| Page (1) of 2 - 02/25/05 |
 email article |
 print
page |
|
As if the NewTek VT[4] system weren?t versatile enough, there is a raft of plug-ins available for the system which extends its capabilities. One of the more prolific plug-in writers, Bob Tasa, has written a group of plug-ins for the VT[4] that adds an array of useful and interesting capabilities to the system. In a series of reviews, we?ll take a look at these plug-ins, starting with BobsMultiCam ($195), a cleverly designed and tightly integrated group of shortcuts and scripts that let you mix up to nine cameras on the VT[4] timeline and then easily tweak your results.
Every TV director at one time or another has wished he/she could go back and recut an entire show. Well, if you record each camera?s output during your taping, a multicam editing feature in your nonlinear editing system will allow you to do just that. Pioneered by Avid more than a decade ago and followed by applications such as United Media MultiCam, Pinnacle Edition and Excalibur for Vegas, this technique has enhanced a multitude of multicamera productions and allowed directors to second-guess themselves to an extent way beyond anything they ever imagined. And now, with the advent of more powerful processors, real-time multicam editing has become more commonplace than ever. What once required a $100,000 workstation can now be accomplished easily with a $195 plug-in.
Now BobsMultiCam offers this powerful functionality within the VT[4]. The workflow for editing multicam footage using BobsMultiCam seems a bit obtuse at first, but once you begin to understand what it is you?re actually doing, it all makes perfect sense. The bottom line is, BobsMultiCam gets the job done in short order.
Once you?ve downloaded the plug-in and installed it, when you launch VT[4] and go into its Effects Panel you?ll see the BobsMultiCam files waiting for you. You have a choice of using one interface which works with up to four cameras and shows them in a quad-split format, or another interface into which you can place up to nine cameras.
Either way, your first task is to capture all of your clips that were recorded at the same time and place them on the timeline. Here?s where you need to synchronize all those clips with each other, and you can do that either by matching their time code or finding a place that?s common in all the clips and synchronizing that. Many times people will use the flash on a digital camera as a sync point. You could also clap your hands within view of all your cameras when you first start recording. Either way, it?s fairly easy to synchronize clips with the VT[4] system by placing a mark on one clip and then finding that identical spot on another and also placing a mark on it. Once you?ve placed all your marks in the appropriate places, they snap together when you bring the clips close to each other on the VT[4] timeline.
 |
| (Click graphic for enlargement) First you place the clips for each camera on the timeline, sync them up, and then place the Bob'sMulticam filter on a track below them. |
Once you synchronize your clips, then you place the multicam filter on one of the tracks on the timeline (see graphic above). Then you assign a camera number to each one of the clips. Then your clips appear in a quad-split format on your NTSC or PAL monitor. When you hit your space bar, all these clips play back together, and you?ll see the visual equivalent of the tally light at the top of whichever clip you?ve selected as being ?on line.? As the clips play back, you select numbers on the numeric keypad to change cameras. What this is actually doing is placing color-coded markers on each clip, designating where you would like for the cuts to take place. As you?re making your on-the-fly cutting decisions, you can always stop the playback and slide these markers back and forth in order to fine tune your cutting. Or, you can delete a marker altogether and choose a different camera. Meanwhile, you choose the audio track that you?d like to use for this production, and drag it to the bottom of the timeline. This audio track won?t be touched throughout the rest of the proceedings.
 |
| The three cameras appear in a quad-split arrangement, with a red mark that serves as your tally light, signifying which camera is currently "on line." |
This entire routine worked very well on our dual Xeon 3.0 machine, where even though all three cameras were not playing back in full real time in the quad-split arrangement (see graphic above), there were enough frames being displayed to easily tell when it was a good time to cut and then it wasn?t. If our machine was slightly more capable, real-time playback would have been easy. But then, we were using uncompressed footage ? if you?re using DV footage, real-time playback is so much easier that it?s almost a given. A slight annoyance was the tally light that was delayed by a few frames before it showed up over the next clip in the quad-split, but that was just the display of the tally light ? the actual cut happened exactly when we designated it. We also noticed a slight instability when we attempted to clean up the timeline by clipping off the end of the multicam filter. Every time we tried to do that, VT[4] would crash, but then we realized that it wasn?t necessary to perform that function anyway ? it was just through force of habit that we tried to clean up the edge of the timeline. As soon as we stopped trying to clean up the edge of those effects, all was well.
Related Sites: Digital Producer , Hollywood Industry , Digital Video Editing , Animation Artist , Siggraph News , Audio Video Producer , BN - Broadcast Newsroom , Digital Post Production , Film Imaging , Oceania , BN - NAB , BN - IBC , BN - Production , BN - Software
Related Newsletter: DMN Newsletter , Timeline Newsletter , Renders , Digital Media Net , DMNForums , Review Seeker
AV-HS450 16+ Input HD/SD Switcher w/ dual screen MultiViewer
Vegas Pro 8 + Free Vegas Seminar Series
