Issue with Multicam in Premiere CS5.5

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danielisaiah

Active member
ive been looking at this tutorial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdJK2GXZBwU

I have also checked out Adobe's instructions on making new sequences of clips that have been synchronized

I follow all the steps here but my new "Synchronized" sequence of 4 video tracks and 1 audio track only shows 1 video in the Multicam window. Also, no waveform shows up in the new sequence timeline either. its like it picked up only one of the videos from the other "main" sequence.

Im not quite sure....but I think I'm missing something....is I have a pretty fast core i7, 64bit win 7 ultimate, 8 gig ram system with a pretty fast Nvidia CUDA card (so I don't think its a hardware issue)

Does anybody have a very specific workflow for editing multicam and building sequences?
 
We use multicam on 90% of the projects we do, so I had to figure this one out quickly.... here's what we do.

1) Ingest and sync the cameras. It sounds like you've done this. However, make sure that at least one of the the tracks is at the very start of the sequence (use ripple delete if needed in the empty space between the start of the sequence and the track closest to the start - right click in the space and chose ripple delete). This is IMPORTANT because of what we're going to do with audio in a few steps time.

2) Nest that sync'd sequence (we'll call this the source sequence) in a new second sequence (we'll call this the multicam sequence). Sounds like you've done this.

3) Enable multicam on the multicam sequence by right clicking on the video track and select MUTLI-CAMERA --> Enable.

Now, here's the trick for audio....

4) ALT click on the AUDIO (not the video) in the multi-cam sequence and DELETE the AUDIO track. Yes, delete the audio track in the multicam sequence (we're going to replace it!).

5) Go back to the source sequence and ALT click (or hold Alt and drag) to select ALL the AUDIO ONLY in the source sequence and COPY (Control or Command C).

6) Go to the multicam sequence and PASTE the AUDIO in to it. Since you made the tracks start at the beginning of the source sequence (step 1) you can just place your CTI at the very start of the multicam sequence and paste, and everything will remain in perfect sync.

7) Open the multicam monitor (from the window menu - or use the keyboard shortcut) - this is how you see all the cameras at the same time

8) Go edit! Now you no longer have to worry about the audio cutting. You have all your audio in your multicam sequence and you can just cut your video and sweeten your audio once the edit is done.

9) Once you're done editing you can refine your edits by rolling the edit points on the video without effecting the audio in any way.


Hope this helps.....


Now, a tip for editing. Premiere Pro has a bug that means when ever you record in the multicam window and then stop, it will place an extra cut where you stop and choose the camera you first started on. This is a major pain! So, rather than deal with than, and rather than go back and clean up badly timed cuts I tend to not do live cutting, but instead hit play to start the multicam playing (but not cutting), hit space to stop, make any adjustments needed (use the arrow keys to move back and forward a frame or two), choose the camera I want (keyboard shortcut 1,2,3,4 etc), then hit play to start again. That way I've both avoided the bug and tweaked my edit at the same time.

Others like live cutting and deal with the bug.

Both ways work.
 
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The multicam bug he refers to is VERY annoying. It makes Premiere Pro CS6 multicam workflow a very frustrating experience. EVERY TIME you hit stop if you try to do the live editing of a multicam sequence (switching from one camera angle to the next and so on as it makes the cuts for you in the background) it toggles off the record button and makes BOTH a cut in your timeline and also it changes angles back to the original angle. You can do what Exact does which is not do the live cut but bottom line is that Premiere Pro CS6 has a major flaw and needs to fix it for it's multicam workflow to be anywhere near as efficient as other NLE's like FCP7 or FCPX.

Another awful part about multicam in Premiere Pro CS6 is that the audio meters/levels are automatically DISABLED while you are editing multicam so there is no way to monitor your audio levels as you edit. CRAZY! You have to basically go back when you are done with video and go through your whole sequence again to make sure you didn't peak. This is a real pain when editing longer multicam sequences. These two flaws of Premiere Pro CS6 make it a much more frustrating experience than it needs to be. They need to fix these soon.

Best way to get them fixed is either a stink about it in their forums to generate more awareness and then make a request to fix it HERE.


Finally, my workflow for actually getting around your original question is to set up a multicam sequence the following way:

1) Bring all your clips onto the middle of your timeline and line them up so they are sync'd.

2) With the clips all sync'd up, extend the clips out so that the beginning and end of what you want to edit are all visible.

3) ALT-select the video clips ONLY and right-click and select NEST.

4) Right-click that new nested clip and select MULTICAM>ENABLE.

Done! No need to copy, paste, or start a new sequence. Much faster in my opinion.

Good luck!
 
The Irish TRex said:
The multicam bug he refers to is VERY annoying.
Click to expand...

Well, it certainly seems to annoy Irish TRex. I use PPro cs6 for mulitcam work all the time, and I had never noticed this "bug". I've only become aware of it in the last few months because a handful of very vocal people are complaining about it.

I'm just sayin' that this particular "feature" isn't annoying to me. But every piece of software ever made is going to annoy someone, in some way. Just the nature of the beast.
 
Unfortunately, it appears from a little research into this issue that people have been complaining about it for over 2 years. C'mon Adobe. Not the end of the world as its still a great program, albeit somewhat buggy. Hopefully they'll work out the kinks though soon. You're not kidding that there are some very vocal people out there complaining about this issue. It's unfortunate because its a very nice piece of software but this issue, combined with the fact that the audio meters don't even work in multicam mode, definitely make Adobe's multicam workflow a step or two behind the competition. I've read where many long time users hardly notice it but that's like the guy who drives a car whose tailpipe is dragging along the ground. They hardly seem to notice. After all, the car isn't broken. But it sure is annoying to everyone else. Okay, I know that analogy is a bit of a stretch but you get my point :)
 
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