Difficulties adding transitions to a multi camera project

[Sparky1986]

I'm currently working on an audition video for a friend that plays guitar - I've filmed him playing for a couple of minutes using a handheld digital camera (Olympus EM5 III) and used a digital audio recorder with its own microphone (a Zoom H6) to mic the guitar amp. To make syncing the audio and video easier, I used the line out from the audio recorder into the mic in of the camera. I also used a phone (Samsung S21 Ultra) as another camera angle - this was in a fixed position. The phone was also receiving line-in audio from the audio recorder.

I'm trying to use VideoStudio 2021 Pro for this project. I've had a very short play around with an earlier version a couple of years ago but it's the first time I'm using it for a project since then. I've read a bit through the help pages and know that I need to use the Multi-Camera Editor if I want to automatically sync a seperate audio track with video and/or use multiple camera angles. So far the Multi-Camera Editor makes sense, it synced the audio with the video perfectly and its easy to choose which camera angles I want at which times.

The issue is with the transitions. It seems that the only transition I can select in the Multi-Camera Editor is the default crossfade, and I can only specify the transition time in whole seconds. Ideally I'd like to be able to choose a transition from the library of transitions that are available, and choose 0.5 or 0.25 (so 12 or 6 frame) duration if I wish. But I can't see any way to do this at all if I'm using Multi-Camera Editor. I tried seeing if I could just put no transitions whilst I'm in the Multi-Camera Editor and then add them in manually in the timeline but this then causes the audio to go out of sync with the video. It keeps synchronisation if I add transitions in the Multi-Camera Editor but then I'm very limited in the transition parameters. I did also try seeing if I could make the synchronisation line back up again when adding a transition in the timeline by trimming the video clips by the same duration as the transition but this doesn't seem to work either - I've tried both the Roll and Multi-trim functions to make the video clip after a camera transition come in the exact amount of seconds later as the transition's length but it doesn't seem to be working. Any ideas on how I can add transitions without messing up the synchronisation? I tried turning on ripple editing and this just doesn't let me add a transition at all.

The other annoying thing with Multi-Camera Editor is that I can't make any changes to the multi-camera stuff - where I want to have camera angle changes etc - after I've started working in the timeline unless I want to abandon everything I'm doing there as making changes in the Multi-Camera Editor only updates the Multi-Camera project, so I would have to delete everything from the timeline and drag the updated Multi-Camera project back in to it if I want to make any changes in the Multi-Camera Editor. This isn't the end of the world though, just need to make sure I settle on my camera angle changes first before doing anything else. Still a bit of an odd way for the program to work though.

Thanks!

[Davidk]

I last worked with MCE before the pandemic, so this is a bit rusty, . . but FWIW
1. changing camera angles
Understand that MCE is a tool to combine in any combination you choose, video and audio that has already been recorded. When setting the MCE windows up, you get to choose all the source camera video and audio you want as part of the edit (within the allowed software limits: for ultimate, 6 cameras and 2 audio). In the main window, those are all in the top LH pane, and in the TL tracks. Once you start "recording" you can use the mouse to switch between the available source clips as desired (position the mouse over the clip image and click) and the result will show in the merged edited track (eg a clip with clip1 Part) clip2, clip1 part, clip3 etc).

If you find that the available camera video - and thus the camera angles - is not good enough and you want to change one or more of the camera positions to get a better 'angle', then yes you will have to start over after re-recording the session video for each camera, and audio.

2. transitions
MCE uses a default transition. When the MCE edit is done, OK sends the result to the library in the main editor as a single vsp icon embodying all the camera and audio selections you made, and when that icon is dragged to the TL, it expands to fill the used tracks for video and audio. It's here that you edit the result to change the transitions to one or ones you prefer.

[lata]

Sparky1986
And welcome to the forums
I understand what you are saying and being able to Select the A/B transition within MCE would be helpful, my version defaults to a Crossfade at 3 seconds
However I do NOT have a problem in replacing the transition by simply dragging any transition to the timeline and dropping over the existing transition will replace the transition, I can also change the duration of the transition, limited by the clip length. Using the clock 6 frames is possible
Double click any transition to select, change the digital clock.
You may need to expand (zoom-in) the timeline to see the transitions.

From the timeline I can also drag the edges of the transition, but difficult to set a specific duration.

What we cannot do is change the duration of any video clip as that will alter/break the sync.
Of course we may need to do that then apply Ripple editing to retain timeline sync.

No solution to re-editing the VSP in MCE

[Sparky1986]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have tried applying the transitions in the Multi-Camera Editor, which applies the default crossfade, and then replacing those transitions with my own choice. But if I make any change to the transition duration, the video loses sync with the audio.

I can specify the transition duration in whole seconds only in the MCE so there doesn't seem to be any way to then change that to 6 or 12 frames in the timeline without affecting the sync. As this is a video of a musician playing, the sync needs to stay accurate so if I had say 10 transitions originally set at 1 second in MCE and then changed to even 6 frames, the audio will then be 2.5 seconds out of sync which is noticeable.

When I was trying to add transitions in the timeline manually instead of in the MCE, I tried trimming the start of a clip after a camera change by the same duration as the transition but that doesn't seem to solve the sync issue. So I suppose I'm limited to either no transition (an instant cut) or a transition in whole seconds only, and I have to decide on my transition durations in the MCE before doing any other editing in the timeline to avoid having to start all over again.

I did try some other editing software, CyberLink PowerDirector. The transitions in that are applied over the top of the clips in the timeline so they don't affect audio/video sync, whereas Corel VideoStudio only seems to allow transitions to be placed inbetween clips. I did have a look to see if there was a way of applying a transition over the top of a clip but I can't do it - even though there is a category of transitions called 'Overlay Transitions' so maybe they are for some other purpose? I was experiencing another issue in PowerDirector though, it seemed to have a weird issue in its own multi camera editor where it wouldn't show me the preview of my main camera in the multi cam player if I had both my main camera and phone camera clips loaded - possibly related to the error message I kept getting about it being unable to build a 'shadow file' for previews, so something may be wrong with the file from my main camera. VideoStudio doesn't seem to have any problems with the file though. In any case, I actually own VideoStudio 2021 and was only using a trial of PowerDirector that applies watermarks - may have been willing to pay if it was working properly but as it wasn't, I'll use VideoStudio to finish my project and will just have to use 1 second transitions.

[lata]

I do not understand, maybe I am looking at the wrong clips / transitions
The attached image shows a MultiCam.vsp Inserted to the timelines
First I hit the + zoom to expand the timelines allowing me to see a larger view of the transition
Then I drag any A/B transition and drop over the existing transition to replace, I used the Center-Clock
Double clicking on the transition opens the options panel allowing me to customise the transition, the digital clock shows the duration, I can change the duration of the transition by modifying the clock, I chose :06:012

Multi Cam VSP’s are different to normal project VSP’s they react in different ways when being edited, they appear to have their own ripple editing, they also allow us to move the cut points using Roll which removes and adds frames from one clip to another this retains the overall duration which keeps clips in sync.