Wish me luck...

[Gerald Webb]

Hey people,
I'm doing a rock concert tomorrow night,
3 bands,
8 cams....... me and one other guy, its going to be a marathon.
One question,
Would you rather,
A. Lock the exposure of all cameras at a mid point and therefore have lots of blown out high lights and some black spots when it gets dark?
or
B. Let the cams do there own thing in full auto and risk way more grain in the dark spots, but less blown highlights ?

Im thinking lock it, but i am second guessing myself a bit.
Interested in the thoughts of the more experienced.

[Nicholas de Kock]

Good luck bud, sounds hectic! I'm not an expert I film a live show production once a year with lots of stage lighting going off like fireworks and in my experience unless you know what the lighting situations is going to be like manual exposure doesn't really work for fast changing lighting conditions, the spotlight setting on most video cameras on auto iris gives better results however take this advice with a grain of salt it all depends on the lighting. If you are going DSLR locking it down might be the better option, try and get to the location early and do a few tests runs.

Tip: If they are using strobe lights make sure they turn them off, strobes will ruin your footage if you are shooting on CMOS sensors. Don't forget to hit the record button on all 8 cameras! When you only have two operators you won't believe how easily this can happen, verbally confirm your recording status every time.

[Magnus Helander]

My pro tip: White balance with all flood, spot and stage lights on....

[Gerald Webb]

thanx guys,
yes , white balance with all lights on sounds like the go.
And remember to turn all cams on, lol, had nightmares about things like that all week. More worried about card errors and such, I'm using ,
GH1,
GH2,
JVC HM100
HF10
HV20
60D
GoPro
and a Sony HDD handycam,
Im kind of feeling right now it would be nice if they were all just HV20s, less quality, but you just know the mini DV will do its job.

[Garrett Low]

Gerald,

With 8 Cameras and only two operators I'd lock everything on all the unmanned cameras. Set some of them so that they are a little biased toward under exposure and set some up to capture low light and let them blow out when the lights go 100%. You'll have to do a lot of color correction in post but that would give you the most options. For the manned cams, as long as you're comfortable, I'd go full manual and be ready to be constantly making adjustments. When I'm doing live events that 's my strategy.

With the cameras you have listed I wouldn't trust them on auto.

Just how I'd approach it.

-Garrett

[Gerald Webb]

Can anyone help with this,
transcoded about 11 hrs of footage to Cineform,
Got 8 tracks of 1080p on the timeline synced and ready to rock and it is crash city.
Just resizing the preview or changing quality=crash
Scrolling open the timeline=crash
Cant work for more than a min or so without fail.
Even had a BSD.
this error every time,
Cineform seem unsure, just asking about UAC and which version of Neo (updated last week).
Im hoping they get back with something positive, but wondering if anyone here has a fix.

[Eric Olson]

Transcode everything to standard definition DV in AVI files. Unless you have a hardware malfunction, editing DV in standard definition should be crash proof. If you need a blu-ray master, swap the standard definition AVI files for high-definition ones just before the final render.

[Leslie Wand]

alternatively, .mxf.

do you intend cutting between 8 cameras!?

i've worked on a number of edits for well known bands, max cameras i ever had to deal with was 5, and one of those was on the audience.

[Gerald Webb]

thanks guys,
last night in despair I ran off some 1024x576 Cineform files, been playing with those for an hour or so and it seems stable, so now I'm thinking its my PC cant handle the big file weight, i just dont know.
Yes, 8 is a stretch, I'm going half speed and looping each verse and chorus to find the best shots, TBH its doin my head in. May have bitten off more than I can chew, lol.
I still think something has changed with Cineform, ive done multicam 1080p projects on this PC b4.

[Chip Gallo]

At least you have music. I have around 12 hours of HD from a 2-camera mud bog. Plus 2 digital audio captures (announcer, engines in the bog).

Sample at http://www.vimeo.com/chipgallo

[Gerald Webb]

Update to maybe help someone in the future.
Had no joy with 1080p Cineform files converted from multiple AVCHD, MXF and HDV cam files. The original cam files and captures were converted to Cineform in folder group lots by HD LInk, thus ending up with multiple Cineform files laying along side the raw files in there folders on a 7200rpm drive.
I got the files synced in Vegas but after that it went downhill pretty fast, crashes every few minutes or more, sometimes the project would just crash on load.
BUT,
Re encoded the raw files to Cineform in Vegas, thus making one massive file for each cam, rather than 2,3 or 7 files (in the case of the MXF cam) sitting together on the timeline, (also applied Neat video and levels in the encode).
Now I just have 7 big files for 7 cams, all on one 7200rpm drive.
It plays like a champion, Full screen multicam playback on second monitor with color management WHILE applying primaries and looks in First Light. Did 2 hrs of editing and coloring with not a single crash or stammer (even had preview on best before I realised and put back to auto).
Why is it different? dont know.
Next time Ill save a few days of rendering and just convert in Vegas.