-
Multi cam on a budget & capturing clips and automation of relative position in timeline?
This might be a wish list item, but does anyone know of a way to drop video clips shot on blacked tape into the same relative position in a timeline as they were with their relative timecode positions on the tape.
If that sounds a bit odd, let me explain the scenario, I video circuit racing, using amongst other things 3 or 4 mini dv cams left static shooting continuously until each tape runs out, lap times are about 40secs, so once a lap there’s at most 6-7secs of footage that’s of relevance. I edit the 10min races as ‘Live’, and depending on the level excitement, either render tham as ‘live’, or then edit out the boring bits. To begin with I was just capturing those short clips, however such was the fiddle on trying to sync each clip with a high manned camera (me) from my vantage point and one or two helmet cameras on vehicle. Its not so tricky but being a bit pedantic, I do find myself getting fussy of syncing to shots to the exact frame, but in an effort to speed up workflow, I’ve just chosen to capture each 10min race in full, cueing them up on a 6 or 7 separate tracks in the timeline, and then chopping my way up and down the timeline.
Even in Standard Def each shoot is swallowing 60-70Gb of hard drive at a stroke, of which I actually use maybe 10-15Gb, even with a penchance for split screening. It seems wasteful, even if the edit workflow is surprising fast, I may have a 1.5terrabyte of storage, but its swallowing it fast. I should say yes I should delete the captured footage when the edit and render is complete, however later in the season, I wish to re edit footage for promo/showreel/highlight purposes, and the captured clip are so long, etc.
And no, these are consumer cams, so no genloc (?), and no capacity to run cabling anyway, this is DIY, Lo Fi outside broadcast at its finest. If there’s cleverness to be done it has to be after the shoot etc.
I’m sure there’ll be an elegant solution, but can’t find in the usual knowledge bases. Can anyone help?
-
6 Replies
-
Run time of day timecode and start the tc with all of the cameras at the same time.
Jeremy
-
Surely that’s impossible, to get all the cameras time exact to the frame?
And how would you automate the spacing of the clips in the timeline?
Just clarify I’m talking of say capturing 10secs chunks, each minute, out of say 10mins footage, from 6 cameras shooting the same event from 6 different points of view.
What makes me wonder if this is actually possible is that each clip appears in the project file with the start and end time quoted on the clip from its respective tape. I could sit with a piece of paper working out where each clip on video track should be relative to each other but thats probably not much quicker than working it out matching points of intersecting shots visually. Obviously I’d have to visually synce the first clip of each track with another track but if I did that only once, I’d save shed loads of hard drive, rather than cueing up 6 or 7 10min chunks of video.
-
[Chris Simpson] “Surely that’s impossible, to get all the cameras time exact to the frame? “
It’ll be closer than anything else you try. If all camera are the same and have a remote for them, you can put them all in free run, set up the timecode and start them all at the same time. What kind of cameras are they?
[Chris Simpson] “And how would you automate the spacing of the clips in the timeline? “
Not to sound flip, but I think you’d have to edit them. When you have them all edited, you can media manage the project and keep only the media you need.
Jeremy
-
Thanks Jeremy
They are consumer sony mini dv and HDV cams.
I think I probably knew the answer at the outset of my post.
It’s a wish…
-
but in an effort to speed up workflow, I’ve just chosen to capture each 10min race in full, cueing them up on a 6 or 7 separate tracks in the timeline, and then chopping my way up and down the timeline.
If you’re loading everything anyway… why are you not just doing a visual synch at the start and using the multicam tool?
-
Well I know, once the bullet is bitten, and you capture the lot, rather than more like the shots you’re actually going to need, then editing in multicam or just stacking them in the timeline, is easy, and is not the issue. I’ve not used Multi cam as I’ve had 4 by 3 DV cameras well as 16 by 9 (my preference) that I usually capture in, and I read somewhere in multicam everything has to be the same format.
No the point was I’ve just finished capturing footage from 5 cameras, from latest shoot, and it weighs in at a 100Gb. I probably will use about 20Gb, I don’t want to delete it all 20Gb I’m using when I’m finished, but if its all part of longer clips, I’ll have to find a way to keep the best bits, as I want to recut portions into future promos & showreels, title sequences.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up