Hi,
Probably need a bit more info on exactly what you've got but I assume you have 4 end to end video files that you need to pick and choose clips from to make a single production?

There are maybe a few ways but try this. Import your videos into the library either one by one or all together and use scene detect to split up these videos into clips, then use these small clips to make up the video you want, you can of course split and trim the clips as you require.

You could use the library sub-folder function to organise the clips from each video into its own sub-folder.

Alternatively you could use 4 of the 6 PiP tracks to manipulate the 4 videos as required.

If you need to consider audio synching as well, it becomes more difficult.

Others may have different suggestions and methods.

Check out the new video tutorials
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/3523.page

for other hints

Cheers
Adrian

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Thank you for the response.
You are correct in assuming that audio sync is important.

We just completed a muscial event with four cameras in various locations in the theater capturing wide angle and closeup shots. My ultimate goal is to use one of the audio tracks (which ever is the cleanest) and play all four tracks simultaneously to begin splitting the video files into smaller clips and then deleting 3 of the 4 clips, keeping the one good clip. By time I am done, I should have a full legnth movie comprised of multiple clips from multiple video files and the audio being consistant throughout.

I just tried using 4 PiP files have the following issues:
-Inconsistant audio. Every clip uses its own audio track
-No seamless transition from pne clip to the next.
-Really really cumbersome.

If there is any other way to do this, any feedback would be appreciated.

It's not something I've done very much so I'd be talking in theory.

Maybe others will have more practical experience that will be more of value.

It's worth noting that viewing complex video projects in the preview is very hardware dependent and often (particularly with HD) gives jerky, slow movement. Many of us 'trial produce' to file at intervals to see if things are working as we planned.

BTW all/any clips can be muted individually or as whole tracks.

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Hi Zadoc-Lee,

Here's something you might try. you said...

My ultimate goal is to use one of the audio tracks

You can extract your preferred/chosen audio, from that particular clip that has this audio, by right clicking on the clip while it is in your library and clicking on "Extract Audio". This will give you an "audio only" version and file of that video clip.
Now you can drag the "video clip" into the Master timeline (or a PIP), and mute the audio (or highlight the video in the timeline and open the Audio Mixing Room, and turn the audio down to zero).
Then drag the "audio only" file (of that clip) into the Music timeline. The audio is now separate from the video, but still in sync with the video clip. (minor adjustment may be necessary)

Now comes the part where you'll have to put your editing skills to the test, and be willing to dedicate some time to the project.

With your master video footage now in sync but separated from any video footage, you just start to add and edit in the other video footage (you have to mute their audio), from the other cameras into either the Master or PIP timelines.
And it will just require a lot of experimentation to get the right cuts/edit points to get in and out with this other footage so it syncs up with your master audio. You may sometimes need to adjust the speed of some of this footage at various points in the project. And taking snapshots at various points, and using these briefly displayed stills (with motion), may look cool in those places where syncing to music is difficult.

I for one would welcome a project like that. It would be challenging and very fun to find creative ways to accomplish it. But it definitely can be done.

Remember to do a "save as" with a different name (e.g. Gig-1, Gig-2. Gig-3, etc) constantly. After every clip you get synced, so if you do get a crash, you won't loose your hard work.

Good luck! Sounds like fun! Click here PDtoots for a collection of PowerDirector Tutorials and Tips

Hi Zadoc-Lee,

That's a great question and something I've been wondering about since I picked up PD7 a couple of weeks ago. You inspired me to do some experimenting. What you are describing is known as an A-B-C-D roll edit. You have four sources that you want to combine into one master video. This can be done two ways...live, as the production is running, or editing in the studio, which takes more work. You're going to use method 2.

If you want PD7 to do it, I think I've found a way. But there are a few prerequisites. If all your camera people taped the event in its entirety without turning off their cameras, you can sync all four sources. If not, you probably can just skip the rest of this post as you will have to grind it out in trying to match all the clips.

Let's assume you have all the footage entirely shot with all cameras rolling from beginning to end. The first thing to do is to find a "sync" point for all sources. What this means is that you have to find a video frame that is common to all video sources at the beginning of filming. It could have been a camera flash going off, a certain sound, the MC walking on stage...anything that all four sources can lock onto as a common starting point.

Let's assume a camera flash went off when all four cameras were recording. This is the sync point and the very beginning were all of your sources will start. After capturing all your sources, make this sync point the start of your master video track, and the other PIP tracks.

Turn off your audio on the other PIP tracks. The master video will provide all the sound.

If you are planning to make many frequent cuts between all four sources, this method I am describing will be very tedious and hard to do. However, if you plan to cut to each source after several minutes or so, it will be easier.

Set Up Your Tracks:
Your main camera will be on the master video track on PD7.
PIP 1 should have footage that you want to cut to the most.
PIP 2 should be next in line for frequency of use.
PIP 3 and PIP 4 next in order of use.

Ok, now the fun begins. Lock your master track so it can't move. You'll see a little padlock at the beginning of the time line. Click to lock.

The next thing you'll do is to just work with your master track and PIP1. Click on PIP1 track and play as a clip. You'll see tabs above the tracks. One of them will say "split." This is your device to chop up PIP1 clips. In preview window, you'll see PIP as a little box. Move this to one of the corners so you can see the master track behind this.

Now you can begin editing. Make sure you save very frequently, or set your options to save every couple of minutes. PD7 is doing an awful lot right now, and it sometimes crashes.

Click on the PIP 1 track to select it. Then hit play in the preview window and make sure you are playing in "clip" mode. You'll see the main source play with the PIP 1 track playing in the corner. Watch the PIP1 window to figure out what scene you want to cut into the main video. Once you know where your scene begins and ends, hit the "split" button once to set where the cut starts, and a second time to where the scene ends. Stop the video. You will now see three segments. The first segment isn't needed. The middle one is what you just selected. Now you can use the slider to move through your PIP clip to the next segment you want. Make sure you delete the footage that you don't want previous to your cut.

If you make a mistake, no problem, just hit ctrl Z and you can erase your mistake in cutting. You can do going back up to 50 times, but you'll never need to do this.

Now, do this until you have the whole thing done. PIP 1 should have a track that is filled with spaces and clips. Now, you have to resize all of your PIP1 clips by dragging the box in the preview window to full size. When the PIP1 track plays, it will cut on top of the main video. Once you finish with PIP 1, lock it, and move onto the next sources. Remember, you can only cut to the PIP sources if another PIP track isn't already taking up timeline space. During your editing, if you want to see how the movie looks with the edited clips, you can just view in movie mode. Just don't forget to switch back to clip mode when you are done. You also might want to resize your PIPs to full frame after each clip is done so you won't have to do them all after you finish.

If you look at the time line, you'll see that there are spaces between the clips in PIP 1. These spaces are the places where you can add additional clip material from your other PIP sources. Since the majority of your cuts will come from PIP1, and the other PIP windows are just used to give different perspectives, the rest should go pretty quickly.

Remember to save, save, save.

This is what I did to practice. PD7 gives you a ready made clip of fishes swimming around. Use this clip for your main video. In PIP1, place another clip of this also. Change this PIP clips color to an extreme setting by right clicking on it so you can make the distinction of which clip is which.

Try and do what I described in the steps above and you'll see how this all works. It sounds a lot more complicated then it really is, but if you can make yourself a practice session that works, you'll be able to do your four camera edit.

I think what I may try to do is to make a short video of this later if all these steps are making you crazy.

Frank...Great Post!
Thanks to all on this one. I will give it a try, but it sounds pretty easy....tedious and time consuming, but I had already planned for that. Thanks again to everyone who chimed in!