I use Ultimate S for multicamera, and I love it, it's the best. But it's limited to 4 cameras. How are you editing 5 or more cameras?

Vasst does have a plug in that's good for hudreds of cameras, but the idea of buying it to add a single camera is a downer.

Vegad 9 and 10 have internal multicam. No
Need to use a script for basic editing.

Hey Jeff, ive only ever used the Vegas multicam function,
What advantage does Ult S offer?
I cant think of much that the Vegas version cant do unless I'm missing something.

PS. finally got that 30mm Sigma, I can now see in the dark quite widely. Thanx for the suggestion :)

I should specify, not a fan of Vegas Multicam.

It's a weird little feature, seems as if it was tacked on like the "pro titler", but maybe I should try it again. How many cameras will it do? More than 4? I went tried to set it up for five tracks and Vegas froze up, then I tried it for two and it froze up again.

Jeff, Excalibur can do more than 4 cameras however since you have Ultimate S I guess you might not want to make a change.

To all others, Both Excalibur and Ultimate S offer advantages that Vegas Multicam doesn't. first and foremost is the ease of use. I've done seminars with 6 cams usings Excalibur and its all one button touch editing. That to me is worth the price of admission alone. There are other advantages as well but the main one for me is 1 button multicam editing.
YMMV

Strange, Ive done 6 cams for about a 1hr project, a few times now and had no drama.
Before I was using Cineform it was a mountain of pain, It would crash every few mins (combo of AVCHD, HDV and MP4), but with Cineform it is as solid as the rest of Vegas for me.

You can color correct prior to editing and not lose your work, which I do with every shoot. I color correct/add effects prior to setting up my multicamera, and I'd like to be able to continue that.

I run my multicamera projects with a parent project and a bunch of
sub-veg files that contain each individual camera. The sub-veg files are
what I add to the timeline in the main project and synthesize into
a multi-take multicamera clip.

If I need to color-correct after the fact or shift a clip a frame for better sync
I do that in the sub-veg file and it automatically propagates to the main project.

Also, sometimes I get camera angles after the edit is half finished. I usually
leave an empty sub-veg file as one of the takes in the multicamera file from
the beginning so that I can integrate any late-breaking camera angles into the
edit painlessly.

Most of my edits are 4 to 8 DV type-1 avi files. If you use this method in Vegas
10d, the send full-frame to external monitor option in the multicamera menu
will not work. Also, kill all the audio tracks and clean project media in the sub-veg
files. Keep all the audio tracks in the main project file.

I, too, have not bothered using Vegas' built-in multicam function. I have always used VASST's InfinitiCam ever since it was released. I regularly edit 6 to 9 cams (AVCHD transcoded to CF avi) and it has never failed me. Worth every penny, imo. I also own Ultimate S Pro for the other features.

Jr. Pascual
49 Productions

Hmmm, Vasst Infinicam, thanks Junior. Might have to go that route. Excalibur is a logical choice, but since I alrready do Vasst, as was suggested I'd be better to stick with it, after years of Ultimate S.

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate your feedback.

I, too, have not bothered using Vegas' built-in multicam function. I have always used VASST's InfinitiCam ever since it was released.

Jr. Pascual
49 Productions

With Vegas 10 I went from Infiniticam to the Vegas built in one. The improvements in Vegas 10 have made it superior to Infiniticam.

Much easier to use as well.

Just finished a Multicam project (3 cams) in Vegas 10d, quick,easy and not a single issue experienced..
I have found the multicam feature in vegas to be excellent....

You can color correct prior to editing and not lose your work, which I do with every shoot. I color correct/add effects prior to setting up my multicamera, and I'd like to be able to continue that.

Which program are you talking about here? Vegas? I just color corrected two tracks and am about to create the multi-track. I know it gets rid of cross-fades and what-not, but will it dump you color correction as well?

Yes, I'm talking about Vegas, Jeremiah. "If you have envelopes, effects, or motion applied to the original camera tracks, these will be lost during this operation."

Unless this has been changed in the updates, it is how it works, unfortunately. You will not be the first person to find this out after the fact, Jeremiah. Sorry.

If you've spend a huge amount of time on it, the only choices are to either lose your work, or download a program such as Ultimate S or Excalibur and use it as a demo to get you through this project.

But the problem with that approach is you might end up spendiing as much time learning and figuring out the program as you would have redoing your work.

You're kind of caught in the middel, so to speak.

Add color correction to the MEDIA - in the Project Media tab - and it will not be lost. But, yes, anything added to the events themselves will be lost using the built-in multi-cam.

There are other workarounds. You can render each track out separately with their respective color correction and then build the multi-camera track using those color corrected tracks.

You can also just make cuts in the top track, "cutting away" the areas that you want the bottom track to show up on. This only really works if you have 2 tracks though. It would be a pain with more than two.

I ended up going with choice number one in this case, then instead of doing yet another render, I put the .veg file into DVD Architect.

Just remember there is no reason to render a file out for each track. Just stick
the track with color correction filters in a .veg file and you can use it on the timeline
just like the rendered track. You can go back and change the track .veg files anytime
you want. You also never have to render out a bunch of color correction video that is not
going to be used in the final project using the sub-.veg per track method.

Yup, good point there, though I haven't tried putting a .veg into DVDA that had nesting .veg files.