I'm using VPX6.

Once I inserted the intro track as a single file (made of of various clips), I inserted it into the multicam project, so I could then continue editing the multicam project. The intro was only 1:30 min. where the multicam was 1:05 hours.  I wanted to spend more time editing the multicam project now I have the intro. Problem is, I saved the project that way, then only to find out I had a black track.

When I exported the multi cam project to a single file to import it once again, I had the same problem.

Hi Greg,

I tried this with a test project I had put together but only with 2 cameras. With the setting still on Multi-cam mode, I changed the insert mode to Multi-track ripple, set the playback cursor at the beginning of the timeline, did not move the existing mutil-cam tracks to the right at all, got the video (an mxv file) in the Media pool, and clicked on the insert button on the icon in the Media pool. My external video inserted itself onto track 1 (audio onto track 2) and moved the existing objects to the right.

I had no black tracks and no problems.

Regards,

I am running MEP2015+ and experiencing a similar thing.

I can add a new video clip and I see both audio and video (and previews fine).

Then I move the clip elsewhere in the project and now the video portion is black like there was no video. Preview even crossfades to black.  I can hear the audio.

It seems random, and when I finally get a clip back to both vido and audio, another clip goes black.

ARG !

Anyone else?  I hope this is operator error, if I'm doing something wrong, I sure would like to know.

Hi,

I tried many things to get the same result and I think that I have the answer. This will be long but, hopefullly, thorough.

My first test was as I described previously, but I inserted my imported video onto track 1 and everything moved right. No problem with black images.

Following your example, I added some photos and video clips at the end, dragging onto track 1 or 3 or 5. I moved them around. I then went back to almost the beginning of my video to insert some material. I set mouse mode for all tracks (7) and moved everything to the right, except for my intro video, making sure that I had enough room to insert my video clip. I set insert mode to normal (more about this later). I selected a video clip from the media pool and dragged it onto track 3, which is the Cam 1 track. It shows up in the source monitor, but as you noted, nothing is in the preview monitor. I noticed that in the preview monitor, my video clip filled the screen, i.e. it was not doing multi-cam anymore. I clicked on the Multi-cam button to turn it off and then on. Reading carefully the instructions about track 1, etc., I selected to not move anything off of track 1, but to overwrite. Now I saw my video clip in a multi-cam window as is normal for multi-cam. I selected it, pressed play, selected it again and stopped play when it got to the end of the clip. The clip was copied to track 1, as per the multi-cam method.

I then moved everything further to the right except for the clip just inserted, and dragged in another video clip onto track 3. Multi-cam mode stayed active. I dragged another clip onto track 5 below the one just inserted on track 3. Both showed up in separate windows in the source monitor, with nothing in the preview monitor. This is normal. I selected one clip, hit play, selected it again to make sure, then after a couple of seconds, I selected the second clip, then back to the first and stopped playing. Track 1 was now filled with my images as per multi-cam.

For some reason during editing, the multi-cam mode seems to shut itself off without turning off the button, so it may have to be reactivated. That may be your problem. Other than that, if you add something to the multi-cam tracks, you still have to go through the procedure to get it onto track 1 otherwise what you have is black in the preview monitor and the video. That or you simply drag it onto track 1. Read on, it gets better.

Now for a problem that I noticed. In one test, I set insert to Multi-track ripple. I had moved all of the right hand material to the right but maybe not enough. I inserted a clip onto track 3, and everything one tracks 3 and below moved further to the right, but not the material on tracks 1 and 2, unless I missed something. So now my tracks were out of sync. Thus, do not use multi-track ripple unless you are very careful.

Next trick: I wanted to add something to tracks 7 and 9 (I have automatic audio on separate track turned on) and do an effect on them, like PIP. Remember I only have 2 cams, not 3; with 3 cams, I would have used tracks 9 and 11. With Multi-cam mode on, I tried dragging a clip onto track 7. Impossible. I shut off Multi-cam mode and I was able to drag it onto track 7. Nothing showed up on the preview monitor. Then I noticed that by default, both the image and the sound for the tracks were turned off. I turned them on and there was my image in the preview monitor from track 7. I added a clip onto track 9 and it showed up. I did a PIP and both were visible.

Now, if I turn Multi-cam back on, nothing from my track 7 and 9 shows up on the preview monitor. Why? Turning on Multi-cam automatically mutes all tracks, both image and sound, below track 2. I simply clicked on the image mute button at the left of tracks 7 and 9, and voila, my images were there.

Note that the multi-cam source tracks are muted, both sound and image, otherwise they would show up in place of track 1.

Does any of this solve your problem?

That's beyond me.  I never used multi-cam mode yet.  

Hi Greg,

I was going by what you said about multiple cameras, sync'd to the timeline, so I assumed that you were using multi-cam. If you are not using multi-cam mode then how did you sync the tracks?

I am assuming that you used 3 cameras to film the same event and that you want to go from one to another in the editor. The videos would be on tracks one below the other, starting with track 3. The tracks would be changed to multi-cam by right-clicking in the track box at the left of a blank track and selecting Multi-cam, Multi-cam source track.

See the image below.

Note that multi-cam tracks get a colour added to them as a warning that they are multi-cam tracks.

So, what is your set up with the 3 cameras if not multi-track?

Did you check the mute switches at the left of your tracks?

If you do have multi-track objects, then at the end their tracks have to be turned off and all other tracks turned on. In fact, the mult-track videos can be deleted once they are up on track 1. All multi-cam does is give you a way to switch from one camera (track) to another during playback. Clicking on the cam image copies it to track 1. That is basically the process, quite simple really. Once done, you can play with the images on track 1 as normal, just make sure to not get out of syn with the audio on track 2.

Indeed, 3 cameras recording the same event.  I start them all up, then use a powerful flash from one of my digital still cameras.  Then, when it is time to sync, I look for the flash in each track, for each camera.  Very easy.  Never miss.  

I also use a digital audio recorder for the audio, taken from the podium microphone, that way you can listen to the speaker, without hearing all the noise from the audience.  No caughs, candy wrappers, doors, very clean audio. Turn off the audio, or remove them from the video recordings, and only use the audio recorder.  It's easy to sync the audio recorder to the video by using the waveforms.

So then you did use the multi-cam feature in VPX6, no?

If not, how did you edit them to go from one camera to the next?

I was a Avid/Pinnacle user for a long time.

For this project:

Using X6, top track (1) is my audio track, lock it.

Track 2-3, Cam 1, my go to camera, wide view, that sets the stage. Lock this.

Track 4-5, Cam2, my pan and zoom camera, get good close ups.

Track 6-7, GoPro, different location and perspective, great wide angle view.

These are all sync'd onto the timeline, using flash and waveforms.

Track 8-9, GoPro, same as 6-7, used for reference material, not used in final production

Track 10, pictures, used a PIP, ( presenter was using a powerpoint slide show, this track show the slides)

Track 11, titles

To go from one camera to another, trim track 4-5 or 6-7, add transition, usually dragging over a fade handle on that track, easier to group everything on that track, and use object editor.  Piece of cake.

Hi Greg,

Try the multi-cam. No need to trim etc. as you did.

Just click on multi-cam, right click on track 3, select multi-cam track, continue on down. The even tracks are for the audio. Select one of them as the master audio track. In your case you would just use your imported audio file on track 2

Import your video clips onto tracks 3, 5, 7, 9, etc. Sync them up.

Set the playback cursor at the beginning.

If you have 4 tracks, You will see 4 images in the source monitor. Click on one to start and start playback.

Watch the monitors and click on the one that you want to see on track 1. Just keep watching and clicking. You can edit later if you want to fine-tune. You can also go back and do it again and whatever was on track 1 will be replaced with whatever you choose in the source monitor.

Just don't go moving things around or obviously things will get out of sync with the audio.

Give it a try. I found it simple and great. No more trimming on the other tracks. Result all goes to track 1.

Hi

@ John CB

What do you do when you want crossfades instead of cuts?

I use a similar technique to Greg for multi-cam, except I reverse the track order - my master video is on tracks 1/2, the other camera videos are on lower tracks and I remove the bits I do not want.

I then set up 'cross fades' which are actually fade in / outs on the cuts which are on lower tracks - if I have cut too much it is easy just to add a little more at the beginning / end of the clip by dragging it - the master video is never touched after the start and end points have been set up and fade in / out applied.

John

Hi John EB,

What goes on track 1 is exactly the same as if a video clip has been inserted with the beginning and end trimmed. The rest is still there, just drag the left bottom handle as usual to the left to make a cross-fade, making sure to not move the clip from its position. This can be done with the multi-cam mode still on or off. In my examples, ignore the audio as I did not identify an audio track as the master, so the audio with the selected clip was copied to track 2.

In the first image below, I turned off multi-cam mode. This turns off the multi-cam tracks at the same time. I dragged the lower left handle to the right to make a cross-fade. Then I applied a Pixelan transition. It works fine. You have to turn off multi-cam mode to be able add the effects, but not to make the cross-fades.

In the next image, I left the multi-cam mode on. Just so that it is understood properly, what you would see in the source monitor are rectangles with each containing the video from one of the tracks. What you see in the preview monitor is whatever is on track 1, or other tracks below the multi-cam tracks if the track image is turned on. The multi-cam tracks do not show up in the preview window, that is one of the functions of these special tracks.

To continue, in the image, I dragged the lower left handle to the right of a clip that had been overlapped with the track to its left. Now there is a gap. Now I can drag the lower right handle to the right to extend the clip, exactly as per normal procedure. Nothing goes out of sync.

As I indicated in the other post, if something goes wrong, one can always overwrite part of track 1 using the multi-cam method. Place the playback marker at a start point, select the camera image in the source screen to start with, press play, and select the cameras at will until at the point where you want to stop. Everything on track 1 between the start and stop points gets replaced by what was just done, including effects. Everything is still in sync.

The original footage on the multi-cam tracks never gets touched by using this method. And as I indicated, once done, the multi-cam files can be removed from the timeline. Multi-cam can be turned off, and the previous multi-cam tracks can now be used for effects, titles, overlays, etc. Or the tracks can stay turned off so that they do not show up when multi-cam is turned off.

I will try to do up a quick video showing the process and possibilities.

Hi John CB

Many thanks for that.

John

Thanks browj2

I looked into the multi-cam features, and once invoked, my tracks changed order on the timeline.  My camera captures 5.1 audio, and I'd like to export it that way too.  Things got pretty confusing quick.  Also, I tried this on a project where I was using 4 cameras, and my pc would not keep up. Even with 2 camera edit, the timeline does not show transition, or cut marks until I stop, or pause editing.  My pc has solid state drives, 32G Ram, i7 CPU @ 3.4Ghz, so I would think it would probably be my video card needs an upgrade.

Hi Greg and John EB,

Greg, I don't know why your tracks would change order on the timeline. When you bring them into the timeline, they should go onto the tracks that you dragged them on to. Whichever camera you select while playing will copy that clip to track 1 from when you selected it until you select another, and so on. The clip does not appear on track 1 until you change to another camera, because the program doesn't know how long to make the clip until you switch cameras. Transitions are done afterwards.

I have 16GB RAM, i7 CPU, 860 @ 2.80 GHz and I had no problems with the 2 tracks, although they were not very long at about 2m50s for the first and 3m07s for the second.

One strange thing, the sound goes out of sync by about 18 seconds over this length, which I find to be enormous. The cameras were different but VPX6 object properties indicates the same frame rate. Both are avi files, imported from the cameras with no transformation; size of image of both was 720x480. I think I'll try dragging these into MEP and to Pinnacle Studio 17.6 to see if I get the same results.

I made a multi-cam tutorial , put it in Dropbox, and would like you to review and comment on it. If it is ok, I will publish it to the Tutorials part. If you see any obvious errors, please let me know and I'll make the changes. Also, let me know if it helps or confuses.

This exercise reminded me just how hard it is to do these things, to be thorough, and to not mess up the dialog too badly.

Thanks,

One strange thing, the sound goes out of sync by about 18 seconds over this length, which I find to be enormous. The cameras were different but VPX6 object properties indicates the same frame rate. Both are avi files, imported from the cameras with no transformation; size of image of both was 720x480. I think I'll try dragging these into MEP and to Pinnacle Studio 17.6 to see if I get the same results.

I made a multi-cam tutorial , put it in Dropbox, and would like you to review and comment on it. If it is ok, I will publish it to the Tutorials part. If you see any obvious errors, please let me know and I'll make the changes. Also, let me know if it helps or confuses.

This exercise reminded me just how hard it is to do these things, to be thorough, and to not mess up the dialog too badly.

Thanks,

Hi John.  

First, I think you covered just about everything in your tutorial on multicam; I learned quite a few things I hadn't previously known and was made to think quite a bit about my own "workflow", so thank you!  However, I think there's one point that you may have got a little wrong!  Talking about the facility to "Align audio objects" you mention using Ctrl+Click to select the tracks for alignment.   I'm pretty certain I've never needed to do this but have simply selected by highlighting the track that I wish to have as the "master" and then, in multicam mode, all the other (audio) tracks have been aligned by VPX (5, in my case) with this master.  If I'm remembering incorrectly (not done any multicam work for some months) my apologies.

I do find somewhat alarming your comment that in just under 3 minutes total playing time the "sound goes out of sync by about 18 seconds".  That's a pretty major drift, (c.10%) and something I've not seen, I'm pleased to say.  The last wedding video I did as multicam had 2 cameras, a separate "ambience" audio recording and a feed taken direct from the sound mixing desk to a separate (mp3) recorder.  So, effectively 4 different audio sources (it was ultimately necessary to carry out a "re-mix" of all the audio sources in order to create the final stereo audio, after the final version of the "video" was finished); the potential for audio drift was quite considerable but, some time ago I was able to obtain free a copy of PluralEyes (it was offered as an incentive if one bought a Rode StereoVideo Mic Pro, which I wanted anyway!) and, putting the video tracks and the audio tracks into PE meant that it (PE) synced the audio tracks on the videos AND created a "new" copy of each of those additional audio tracks which were perfectly synced with the camera audio.  I know it's not "cheap" software (and it's also obvious from its support forum that it is not without its problems) but if you do a lot of multicam and want to avoid sync problems I would recommend it!

Jeff

Hi

@John CB

. . . . . One strange thing, the sound goes out of sync by about 18 seconds over this length, which I find to be enormous. The cameras were different but VPX6 object properties indicates the same frame rate. Both are avi files, imported from the cameras with no transformation . . . .

But what are the codecs inside the AVI files ?  AVI is a container format and can have virually any audio and video codecs inside.

If they are mpg (SD or HD) then try Create (new) frametable for the clips if it is available.

John

Jeff and John,

Thanks for reviewing this for me. I did this quite fast and did not check out the video clips properly. I successfully edited my niece's wedding about 7 years ago in Pinnacle and I didn't recall having any problems. For the tutorial, I trimmed the clips to about 3 minutes from where they I saw in both videos the groom going to get the bride. I should have suspected something and checked out the video clips more carefully. The camera that I have now creates a file everytime I click on pause. Back then, not with DV, and there was the problem. The shorter video was filmed by someone else and he paused the camera for 18s at just over a minute in. It just wasn't obvious. I was only using about 30s for the tutorial and didn't look beyond that to see what happened, except for checking out the end. I should have looked in the middle.

I went back, trimmed both videos at the pause and ran the automatic audio sync. Perfect! No need for PluralEyes (unless Magix bundles it with a new version of something).

I have not tried synchronizing more than 2 tracks using the Magix sync effect. I had trouble once before for some reason, and that stuck in my head. Have you been able to successfully use the Magix sync with more than 2 sources? I think I'll do a test with 4 or 5 just to see if it works properly. Of course, testing and real life circumstances are usually quite different.

So, my fault for not checking carefully. I didn't think that the other guy would pause his camera during the ceremony.

@Jeff,

You're right, the tracks can be lassooed rather than using Ctrl+click. I will change the tutorial.

I also added some text to explain about trying to line up videos by looking at the images - very difficult and would only be a fallback if for some reason the audio didn't work. Maybe I should drop this.

I looked at the Magix multi-cam tutorial for MEP2015 and noticed a couple of differences between it and VPX6. In MEP2015, they did not press play and then select the cameras while the videos played. Instead, they move the playback marker to the each cut and then press on the source image. I tried this in VPX6 and it didn't work except when editing afterwards. Strange.

I'm glad that you learned something, I certainly learned a lot by doing the tuturial.

Nice mic. I presume that it is the one that goes on the camera? About 300$?

I have, keep forgetting about, and still have to use, a Sony ECM-AW3 wireless microphone. I just looked at the price on Amazon - 382$Can. Ouch, glad I got mine for about 250$Can on Amazon.

I don't do much that requires pro equipment, but it's nice to have something better than the built-in mic for special events.

Regards,

Most of my recording are an hour or more, never lose audio sync.  Here is one using 4 cameras

Hi Greg,

Wonderful!

I replied to this a couple of days ago; maybe forgot to press send.

I had some questions:

What equipment and how was the sound captured for the master audio?

What is the resolutions of the video that you posted? Not the original, but the file that was posted.

I noticed a lot of shiny foreheads and bald heads. Anyone have a solution for reducing the shine?

I use several Panasonic HD cameras.  1) TM900, 1) HC-X900M, and 1) TM700.  I also use a Go-Pro 3+.

The resolution of the video I posted was 1280X720.

This audio was captured using a camera microphone.  I've been waiting for another guy who caputred the audio, he had somwhere around 24 microphones on stage.  I took his audio and plugged it into my recording, but I havent posted it yet.

Here is a fun video I put together, using Magix Music Maker to create the background music.  Music Maker is a fun program to use.

Check this out.

https://vimeo.com/101979694