I have some questions for anyone else who may be using this feature:
1) Is there any way to very precisely position the transition point from sources? Right at the end, the video tutorial implies that there is some way to do this, but doesn't explain how. The only way I've found is to record past the point, pause, go back and reposition the frame marker to the point where you want the transition, and restart recording. It seems like you should be able to just drag the transition point back and forth to get the edit on the frame you want it, but I haven't found a way to do that yet.
2) Is there a way to display the audio tracks on the four cameras? The tool allows manual sync of the cameras to the audio tracks, but without being able to see the audio tracks, it's practically impossible to get the tracks synched. This limits the usefulness of the tool to situations where the auto sync works perfectly on all tracks, which isn't always the case. In my particular case, the first video I posted above was composed of recordings of four different shows, shot from different seats in the theater. Because the sound track is mostly prerecorded music tracks, with performers singing, the audio cues are repeatable from show to show, and the autosync does a great job of aligning the four video sources with a master audio track. But, the second video has performers singing and playing. There can be variations in timing from performance to performance. Tracks that may be in sync at the beginning of a song may be off at the end, and require tweaking.
3) Is there a way to split the four camera preview window off onto another monitor? One of the factors that determines when camera cuts need to be made is that sometimes the autofocus on a particular camera gets confused and the picture goes out of focus. Subtle details like this are completely lost on the tiny preview screens incorporated into the stock window layout. Currently, I open each of the four camera shots in separate quicktime players on my second monitor and switch between them, choosing where cuts need to be made. Then I have to come back over to the MultiCam window and hit the "record" and then "pause" buttons to bound the desired camera shot.
4) Can the auto-sync tool in multicam be used in the regular editor? It would be great to be able to select a video track and an audio track, apply auto-sync, and have the video align itself to the audio track. That way, the regular video editing tools could be used to do camera switches, and transition effects could be applied which require overlapping video.
This tool seems to be optimized for video where the editor has the luxury of long stretches between camera swaps, and the exact edit points aren't that critical. For the performance videos I'm working on, edits need to be very quick, and the exact transition points need to be adjusted to fit the music or performance action. I'm hoping this is possible, and I'm just too inexperienced to know what tricks to use.
Anyone know the answers to these questions, or have tricks and tips to share?
Todd F.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at Sep 10. 2013 08:42