3-Camera Edit on a Kron running 6.2...?

[johnneumann]

Hi Ya'll ... (and some of the rest of you, too),

I'm about to pull my old Kron out of mothballs. It's been several years since I've last edited. (Sounds like the opening script to confession, doesn't it?)

If I remember correctly, I think the last OS I had was 6.2. I had just stock speed, memory, and storage on the Kron, whatever that was.

I've always been only a very basic user of my Kron, so I don't know much about its power, especially with regards to advanced stuff. I've always been strictly a cut/crossfade/render "home-duty" user.

So now I've got this project on my hands that makes me want to edit again after a long while without use of the machine. A friend gave me three tapes ... of three cameras ... of a little concert he gave. He asked if I can take the three tapes and fade between them to give it the look of a real three camera operation. (One of the three tapes has perfect audio quality.)

I told him the new big-league machines have this multi-footage on-the-fly cross-switching ability ... but I don't remember my old Kron doing any such thing. There was this thing where you could "drop" in footage, I think it was called "insert editing" and it would crossfade the ins and outs without messing with the audio, ... but I can't really fathom how you could use that to create a fully blown three-camera finished edit with three different source files. I'm guessing that insert-editing would in fact be the only way, once I can grasp how it's done.

For anyone that can remember a Kron running 6.2 ... and the attending slowness and limitation of it all ... can anyone give me any insight into how easily this can be done? I have no intention of buying software or upgrading my machine, so please don't go there, but I am willing to learn some new tricks if there's a do-able workaround that lets me create a similar effect to a bonafide three-camera switcher.

Once I get the machine out of the basement and working again, is this easy-as-pie to learn how to do? Or would fading between three different footages with perfect audio/video matchup be a very difficult undertaking? (The length/storage is a non-issue. I can edit one song at a time, if necessary.)

By the way, the footages are closeups of hands and faces and such, so there's no roughing how "close" the video can be to the audio. It has to be spot-on ... ie, within a half second or less ... so a discriminating eye won't be able to tell that this particular camera's footage is actually sitting on top of another camera's audio at this point in the film.

Sheesh. Long post. Simple question. Can an old Kron running 6.2 edit three different concert angles together ... over one continuous audio track ... into one movie? Is this a simple process or profoundly difficult?

Thanks in advance to anyone who wants to help me.

Thanks in advance too for reading my ridiculously wordy post. Actually, thanks after-the-fact on that one, if you got down this far.

Warm fuzzies,
JOHN

[TimKennelly]

John,

You have been away from editing for quite a while as a half second out of sync would look like the old Japanese movies.

A discerning eye can easily see three frames or more out of sync.

Yes, this is imminently do-able with your Kron and current software as all you really need is included in the default software.

Sure, Quadcam would make this considerably easier and quicker to do, but is not absolutely necessary.

I would use the old A/B Split/Insert method running your perfect audio track as the A track and the best of the other two as the B track.

Then Create a Scene of that, make that your new A track and use your third view as the new B track.

Tweak the results with Trim on the Storyboard and you are done.

Using Split or Trim you need to find a common, frame accurate starting point for all three views either visiblly (such as a flash) or audibly with a sharp, distinct sound like a clap, etc)

Once you have them all starting at the same frame the rest is easy if a bit tedious.

The gist of the old A/B Split and Insert is to put track A on the Storyboard, use Split to split track B into alternating sections that you want visible on your end Project and those you don't want to show, but Keep all Splits.

Then, using Insert (not Add) add them all on top of the Track A video, then Remove every other one (the segments you don't want visible in your end Project.

After that you can add transitions if you wish although I will say for the most part you should stick to cuts (no transition) as transitions (aka: Crossfade normally denotes time passing or to emphasize the switch between views for a specific reason).

Once you have this finished you use make a Scene of the entire Storyboard and then replace the current Storyboard with the new Scene and use the Split function on the third view and repeat the process.

The difference here is you will need to take into consideration where the first A/B cut/transition points are.

The easiest way to do this is to ignore them initially, Split up view 3 for contents, Insert them on top of the new Track A (combo original track A + B) and then use Trim (not position move) to change the Inserted view three segments where appropriate for the transition points.

Done.

[johnneumann]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the encouragement and the tutorial. I only understood a small portion of the terms you used, but I imagine it'll make perfect sense once the Kron is on for more than 30 minutes.

(And yes, you were correct, I just pulled that 1/2 second video/audio sync figure out of thin air not really remembering the reality. I guess I need to be closer to 2 or 3 frames to avoid the old Japanese movie effect.)

Hypothetically speaking, if I had enough storage to load in three cameras of a 90 minute concert ... and if I could find a perfect 1/30 of a second matching start point that appears on all three scenes (like a pop on the audio or a quick decisive movement on the video that clearly dilineates 1/30 of a second ... is digital tape consistent enough that I could depend on the tapes all still syncing up 90 minutes later? I imagine with analog, there would be some "stretching" of some kind that would cause the three tapes to match at the very beginning, but they would then be noticeably different in length toward the end and start to lose their sync.

I ask because it would seem that if the tapes were (hypothetically) all the exact same length (right down to a single frame) with the exact same starting point, I could watch the one main "foundation" video and then say, "okay, cut to camera two at 15m 32s 15f." Theoretically, I wouldn't even have to police that second cameras footage to make sure it syncs ... it should just be ready to go, right?

Is digital tape that perfect? Or will I be manually bumping footage forward and back a few frames everytime I make a cut to another scene to account for time drifting?

[JPaul]

Yes, dv tapes should maintain syn for 90 minutes - no problem as long as the cams are kept running and no flaws with tape or cameras.

Please check your private messages for more options.

[Jeanton]

Hi John

If you do go ahead with the A/B split method witch Tim is describing I would run the auto split function over the footage of every tape to check if one of the cameras has been stopped during the ceremony. If it splits up - you have a problem and I would suggest to split the first scene to the same length as the smallest first cut.
When I film a ceremony with three cameras and accidentally stop the insert cameras I could kick myself because I know when editing I have to find another sinc point and that
can sometimes take a long time so even when I know I didn't stop the tapes I still run the auto split function over it just in case I proceed and find out that everything is out of sinc.

John here is a thread I started a while ago about double checking the audio sync points before using the Quadcam. I know you don't own Quadcam but the same applies to the A/B split method. Hope this helps and good luck with it.

http://www.casablancaforum.us/viewtopic ... ync#p10184

[johnneumann]

Hi John

If you do go ahead with the A/B split method witch Tim is describing I would run the auto split function over the footage of every tape to check if one of the cameras has been stopped during the ceremony. If it splits up - you have a problem and I would suggest to split the first scene to the same length as the smallest first cut.

Jeanton,

Great suggestion. Thank you. I wouldn't have thought of that - and the tape is almost sure to be split because it was a long concert. I think you saved me a moderate headache.



-JOHN