Editing Video, What Programs Are You Using?

[D. Gauss]

Been using Vegas since i can remember. I use Reaper for a DAW, and Reaper was pretty much born out of the audio portion of Vegas, so the familiarity between the two helps this old brain (same commands).  Having said that, Vegas rendering is still a go out to lunch and come back and wait some more affair, and then use Handbrake afterwards.  But still sure beats the hell out of all the years I worked in television and we edited off 2 inch video.   

[AnotherScott]

I liked the old iMovie (I think iMovie 6/HD was the last version of that design), which I used with some 3rd-party plug-ins.  I can't gel with the later one... for whatever reason, it confuses me at every turn. There were some other old apps that I thought were pretty good, but they no longer run on current systems.

 

I've done a little with Shotcut, and it seems pretty good. Based on this thread, it sounds like I should look at Resolve as well.

 

What I'd like to do, as easily as possible:

 

I record many of my gigs with two "cameras" (e.g. an iPhone and an iPad from opposite angles). I'f likr to bring the two files into the video editing program, easily sync them up, and decide at which point I want "camera S" vs. where I want "camera B." Zooming into a portion of the image is also needed. That's the basics.

 

Ideally, I can activate both audio tracks throghout, and set their relative levels. That's because, being in opposite sides of the stage, one tends to have a mix that is more keyboard heavy, while the other tends to have a mix that's more guitar heavy, and it would be nice to combine the two at the desired balance.

 

Lastly, when switching between the Camera A and Camera B video sources, it would be great if I could do dissolve transitions between them... but I could also live without that if need be.

 

Might anyone have any suggestions specific to my desired usage? Shotcut might be my best bet... I haven't spent enough time with it to really learn its ins and outs yet. But maybe there's something stronger for this use?

 

[D. Gauss]

On 8/11/2024 at 11:02 PM, AnotherScott said:

 

 

What I'd like to do, as easily as possible:

 

I record many of my gigs with two "cameras" (e.g. an iPhone and an iPad from opposite angles). I'f likr to bring the two files into the video editing program, easily sync them up, and decide at which point I want "camera S" vs. where I want "camera B." Zooming into a portion of the image is also needed. That's the basics.

 

Ideally, I can activate both audio tracks throghout, and set their relative levels. That's because, being in opposite sides of the stage, one tends to have a mix that is more keyboard heavy, while the other tends to have a mix that's more guitar heavy, and it would be nice to combine the two at the desired balance.

 

Lastly, when switching between the Camera A and Camera B video sources, it would be great if I could do dissolve transitions between them... but I could also live without that if need be.

 

Might anyone have any suggestions specific to my desired usage? Shotcut might be my best bet... I haven't spent enough time with it to really learn its ins and outs yet. But maybe there's something stronger for this use?

 

I do this all the time. Can only speak for Vegas as that's what I use. But, easiest, best way to do this is: get a zoom q2n video recorder. (Bout 100 bucks used on craigs or ebay).  Set this up FOH or wherever sound is best in venue. (The zoom records excellent stereo 24bit audio and really really shitty video in dom club lighted spaces.) Set up your ipad and phone as per usual. Make sure all 3 cameras are recording 48k audio.  

  After gig, in Vegas, drag the video from the zoom into a new track on the vegas timeline.  Then do the same for the other 2 video sources.  Now line up the audio for iPad and phone tracks bring dragging left/right until they match the zoom. 

  Now mute the audio tracks for the phone and iPad, and mute the video track for the zoom. 

  Now you can cut back and forth between the phone and iPad as you wish, simply by splitting the track and muting whichever can you want to see.(hard to explain but easy easy to do). Plus you can zoom,pan, etc on a per clip basis.

[AnotherScott]

On 8/15/2024 at 3:59 PM, D. Gauss said:

I do this all the time. Can only speak for Vegas as that's what I use. But, easiest, best way to do this is: get a zoom q2n video recorder...Set this up FOH or wherever sound is best in venue

Thanks for the info, but I really want to get the audio off the two cameras rather than a third device. For one thing, I have dozens of shows already recorded that way. Also, I am unlikely to be be to place a recorder where things sound best (even if I can make a best guess as to where that might be). "Directly in front of the center of the band, x feet in front of the PA" is not really an option. Nearby, there are likely people/dance floor; people/tables behind that; and back-of-room tends to produce bad sounding recordings, especially in deeper rooms. Out of curiosity, where have you had good luck placing it?

[Philbo King]

Near the FOH mixer console is always a good place to start. 

 

Sometimes, if you ask politely, they'll even provide a line-level mixer output feed. 

[PaulArtola]

Cyberlink PowerDirector is my video editor and it's Screen Capture program is my main tracker!

 

- Paul "Uncle Chrome" Artola
  Ellicott City, Maryland

 

[D. Gauss]

12 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Thanks for the info, but I really want to get the audio off the two cameras rather than a third device. For one thing, I have dozens of shows already recorded that way. Also, I am unlikely to be be to place a recorder where things sound best (even if I can make a best guess as to where that might be). "Directly in front of the center of the band, x feet in front of the PA" is not really an option. Nearby, there are likely people/dance floor; people/tables behind that; and back-of-room tends to produce bad sounding recordings, especially in deeper rooms. Out of curiosity, where have you had good luck placing it?

You can just do what i said above without the 3rd device (Zoom Q2n), and either only use one of the camera's audio (but still switch between video), or deal with the abrupt sound changes that occur and just switch between the the two cam's video AND audio.

 

As for placement (and i'm referring to the Zoom mentioned above), i'm not terribly picky about it as almost anywhere is gonna be better than onstage.  The Zoom is smaller than your fist, so it's pretty easy to get it in a decent spot that won't get abused.  I mount it on one of those cheap adjustable, all-purpose trigger clamps you can get at home depot or amazon for cheap.  Lots of clubs have retractable movie/video screens that fill up the stage area when there aren't bands playing.  The projectors are often mounted in the ceiling, hanging right about center of the dance floor.  I just hop on a chair and clamp the camera to the projector.     Otherwise there's poles, light trusses, etc. to clamp to.  

 

If you want better audio and not a third device, you might want to pick up a Shure MV88+  (yeah, i know it's another device, but roll with me here). 

 

Lots of ipads and iphones don't record stereo from the internal mics.  (front & back ain't stereo).  The Shure lets you do so with ease, plus you can use a really long usb cable with it so the mic can be where the sound is better away from the camera. i.e. you're shooting yourself playing keys, and close video is great for the looks, but all you hear is a screaming Leslie and no band.   

 

Regardless, I'd suggest not using the generic Apple video Cinema app and use P3 Pro Camera app instead. It has a wealth of features that really help out in doing this kind of stuff. Did I mention audio meters?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cinema-p3-pro-camera/id1499874039?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

  

[AnotherScott]

21 hours ago, Philbo King said:

Near the FOH mixer console is always a good place to start. 

We typically don't have one. 

 

11 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

You can just do what i said above without the 3rd device (Zoom Q2n), and either only use one of the camera's audio (but still switch between video)

Yes, that's easy.My point was that sometimes the mix of the two cameras' audios is better than either one alone, and I was hoping I could blend them.

 

11 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

As for placement (and i'm referring to the Zoom mentioned above), i'm not terribly picky about it as almost anywhere is gonna be better than onstage. 

We never record from on stage, it's always from the audience section, but usually way off center to one side or the other. And since guitar and keys don't typically go through the PA, the mixes from each side are different, despite our mono PA. (I usually set up on the opposite side from the guitar. Also, sometimes there are horns on one side, another variable that alters the mix based on location.)

 

11 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

Lots of clubs have retractable movie/video screens that fill up the stage area when there aren't bands playing.  The projectors are often mounted in the ceiling, hanging right about center of the dance floor.  I just hop on a chair and clamp the camera to the projector.     Otherwise there's poles, light trusses, etc. to clamp to.  

 

The band I play with most often rarely plays anywhere with a stage or trussess; and often ceilings are well beyond what you could reach by standing on a chair (and considering PA dispersion, I don't expect anything to sound good that high anyway). Think banquet halls and the like. Not to mention all the outdoor gigs we do. But really, I need to keep things simple and quick. Right now I use a couple of super light tripods way off to the sides, that's all. I'm just thinking about ideas to get the best out of that. Adding a third piece just isn't in the cards. Heck, between time constraints and placement issues, probably about a third of the time I don't even get to set up the second camera, and I just have the one!

 

11 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

If you want better audio and not a third device, you might want to pick up a Shure MV88+  (yeah, i know it's another device, but roll with me here). 

I don't really need better quality audio, or even stereo. I'm just trying to avoid balances that are consistently guitar heavy or keyboard heavy depending on which side of the stage they're shot from (on those gigs where I did end up recording from both sides).

 

I appreciate your thoughts, but my ambitions are much smaller. 😉

[D. Gauss]

6 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

 

 

My point was that sometimes the mix of the two cameras' audios is better than either one alone, and I was hoping I could blend them.

 

 

Well, short answer is you can and you can't.    In multiple camera shoots like this, when it comes to editing, you usually cut to a reference.  That's why I have the Zoom cam when doing this guerrilla style shooting.  It provides the master audio bed along with a shitty picture, but they are totally in sync.  All the other cams are cut "to that audio/video bed" to maintain sync.  While you can roughly align and mix together the audio from 2 different cams (and you may get lucky for a few short seconds or longer), unless they were clocked off the same master clock, you're asking for a world of phasing/comb filtering/delay issues over time. When the snare drum starts to flam, you'll know.  Otherwise you need to get into timecode and offsets and a buncha time consuming boring stuff.

[AnotherScott]

12 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

While you can roughly align and mix together the audio from 2 different cams (and you may get lucky for a few short seconds or longer), unless they were clocked off the same master clock, you're asking for a world of phasing/comb filtering/delay issues over time. When the snare drum starts to flam, you'll know.  Otherwise you need to get into timecode and offsets and a buncha time consuming boring stuff.

This was clearly a problem in analog days, where, for example, tape machines never ran at *precisely* the same speed (unless their mechanisms were externally controlled with a common reference, e.g. SMPTE). But with, say, two iPhones, running the same app with all the same parameters, I wouldn't expect that drift (i.e. turning snare hits to flams over time).  e.g. shouldn't two iPhones recording at identical settings with digital precision both yield the same result? My minimal experiments in this area haven't turned up these issues, as long as the frame rate was indeed identical.

[harmonizer]

I mix the audio separately, captured from the Zoom L20 which serves as our live mixing board as well as our multitrack recorder. Then I prep the view from each cell phone camera that I have captured by cropping that view, and if it was recorded indoors in a dark place like a bar, applying whatever brightening is possible without making it look worse. Sometimes I will have two separate cropped views of the same camera, with one of them closer in. Then I bring in each "prepped" camera view, plus the separate audio mix, into the multicam editor function on my video editing program. This lets me sync all the inputs (the multiple camera views plus the audio mix) based on the audio present in each of them. Usually it does this audio-based sync properly, but sometimes I have to nudge 1 or 2 of the camera views by 1 frame. After this sync is done, the audio present in each camera view is not used for anything else. The only audio that gets into the final video is the audio mix I created based on the capture from our Zoom L20 multitrack recorder. Then I go thru the song from start to end, indicating exactly where I want to transition from one camera view to another. After this project is saved, I export it to an mp4 file.

[harmonizer]

I have sometimes had problems with losing time sync during video editing, when one or more sources were from iphones, when I use the multicamera editor function in Corel VideoStudio. Someone told me that iphones tend to drop a frame when they get busy, during the video capture. I am not an expert on this, but I have a theory that Corel VideoStudio lets this drift take place if I export the "prep view copy" as an mp4 file, and use that mp4 as the input into the Multicam editor function of VideoStudio. But that this drift does not take place if instead I leave the "prep view copy" as a VideoStudio 'project' (.VSP) and do not export it to mp4 before using the Multicam editor. To repeat, this is just a theory on my part and I do not have direct proof that this helps.