CS4 multicam editing question(s)

[Tom Blizzard]

I'm on my third project using CS4 and the Adobe Multicam editing feature. It is amazing and saves so much time. However, I'm noticing something that might be called "inconsistant."

Maybe someone can clear this up? Here's what is happening. I go through a project selecting from one of three cameras the clip I want to use. I then finish and save. If I playback the entire show, it is fine and everything is great. Just as I selected in my editing.
However, a next day or so later, after I've saved the project and shut down my computer, I reboot and reopen the project. When I view the show, I then realize I need to make some minor changes. So I go into the multicam editor and view the project and make some corrections. I do know from expereince to make these corrections right at a previous camera cut.

Now then, here's where something strange is happening. When I put the new selected section into the show, The previous earlier selections ( clip selections),, that come after my new insert, are eliminated up to some scene several minutes later. This happenes, even though I originally had several short clips selected during the time after my new insert.

Could it be this: Most of the time when I select multicam edit from the dropdown, the dropdown shows Camera 1.
This time it showed camera two...... A bit different.

Golly, this might not make sense....... Know a good tutorial that discusses this.... I've viewed Short and Sweet many times, it doesn't address this.....

Tks, Tom

[Adam Gold]

Tom, I wish I could help but I honestly have no idea what you are describing. The process should work the same in CS3, 4 and 5 -- at least it was the same in 3 and 5, which are the two I used.

Let me describe how I go back and make changes to my edits and maybe this will help, or at least help you to describe your issue in a way I can understand.

After my rough cut is completed, I close my multi-camera monitor and play back the edited timeline. This is the one with all the multicam edits but it looks like a single video track with a normal source and program monitor. When I see a cut or shot I don't like, I stop playback. I double click the clip right where the CTI is. The source monitor changes to a four way split (note that this is NOT the Multi-Camera Monitor; it is just the regular source monitor but split four ways). The selected clip is highlighted in yellow. If I want to merely substitute in a different shot for the selected one, I just click it and it changes to the new one. But if I just want to change the edit point, I select the rolling edit tool and slide the edit point directly in the timeline. If I want to add a new edit point I use the razor tool in the timeline, select the shot I want to replace and then click the new shot in the source panel.

Does any of this make sense? At no point do I go into the multi camera editor at all unless I want to start over. If you do that you are over-writing all your previous work until you stop. You could do that but I only do so when I want to completely start over. But the secret is that you only start over-writing when you do your first "click" on a new shot and you see a red rectangle surrounding a shot -- if it is yellow you are looking at existing edits. Red is recording, yellow is playing back.

There is no need to make any corrections right at any previous cuts -- they are unrelated.

I am completely baffled by what any of this means:

Originally Posted by Tom Blizzard

When I put the new selected section into the show, The previous earlier selections ( clip selections),, that come after my new insert, are eliminated up to some scene several minutes later. This happens, even though I originally had several short clips selected during the time after my new insert.

Could it be this: Most of the time when I select multicam edit from the dropdown, the dropdown shows Camera 1.
This time it showed camera two......

What selected section? There should be no selecting or inserting going on to my knowledge. What dropdowns? This sounds like a completely different workflow from that with which I am familiar. There may be a completely different way to do this that I don't know about.

HOWEVER, in thinking about this a bit more, it may indeed be a CS4 issue. I seem to recall about a year or more ago a few outraged posters over at the Adobe forums complaining about something to do with the multicam editing functions in CS4 and the multi-camera monitor, but as I recall this had more to do with crashing than with not saving revisions. You might want to do a search over there to see if you can find anything.

[Jay West]

I seem to be following Adam around.

Tom, I'm guessing that a tutorial is not going to help. I think you have misunderstood what you are selecting if you are using the drop down in the multi-cam window.

I haven't used CS4 for a year, but I recall the multi-cam setup being more or less the same as in CS5. The drop-down list in the Mutli-Camera Editing Monitor/Window is not the same as a Camera Selection such as you would get when using Clip--->Multicam ---> Camera X from the program menu bar.

Picking Video 1 etc. in the multi-cam window is a track reference, not a camera selection. Picking video 2 tells PPro you want to monitor Video Track 2 for multi-cam rather than the sequence you have on Video track 1.

Basically, when I want to add or change cuts,

(a) if I want to change the camera (from say camera 1 to camera 4), I use the multi-cam window and simply click on the window of the camera I want to use or do what Adam does
AND
(b) if I'm simply moving the edit point, I use the "rolling edit tool" to simultaneously move the cut point or I just grab clip handles and move the ends, both being done on the main timeline.

If you try method (a) or (b) and still get the problems with unintended changes, you've likely got a corrupt installation and should consider uninstalling and reinstalling.

[Tom Blizzard]

Adam and Jay. Thanks to both of you.
Been working most of the day on a play. Got another 3 camera project tomorrow. Going to the practice early in the morning. I'll read and reread your comments when I get back.
Thanks, Tom