Multi-Camera unusably slow on my fast computer…

[Vince Becquiot]

Multicamera needs to move a lot of data at once. Most laptop hard drives are too slow for that.

A core 2 duo these days may also not be enough either for that much processing, unless you are talking about DV (and even then…)

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Nick Dantonio]

Would it help if all my file sizes were smaller?

[Scott Roberts]

What type of footage are you working with? SD? HD?

I’d upgrade to a quad. Smaller file size, as in dimensionally, like a proxy? Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/graphicsdump
https://www.myr3d.com

[Nick Dantonio]

I’m working with HD.

I know a more powerful computer is the ultimate answer, but I’m trying to find a way to get through this project right now.

[Jon Barrie]

Ur mbp is not gutsy enough for HD multicam. And the main hdd is not the place to have media. Ext drive 7200rpm speed minimum. Raid 0 or 5 for HD material.

Best work around is to use convert to material to dv clips. Add the original clips to ame solo app. Do the dv convert there and add them to your project and the HD timeline you are wanting to work from with the scale to frame setting on the clips.

Make ur edit with the dv clips then when u r done replace the dv clips in the stacked timeline (nested for the mc edit) with the full res clips.

-JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Phocas Kroon]

The multi-cam option is not the only solution. You can do the edit by hand using the razor tool and delete the parts in the different tracks you don’t need.

Good luck

PhocasKroon

[Eric Monroe]

I also have a MBP 13″ 4GB RAM with CS4 and Snow Leopard. I took out the stock harddrive and replaced it with a 500GB Seagate Momentus 7200rpm laptop drive. The internal has the OS as well as the applications and the project files themselves running from it, but I store all of my raw footage on a WD 1TB external drive connected via FW800. It is important as John B. mentioned to set the scratch discs to the external drive as well.

I edit multicam footage everyday, and my macbook does great. It is SD footage, but I edit 4 cameras each approx an hour in duration with little to no lag or problems. I know you said you are working with HD footage, perhaps you could try a Hitachi G-Raid…..an external drive that contains 2 hard-drives in the enclosure setup in a RAID ZERO configuration. That could help increase multicam performance.

As a sidenote, I changed the capture format…….so I capture all of my footage into Apple ProRes (HQ)

Hope this helps ya!

Check out the Hitachi G-Raid:
https://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid.cfm

Eric

[Nick Dantonio]

I appreciate so much all of everyone’s input so far…thanks!

The funny thing is that I actually have a 2TB external hard drive with 800 firewire that I have all the video on but I moved it to my computers hard drive in hopes of bettering the playback, but I guess that isn’t the biggest issue.

I have a related question…

On this project I’m editing together a music video so I’ve got my 4 main camera angles synchronized with the final audio and nested together for the multi-camera edits. I also have a couple of other camera angles that I want to include throughout the song. What’s the best way to edit these clips in? Normally I would just select a clip in the source window and drag it into the timeline on top of the multi-cam sequence but the problem is I have to line it up with audio every time I do that. Obviously, that’s tedious.

Is there a better way?

[Jon Barrie]

The Old-skool way of cutting multicam before a feature was introduce or that worked well, was to have all the angles stacked into 1 sequence and work with the shots in a PIP so as you move along the timeline you see the shot you want and cut the shot to the length you want it and disable the trimmed bits, then at the end you would remove the scale/position from the PIP of each layer.
It aint pretty but that’s one of the old ways of doing it that still is valid nowadays for MC without the MC feature. I know some editors that don’t like the lag of MC features and prefer to cut this way.
– Jon Barrie

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Daniel Schloss]

Well let me throw another wrench in the works. I’m using a MAC desk with 16 gigs memory, Adobe CS4 with a FirmTek Raid 0 drive system (4 1 tb seagate 7200 drives) and an AJA LHi card. I capture in AJA and or DVCPRO HD. So you would think I have all the bells and whistles to multicam smooth…not so. I am getting the same problem the rest of you have. I suspect the Adobe’s Multicam just doesn’t have the guts to handle HD footage. This is a major issue we all hope they address in the next issue or they might lose a boatload of editors. All the vendors including Adobe point the finger at the other guy. Now if I do this with SD footage…not an issue, only HD. Is there anyone out there multicaming with HD footage 3 or 4 cameras that does not have this problem? Lets hear from you. Whats your secret.

Dan Schloss
info@echomedia.org