All,

What's the easiest way to sync a few video/audio streams in the editor? I
don't think I can do that automatically in Vegas, but it would be very
interesting if any non-pro editor can do that.

Here is the idea. We have a few video camcorders writing the same event.
When I grab the footage from all camcorders I get a few sets of AVI files in
DV format. Then I use the program from Paul to rename these files using
their datetime to simplify my work. Finally I want to d-n-d these files on
the video editor so that the video editor can use the footage from one tape
as the basis and then show the footage taken with another camcorder say
above the main footage synchronizing it using the date/time of the footage.
We can assume for now that both clocks in both cameras are synced. If not we
could probably enter the time difference to move the second footage backward
or forward to get them synced. I heard that somebody uses sounds to sync the
footage. That's a good idea and I guess it can be easily automated by the
video editing software.

The question is - are we having anything not pretty expensive to play these
games automatically or with minimal efforts from the user side?

Just D.

"Just D" wrote in message
...

What's the easiest way to sync a few video/audio streams in the editor? I
don't think I can do that automatically in Vegas, but it would be very
interesting if any non-pro editor can do that.

I don't usually have to worry about it, because over the hour that my two
cameras can manage per tape, there is no slippage - not a frame.

I'm also lucky in that I can usually synch with camera flashes - synching to
sound is hard because for every fourteen metres you are from whatever it is
making the sound, you lose a frame's worth of synch (assuming PAL). It's
also easy to make mistakes because of the possibility of synching to an echo
(depending on the recording environment).

However - having said all that - it's not what you asked. If I have to synch
two video streams where "camera 2" gets steadily out of synch, the first
thing to do is split the clip roughly in the middle, and move one half of it
onto another track. Don't change the clips' length at all. Synch the
beginning of the first clip and the end of the second clip each to the
"camera 1" clip. There will either be a gap between the two "camera 2" clips
or an overlap, depending on whether camera 2 is faster or slower than camera
1. Either way, it's the number of frames difference (n) that you are
interested in. Split the camera 2 clip into n+1 clips, and either move the
clips apart to give a one-frame gap, or get rid of a single frame at each
split and bring the clips together so there's no gap. You can move these
splits if you need to, because as long as you don't go past the next split,
they'll only ever be one frame adrift, which most viewers should not notice.

"G Hardy"

However - having said all that - it's not what you asked. If I have to
synch two video streams where "camera 2" gets steadily out of synch, the
first thing to do is split the clip roughly in the middle, and move one
half of it

You know I just want to more-or-less sync both streams in the video editor
to simplify editing and to have a way of choosing the best shooting point
and switching between different streams creating the final movie combining
both footages taken from the different directions to get one final. For
example there are different operators and each one takes the movie like he
and only he wants including breaks, repositioning, zooming, etc. These
streams should look in the video editor like an unpredictable irregular
chess board, but if these short clips are synced by time it's not a big deal
to get the best one for each period of time to combine the result.

That all can be done with a professional mixing board or how it's called
when all cameras are shooting at the same time and the one and only one
device writes all streams down. They should be synced by default and you
even can switch the cameras in the process.

I'd like to get a similar effect with less efforts using a video editor like
Vegas and a few video tapes taken from different points, that's all. It has
nothing to a real time concert TV broadcasting or smth. like that, it's just
a family movie, maybe of some significant event, but that's all. So I
would not like to pay a huge amount for these toys to get a professional
real-time video studio.

Just D.

"Just D" wrote in message
...
"G Hardy"

However - having said all that - it's not what you asked. If I have to
synch two video streams where "camera 2" gets steadily out of synch, the
first thing to do is split the clip roughly in the middle, and move one
half of it

You know I just want to more-or-less sync both streams in the video editor
to simplify editing and to have a way of choosing the best shooting point
and switching between different streams creating the final movie combining
both footages taken from the different directions to get one final. For
example there are different operators and each one takes the movie like he
and only he wants including breaks, repositioning, zooming, etc. These
streams should look in the video editor like an unpredictable irregular
chess board, but if these short clips are synced by time it's not a big
deal to get the best one for each period of time to combine the result.

That all can be done with a professional mixing board or how it's called
when all cameras are shooting at the same time and the one and only one
device writes all streams down. They should be synced by default and you
even can switch the cameras in the process.

I'd like to get a similar effect with less efforts using a video editor
like Vegas and a few video tapes taken from different points, that's all.
It has nothing to a real time concert TV broadcasting or smth. like that,
it's just a family movie, maybe of some significant event, but that's all.
So I would not like to pay a huge amount for these toys to get a
professional real-time video studio.


Have you looked at multicam view / edit in Premiere Pro?


Rob


Just D.