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I'm editing my first multicamera video, and some things have come up that I need.
First, Multicam Director isn't what I want. That's a bit too simple for what I have in mind. But, one feature that I desperately want from that module in the main timeline is "Sync to marker". Since the cameras have different views, I need to do that in stages. I need to sync two or three when I can see one distinct event. Then, lock those down and sync the next camera or two farther down the line. And so on. (Sync to audio won't work, because there's talking near some of the cameras, which defeats that feature.)
Sometimes I have gaps between clips in a track, (some of the files provided to me were corrupt) so I need the ability to lock some clips and float others when performing a marker sync. I suppose I could handle that by putting them in different tracks. But, that could begin to clutter my timeline. Maybe if there were a way to merge tracks that don't have any video that overlaps?
Two problems with Multicam Director are that the preview windows are teeny. And, it's limited to four tracks. I have seven cameras altogether. I would very much like to right-click on a track in the main timeline and open it in its own preview window. I have multiple monitors, so I like those to be detached/detachable so that I can stick them over on another monitor, playing in sync with my main preview window. And, size them to fit my current needs.
Some of the GoPro footage my teammate provides to me appears to have a one-second overlap between clips. I assume this is a setting in a very popular camera. Therefore, I'd like to see PowerDirector have an option within a track to automagically handle that overlap for me.
I have to mute any incidental music in my videos, so I'd like some easy way to mark in and out spots for audio that don't require splitting the clip, or manually dragging dots on the audio track. More along the lines of "Start mute - End mute" markers. The ability to set a fade time, like 1/10 - 1/5 of a second would be a nice bonus.
Until then, I'd like to see the "Mute clip" coontext menu function included in the keyboard shortcut section. Yes, I know there's a "Mute" hotkey. That's to toggle the entire soundtrack on and off, to save the editor's sanity. "Mute clip" is not avaiable, that I've found. I have to right-click and choose from the menu for each instance.
That's all I can think of, for now. Hopefully some of these can make it into PD 16.
Drake Christensen
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Yeah, I get what you're saying.
The reason I was blind to that obvious method is that my editing needs have been so simple, to this point. Up to now, all I've done is slap a 3 second opening sound that fades between three images, and then plop my raw video in. Sometimes I would clip the beginning and the end.
If I had needed to do some actual real editing prior to this, where I had multiple pieces that I needed to split apart and stitch together, then the idea of splitting would have been a natural fit.
So, now I'll play around with last week's game (no music in tonight's games) and see how splitting and deleting with keyboard shortcuts feels. Chances are, it'll feel less cumbersome than what I had been doing/
Appreciate the suggestions. I'm glad you didn't have to use a size large Clue Stick :
Drake
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Sorry. I guess I was thinking, "Drop a marker, here" while I was typing that.
Thanks for the tip on keyboard shortcuts. I have two games this weekend. I'll give it a try with that in mind and see how it works.
Drake
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I'm currently using PD 13.
I wear a helmetcam during my hockey games (spy glasses within my helmet, actually.) Some of the scorekeepers try to keep themselves entertained by playing music from their MP3 player during breaks in the action. The problem with that, for me, is that YouTube has become draconian about searching for recognizable music, and dinging me with a copyright violation.
(Aside: This falls so squarely under Fair Use that it should be laughable. They're usually about thirty second clips, extremely poor quality, along with conersation and other noise. Nobody would call them a replacement for a purchased copy of the music. And it's completely incidental to the subject of the video. But, there's no way to get ahold of a human to make that judgement call. Grr.)
So. On those nights that the scorekeeper plays music, I have to go through my video and mute around any conversation or other audio that I actually want to keep. The steps I've come up with to do that are:
- Play/scrub to find the beginning of the segment
- Drop a keyframe
- Advance a frame
- Drop a keyframe (leave audio at normal, so I can hear what's going on)
- Play/scrub to the next sound I want to hear
- Drop a keyframe
- Go back a frame
- Drop a keyframe
- Drop audio to 0
- Jump back one keyframe
- Drop audio to 0
- Advance one keyframe
- Continue playing
That's an awful lot of manual work, methinks, that takes my mouse all over the screen. Is there an easier way? Is there any way to just mark an In and an Out and choose Mute?
I appreciate any pointers,
Drake Christensen
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