I have Pinnacle 14 and am trying Avid Studio. 

 I have a project that is a 2 camera multicam shoot (two cameras shot performers at the same time). I simply want to be able to insert camera 2 clips (close-ups) into video from camera 1 and keep both in sync. Sound was recorded separately, but sound from camera one should remain throughout.

What is the best way to achieve this, with either Pinnacle 14 or Avid Studio?  

Thanks in advance,

 Sam 

I've been doing this with Avid Studio recently - but with three cameras.

There isn't a multicam mode in AvSo, but the multitrack layout and smart mode features make it quite easy.

I put the main camera with the best sound on track 4 and expand the height a litttle. I then detach the audio and lock the audio track only

I put the second camera on track 3. By studying the audio wave forms and playing the timeline, it's quite easy to sync up the tracks. Zoom right in for more accuarcy. For the final few frames of accuracy you can switch to trim mode, putting a yellow trim point at the start of the clip on track 3 and pressing the single frame buttons to slide the track left or right a frame at a time. Use the loop play clip to judge if the sync is as good as it can get.

Don't lock track 3. Mute the audio or deselect audio as an active stream. Now if you split the clip on track 3 and delete the parts you don't want to see, you can adjust the in and out points using Quick trim - green trim points using click and drag straight away. Track three will maintain its sync. Swich off magnetic snapping for more accuracy chooosing in and out points. If you want to check exactly what is underneath, click the eye icon to the left of the track to hide the video. Note that if you use split without selecting any clips, all the tracks get split and you can't repair them, but apart from it making the timeline untidy, it doesn't cause any harm.

If you've patched to AvSo 1.1, watch out for the 1 frame inaccuracy with snapping the out points.... 

Repeat for the 3rd camera on track two. This leaves track 1 free for titles. I added a track 5 and 6 for sound effects, audio repairs and music. Sometimes the audio from the other cameras was useful to patch up the main audio (when the mic got knocked, for example) so I dragged it to track 5 so I didn't forget it was in use.

If I decide I need to trim the main track, I use one of two strategies.I need to unlock the main audio, obviously. I either make sure I add a trim point to all the tracks and use advanced trim, or I use CTRL SHIFT click on the incoming clip and drag all the tracks right to make space. Work on the outgoing clip, then select all the tracks  and close up the gap. This can be quicker and less confusing than using advanced trim.

Now, I'm not saying this is the best way - I'm still learning how to use AvSo efficiently. I'd be interested if anyone has any improvements on this.

You can do much the same in PS using the overlay track, but remember the track layout is reversed, with the lower tracks showing up "above" the upper tracks.. 

Thanks for the detailed reply. I know that some use PIP to see both tracks at once in a multicam edit - this may or may not be a good idea.

 

jjn, once you detach audio from a clip how do you re-attach it back if you wanted to?

Also, when I zoom the timeline all the way in, the vertical red line below the scrubber handle splits into two red lines: the usual solid red, and another a dotted line that seems to be about one frame to the right of it.   What is the significance of this?

Thanks.

I'm not sure why you need to reattach the audio, but if you haven't slipped the sync or created L or J cuts, you can right click on the video clips and under Active streams select Audio, and it will return to the video track. You can then delete the audio track.

The solid red line indicates the start of the current frame, the dotted red line the end of the frame. So the gap between the two give an indication for the level of timeline zoom 

 

 

Before you even shoot one frame of video in either camera, you need to establish a SYNC FRAME.  This eliminates all the manual jogging you will do to synchronize one timeline to the other.  I like to use a flash from a still camera to establish the sync point. 

1. Simply take a picture (with flash) of any subject that will be seen by both cameras.
2. Make sure you NEVER TURN OFF EITHER CAMERA DURING THE ENTIRE SHOOT.
3. Place both clips on two time lines.  Use the same logic to establish which track's audio to use.
4. Set a marker on the time line and make the frame containing the flash the first frame on both time lines.

Hope this helps.

I'm trying to edit from two cameras, I have a sync point ( hand clap), and the cameras never stopped. Audio was recorded separately. 

 I want to edit these two together. My strategy was to find the sync point, cut clips at that point, and have the same time code for the two clips making editing from one to the other easy. But, it seems there is no way to reset the TC as it stays with the original TC. 

I don't need to see both cameras at the same time, but would like to use TC to easily find in and out points. I could calculate TC differences with a calculator, but that would be tedious.

 Any ideas, or a different strategy for editing a two- camera shoot? 

You cannot re-attach the audio.

When zoomed in, the two lines represent the start and finish of a frame. You can see then that with the solid red line at the start of the clip that trimming will keep the frame being viewed. At the end of the clip when viewing the last frame trimming will remove the clip being viewed.

ADDED

Whoops! I seem to have missed a few posts (yawn)

Any ideas re my post?

The only thing that I can think of is the you re-render each of the clips starting from the sync point - then you will have no issues with sync.

can either AS or PS display Timecode (TC) ??

It would be nice both for sync (and potentially for burnin windows -- when video is being shared with mutliple collaborators)