in the main timeline), I wasn't saying that would be a better way to do it... I was trying to establish if your PC responded any differently if you by-passed MC Designer.

For your purposes, using MC Designer should be the preferable workflow (if it was responding properly). It allows you to save what you've done then go back and modify. You're right. The timeline method is less forgiving, unless you used video trim rather than splitting and removing.

If you're a "real beginner" and you're editing a multi-cam shoot, I'd say you're an adventurous beginner who'll learn a lot in a short space of time!

Cheers - Tony
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Eldor

Member Location: Montreal, Canada Joined: Feb 27, 2015 10:13 Messages: 112 Offline

Mar 09, 2015 17:50

Tony,

Most people wouldn't call me adventurous... they'd call me stupid! Thank you for being kind!

Please help me understand your comment... "...unless you used video trim rather than splitting and removing".

I've used video trim, both single and multi-trim. But when it comes to multicam editing, if you have a bunch of trimmed clips, isn't it next to impossible to synchronize them?

Please correct my thinking here if I'm off base...

I used 4 cameras. At the start, I clapped my hands loudly, and that clap serves as the audio synchronization point and indeed, as far as I can see, that works very well.

So I've got 4 clips on my timeline, synchronized. If I were to use multi-trim on any of those clips, I would loose that synchronization between clips, right?

And if I did the multi-trim first, then in my particular case, there wouldn't be an audio signal (clap) to synchronize to.

How would video trim (single or multi) help me here?

But I sure wish I could get the Multicam Editor to work properly. I'll try it again tomorrow at my office on a different computer (slightly more powerful and with a different video card) to see if that works better.

Thank you very much for your help!

Eldor

Eldor

Member Location: Montreal, Canada Joined: Feb 27, 2015 10:13 Messages: 112 Offline

Mar 09, 2015 19:02

This time I managed to do my Multicam edit fairly well in the ME, but I was not able to play it back. The audio would play normally but the video simply froze.

I clicked on save, and the recorded part was brought into the main Timeline.

From there I also was NOT able to play it back without the video playback freezing. (Audio continued.)

Just for giggles I rendered the video anyway, and the result plays back just fine... both audio and video.

Now I need to figure out what's wrong (could it be my computer?) to not allow proper editing. As I said earlier, I'll test tomorrow with my office computer, which is just slightly more powerful and with a newer video card (but also a NVIDIA).

Is there anything I could do to optimize PowerDirector performance on my computer?

Thanks!

Dafydd B

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline

Mar 10, 2015 05:40

Hi Eldor,
If you can provide a diagnostic file we'd be able to assist you on your PC. See Part A & B info in the guide: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/40225.page

In my opinion, you're using MultiCam Designer with a low powered computer. For 4x cameras (HD*/2K/4K) you'll need to look at having a powerful graphics card, sufficient ram, a fast CPU and fast disc drive (data transfer rates).

*1080p, high bitrate footage

We all have to start somewhere and if you look at the first posts by editors here you'll find nearly all of them needed help in one form or another, many were new to video editing. Never worry about asking a question, just post a new topic with your new question and members will be keen to assist you.

Dafydd

Eldor

Member Location: Montreal, Canada Joined: Feb 27, 2015 10:13 Messages: 112 Offline

Mar 10, 2015 08:59

Dafydd, thanks for jumping in. I appreciate your (and everyone's) help.

Low-powered computer? As I said in the first message in this thread, the computer has 16gb of ram, i7, Win7 64-bit. NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 with the latest drivers, but with the three older files re-installed as per messages here to re-enable hardware acceleration. Is more information needed? (I'm not being lazy... I'll look at the post you've pointed me to.)

Anyway, I won't be able to get any more diagnostic info until sometime tonight when I get home. Now I'm at work, and I just tried the same project with my work computer. I opened the recording with the Multicam Editor and played it. I WAS ABLE to play it through without problem, something I was NOT able to do with the home computer. So it IS looking like an issue with that machine.

Funny, the two computers are virtually identical, except the i7 processor here at work is 3.40GHz and the one at home is 2.9-something. Also the video cards are different. Here it's an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti.

If I'm not too busy today I'll give the Multicam Editor more of a test with my work computer.

Thanks again for the help!

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Mar 10, 2015 09:27

Eldor -

There's quite a bit of difference between the two GPUs you've mentioned - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1566&cmp[]=16

It would seem to be a hardware issue in any case, since you're getting different behaviour on each PC.

Maybe the full DxDiag will shed some light.

Cheers - Tony
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optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 10, 2015 23:13

I think Dafydd and Tony have you pointed in the right direction. The comparison page Tony partially linked to (fixed here - BBCode hates extra bracket characters!) shows that the 550 is 4x more powerful than your Quadro, and that would easily explain the issues you're having with ME on your home PC.

If you can afford to put in a more powerful video card (like the excellent and affordable new GTX 960), you'll be a much happier editor

EDIT: If you ever need to link to a URL that contains bracket characters "[" or "]" on the forum, the only way to get that part of the link to be passed on to the webpage is to "% escape" them, meaning to change them into their character codes. You'll need to manually change every "[" to "%5B" and every "]" to "%5D" It's a real pain and it's pity there isn't an automated way to do this, but fortunately most URLs don't contain brackets.

In the above example, the last section of the link copied from the webpage ends in:

"...cmp[]=1566&cmp[]=16"

has to be changed to:

"...cmp%5B%5D=1566&cmp%5B%5D=16"

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Mar 10. 2015 23:39

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 00:04

Thank you for fixing up my silly link optodata!

I'll see if I can assimilate the information you've provided, so I don't make the same mistake again.

Cheers - Tony
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optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 00:09

Sorry that the "fix" is so ponderous

Eldor

Member Location: Montreal, Canada Joined: Feb 27, 2015 10:13 Messages: 112 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 09:13

Dafydd et al,

I'm attaching a zip file containing both the DxDiag and 64DxDiag files you asked for. And the version of PowerDirector I'm running is 13.0.2604.1

I sure appreciate your help and hope these files let you see where my problem is.

And I'll investigate getting a new video card like the GTX 960 that was recommended.

My office computer seems to work faster/better with the different video card it has, but unfortunately I have little time at work to do any playing (uh, video editing).

Cheers!

Filename	Eldor-DxDiag.zip	Download
Description
Filesize	15 Kbytes
Downloaded:	219 time(s)

Dafydd B

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 12:36

Hi Eldor,
GPU - yep, please "investigate"

.
The CPU's will manage but could be more powerful.

I have an SSD as my C drive - heck it makes my HDD look slow

Just an opinion.
Dafydd

Eldor

Member Location: Montreal, Canada Joined: Feb 27, 2015 10:13 Messages: 112 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 12:41

Hi Dafydd,

I'm trying to source out a GTX 960. (And posted a question about variants of it in the GTX 960 thread.)

I too have an SSD as my C drive, but I use it only for *programs*. My working drives D: and E: (separate drives) are both ESATA.

Are there some suggestions for optimizing PowerDirector use of the resources?

Thanks again!

Quote: Hi Eldor,
GPU - yep, please "investigate"

.
The CPU's will manage but could be more powerful.

I have an SSD as my C drive - heck it makes my HDD look slow

Just an opinion.
Dafydd

Dafydd B

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 13:06

Quote: Hi Dafydd,
I'm trying to source out a GTX 960. (And posted a question about variants of it in the GTX 960 thread.)
I too have an SSD as my C drive, but I use it only for *programs*. My working drives D: and E: (separate drives) are both ESATA.
Are there some suggestions for optimizing PowerDirector use of the resources?
Thanks again!

Hi Eldor,
Umm, a good question that has me pondering. Using internal drives are best regarding video editing in my opinion. Others may have more say on the matter.
Dafydd

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 13:24

Hi Eldor -

Others are better equipped to advise on matters technical but, from my experience here, your issue does seem to be hardware related.

I have 2 PCs running PDR 13 - one "barely does the job" with MC Designer & the other flies through it without a problem.

(optodata - this will test whether I've followed your instructions correctly)

Here are my two CPUs side by side - the struggler is comparable with your i7-870 - and here are my two GPUs

My lower end PC does fine with MC Designer if the clips are 720p (or less) and not too long.

Anyway - it appears you've isolated the problem.

Cheers - Tony

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optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 13:32

Eldor, I think the setup that you and Dafydd have is well suited for video editing. You'll get the fastest performance from PD13 when it's running from an SSD and as long as you have a data transfer rate from your HDDs (whether internal or external) that's greater than the bit rate of your media, you'll be fine.

In rough numbers, HD files run around 28Mbps and a typical 7200rpm drive can transfer data at ~110Mbps. Since you're looking at editing 4 clips simultaneously in the ME, you'd ideally need 4x28 or 112Mbps- so you should be right at the limit. Depending on various parameters, you may or may not get full speed over your eSATA connection so you might want to measure you transfer rate to be certain.

The easiest way (for me) is to transfer a big file from your test drive to your C: drive. SSDs can transfer data at 300 - 500Mbps+ so what you'll be measuring is the HDD speed. When the transfer is occurring, just click on the Details tab on the transfer window and you'll see the transfer rate.

If you see a number that's significantly lower than you expect, it could be that you have an older 5400rpm drive which can only transfer data at maybe 40-60Mbps. If that's the case updating to a newer drive would help. If you're using a new drive but aren't getting over 100Mbps, then it may be the way your eSATA is configured. You could also try moving a drive to the internal SATA bus if you've got a desktop.

There are other things to check or upgrade to, but first lets just check what's going on now.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 13:33

Quote: (optodata - this will test whether I've followed your instructions correctly)

Here are my two CPUs side by side - the struggler is comparable with your i7-870 - and here are my two GPUs
...
Cheers - Tony

Brilliant!

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Mar 11, 2015 22:01

Quote: The Preview window seemed to freeze although the audio continued, and clicking on different cameras didn't seem to switch the preview to them.

I'd probably do a little more research before thinking that a new GPU will fix the video freeze in MC designer. I believe that issue with the skip is really more of a CPU load rather than GPU. But heck, as I was told before, it's my OPINION, so I won't bore the forum with data to substantiate it.

I can play four 1920x1080 24Mbps streams without a single video skip in MC Editor. Five video cards 3 PC's and every cross combination to "learn".

Quote: In rough numbers, HD files run around 28Mbps and a typical 7200rpm drive can transfer data at ~110Mbps. Since you're looking at editing 4 clips simultaneously in the ME, you'd ideally need 4x28 or 112Mbps- so you should be right at the limit.

Might check that, 28Mbps=3.5MB/sec, 1 byte consists of 8 bits. Video in Mb/s not MB/s. Standard 7200rpm HD these days, 110MB/sec read, so really not a throttle for HD.

Jeff