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Plural Eyes vs FCPX Test results: Confirmations and discoveries
Well a long thread about a problem that never got a solution veered off topic. Fortunately to a great discovery. In the course of the thread I made to assertions that FCPX did a lousy job of syncing long multiclips comprised of stop start dslr cams.
Note: This is probably NOT the case with say mutliple cameras shooting long clips. I’m talking cam on 60 seconds and off 30 over the course of say 1-3 hours with two or 3 good audio tracks from either a board or h4n.
Now I made my assertion off over a year’s worth of maybe 30+ projects of this type. I’ve never had success with FCPX doing large volume, so I bought Plural Eyes which literally syncs a whole night in under 30 seconds flawlessly. Now that being said I’ve always had the problem that these long multi clips would not play on the Event Side. And I have blamed it on FCPX.
Well after being challenged by David Eaks and Bill Davis on both issues. I decided to test again. 3 hour event 2 cameras, two long direct audio sources of clean audio. Gave each source a camera name, created a multi clip and it chugged away for about 10 minutes and made a multi clip.
Surprise! Nothing was in sync. Not even close. Not really a surprise to me. I’ve tried this a dozen times. However I had never tested the playback issue. To my Unsarcastic surprise, the long FCP generated clip (out of sync as it were) did indeed playback just fine on the event side. So Plural Eyes is the issue on this problem (as is on the 5dmarkIII problem that got this all started. Scroll down to my previous thread for more info on that). So here is my big Sorry to Apple and the Cow for repeating that this was an issue for FCPX.
That being said, I dumped the same footage in Plural Eyes, it synced in under 60 seconds perfectly as it always has.
So to conclude my findings:
Apple’s sync is weak. You have to do it in very small chunks which is a HUGE timekiller. But once it’s done, the actual multi clip does not have any problems.
Plural Eyes syncs 1,000X’s better than Apple, but the XML has some problems. It wont play back on the event side, has an issue with 5DmarkIII footage as well as some C100 footage I’ve encountered where it either won’t play or it crashes at gaps where there’s no video. If you pretranscode to prores you eliminate some of the problems but the clip still wont play on the event side which is a huge pita. And depending on your project might be a deal breaker because you can’t make selects.
I’ve gotten used to it and found a way to get my projects done faster using P.E. But there are the pros and cons. Once again I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID ABOUT APPLE MULTICLIPS HAVING EVENT LEVEL PLAYBACK ISSUES. It’s definitely a Plural Eyes problem. So thank you Bill and David for pointing that one out. I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise. I still stand by my statements on the syncing capabilities. It’s not really even debatable.
So hope that might help whoever’s curious.
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28 Replies
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This might have been covered, but one thing I’ve noticed with stop and start shoots is that your cameras date and time better be correct. If one is on daylight savings, or has the wrong date, it’ll sync up the first audio bits, but after the camera stops and starts, it has to use something to at least start looking for waveform match, and if the date is off, it’ll never find it, probably because it only searches within a certain window of the matching date/time.
So if your H4N doesn’t have it’s date set right, or cam 2 is still on daylight savings, etc. ya get nuthin. Except perhaps the first part before camera breaks.
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A fair report.
The only thing I’ll point out is to wonder if PluralEyes is “actually” fully synchronizing those clips in the 60 seconds you’re noting. It *may* in fact be simply lining them up for quick playback as separate files, but not actually creating a true compound clip with the video and audio in persistent, permanent lock step.
I suspect that Apples process is also may be doing what X does so well, which is create fast functional lower res thumbnails to let you work fast, and delay the final file renderings of the new compound media files for when more system resources are available.
I’ve seen lots of examples where complex content initially played back more or less out of sync, only to discover that the next day, when I’ve returned to the project after X has had had ample (often overnight) render time, sync issues will have vanished.
The whole “metadata driven and referential” nature of how X processes files definitely takes getting some used to.
FWIW.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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David –
It sounds like you’ve really explored all avenues here. But I was just wondering, have you tried creating a blank multiclip and then manually add angles, followed up by going angle by angle to sync to the master sound track? The key here would be to add the clips in the order of time shot.
I’ve found that this sometimes works a little better and is a bit quicker. Still not as fast as pluraleyes, though. But yeah, the Pluraleyes to FCP X workflow is a bit lacking.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
Michael Glad you mentioned this. I have tried this, and sometimes I’m forced to do it on some level. I’ve found that if a clip is too many seconds away from the sync point of the “monitor angle” it will not sync it. It will give me an “inadequate audio” prompt. However if I find the sync point and put clip close to it, it will sync. Too much work.
But! I was mulling over the dillema earlier and I’m going to try one more test which is:
Use plural to create a stacked project synce. Then create a blank multi-angle in fcp and copy each angle inside the angle editor. If they retain they’re spatial relationships then it should stay in sync AND I should get playback from the Event! If it works, I’ll get the best of both worlds. 30 second accurate sync from plural eyes, and properly managed whatever from FCP so that it plays smoothly.
Crossing my fingers.
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Well, you’ll have a new series of tests to tried since 10.1 just released.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
For me sync never works without giving each camera a different name and angle named and adding approximate (ie not frame accurate) markers. Then it works perfectly. If I do not do this (it especially seems to need the markers) no cigar. But with this extra work it’s perfect.
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10.1 released where?
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James putting markers on every clip? No way. Like I said. Good solution for long clips not for 70 start/stop clips.
Michael. Thanfully 10.1 gives us better timeline functions for multi cam clips. Separate audio! Yes!
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I think it is because I am using two or three almost identical Panasonic AVCHD cameras. The “look” too similar?
I found this on your tube from somebody wit the ams problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMts4EFeun0
of course it would be wonderful if it would all sync without this work.
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Like I’ve stated before, 2 or 3 or more long clips like that are easy to sync. I’m talking about 50 clips per camera in an environment that is not as sound friendly as interviews. Even so, that YouTube video was a good example. PE would have synced 150 clips before that guy could even press “make multicam”.
Bill, in a project like yours I actually do use X to sync with great success. It works for me without markers. If I’m not mistaken the markers need to be in the same relative position on each clip where it meets audio no? How does this work for 50 clips in each angle or even 3?
Also I give each camera a name and use it in the options. I wonder if it makes a difference to use both camera and angle names? Not sure how or why it would.
The discovery of PE being the culprit of playback issues is making me want to make this work in X now if possible even if it requires extra setup. If it involves interaction with every clip in the angle than I’ve wasted too much time.
I’m going to do my PE sync and copy experiment today. I hope it works.
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