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Dozens of HDV Events Needing Multicam- Problem with Too Many Angles in Multiclip
We (the three staff editors) have been assigned a dozen or so 4 camera events to edit that was recently taped overseas in HDV. For now, we are downconverting to DV letterbox because the end product is DVD. The other two guys have already started on this and I am about to. We are running into several issues concerning workflow and Multicam.
We told the shooters (using Sony Z1’s) to syncronize TC then to not stop recording during the events to be edited. So far we are getting 3 out of 4 synced (the last guy arrives late several times because of tight schedules) but the ‘do not stop’ directive is more or less completely ignored by several. If we capture without stopping on TC breaks we get one long clip but obviously lose our TC sync after the first stop. If we select create new clip with Batch Capture it searches endlessly at each break, so the best route so far is Capture Now with new clips created at each TC break.
We include a number in the Angle field (representing each camera: 1 – 4), and captured all four tapes. Now we have hundreds of clips from which we make our Multiclip from but each clip ends up a different angle in the multiclip so we have hunderds of angles. Not what we were expecting. One guy tried renaming clips, re-entering angle info, and capturing several ways and so far we cannot figure out how to make the Multiclip compress the dozens of clips from one angle down to be shown as a single source in the viewer, so that in the end we only have 4 sources instead of so many to do the final post-live cut from.
We also tried using Multiclip Sequence and that had the same too many angle problems plus now there are dozens of groups of mulitclips to deal with. One thought we had was to create timelines of all clips spacing them out, then creating a new clip from that for each camera to use in the Multiclip, but what a pain to deal with.
Before I get too far in my attempt, are we doing something wrong or is this the state of Multicam currently?
Thanks for any and all comments!
Brad
PS – One side question, since we are going to standard DVD, is letterbox the best way to edit or should we use something like anamorphic with a 16×9 flag (not sure about this as this is first major wide-screen DVD project)? In other words, the Producer wants to have letterbox on SD monitors in the end but I suppose HD monitors should have the image full with no letterbox, so what is the best method? – thx again
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6 Replies
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Oh, yea one little thing I forgot about…
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302965
You can’t capture HDV downconverted to ‘make new clips’ without problems. You have to capture at HDV. The downconvert on my system if you have machine control on, stops and does the endless cueing at each break, but if you set machine control to none, it keeps going and you get one clip and wrong timecode.
In HDV with machine control on (HDV Firewire control) and you hit Capture Now, you get the new clips and the right TC. but now we have to ‘convert’ everything at some point to SD…
Man, did they release this stuff a bit of a rush or what?
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Brad –
The solution is to make a separate multiclip every time the cameras stop. In other words there should not be more than one clip from any given angle on a single multiclip. This means you will have many multi-clips to cover an event and this is where making a multi-clip sequence comes in, you just select all the multi-clips and then they will be laid out in order on a timeline and you now have a rough assembly of your show with all 4 angles available in the viewer.
For workflow, you have to break each reel (and angle) down into separate clips at each time code break. When you have captured all clips into a folder, sort by time-code in, this will enable you to easily construct as many multi-clips as you need.
When building the multi-clips use the option to sync by time-code to allow for different start and stop points by different cameras. You will have to manually change the time-code of the “wild” camera to sync with the other 4.
If it weren’t for the need to find sync with this last camera I would estimate that building all the multi-clips for an event (not counting digitizing time) would take less than 30 minutes.
I use multi-cam all the time, and the FCP workflow is excellent.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
Thank you Herb for your detailed response. We originally attempted this approach as eluded to in my first post, but it just seemed off as you end up with so many Multiclip segments. I’m sure I will have no problem forging ahead with your advise, but it seems a tiny bit of code could allow all clips in a multiclip from the same camera with the same Angle in the log to be represented as one angle in the viewer. Maybe in Vs. 6 🙂
Just to be clear about your method, you manually arrange your clips and decide what makes each multiclip or you use ‘Multiclip Sequence’ to do it dealing with the overlap settings and such.
Thanks again,
Brad
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Brad –
You have to choose the clips that make up each multi-clip manually.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
Brad,
I feel your pain. I had to figure this stuff out, as well. The timecode break issue bit me, too. I also thought that multiple clips (non-overlapping in TC) for the same camera angle should work on a single track.
As Herb mentioned, having to create several separate multiclips is not intuitive; the manual and various tutorial DVDs, which tend to just mimick the manuals, never address these kinds of pretty basic issues.
Once you wrap your head around this and get some multiclips made and working, the process becomes much more enjoyable.
I should mention that everything, other than HDV-specific issues, happened to me with SD footage (DV-25).
I am looking forward to some tweaks to this functionality, as well.
Good luck with your project!
-Dave
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Follow Up:
Herb, I tried to manually make the multiclips but gave up. Two of the cameras on my current event were shooting a shot, say 10 seconds, repositioning and shooting again (don’t worry I will strangle them next time I see them). With the stop start of these angles along with the some starting and stopping of the longer pieces creating usable chuncks with out leaving gaps was near impossible. I was cutting the thing up into hundreds of pieces and having to try to keep up with the numbers which became a blur in the Bin. I would need a spreadsheet to keep up with it all.
My solution was really quite simple. I needed to down convert to SD anyway, so I created a multiclip of all the clips from the same camera, then did a line cut to each successive shot. Actually I had it shuttling forward and everytime I saw black clicked the next clip. I did that for each camera. I set each Timeline to start at the first clip’s TC. Now overnight I did a compressor downconvert of the four timelines and then made a multiclip of them now with only 4 angles!!! Then it worked like a charm. Cludgie workaround but didn’t take long (except for the renders which I need anyway).
Thanks for the help guys.
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