What does upgrading get me?

[johnneumann]

Hi Guys,

I haven't used my camcorders or my Kron in almost two years. I received a good lead here on the forum last month on a shop that will clean and repair my camcorders and I expect to have them back within the week. Newly cleaned and serviced gear is a great start getting my video hobby back off the ground.

My Kron has also been dormant. The DVD burner fritzed two years ago and I just purchased a new one. It just arrived in the mail and when I can get the nerve up, I plan to install it in my Kron.

My Kron runs OS 4.1c, I believe. I think a few things I want to do are going to require OS upgrading, but I want to know for sure. Can I share with you guys three projects I have in mind and can anyone tell me authoritatively whether I need Smart Edit 6 or Smart Edit 7 to do these things? (I'm happy to save the $50 and just use 6 if I can...heck, I'd be happy to save the whole schlemeel and find that I can do these things in 4.1c.

Here's my list:

1) I made a movie a couple of years ago that I've been selling. It's one DVD with two movie titles on it. I now need to edit one scene in one of the two movies out. I want to lift the movie right off the DVD and into the Kron - scene delineations and all - and find it all back on the edit page so I can simply delete the scene, clean up the transition, and reburn the DVD with the scene deleted. The last time I was into editing, this was still a dream of the future. Can it now be done that easily in SE6 or SE7?

2) I went to a small private concert a year ago and the person presenting the artist set up three camcorders in the room to capture the event. I've never had to edit a movie that has this multi-camera thing going on. I don't know what the pros call it, but I've seen screen shots of what looks like three or four small monitors all on one screen and you can cut from camera to camera on the fly or incrementally frame by frame. I've made many home movies from my single cam footage, but I've never worked with three distinct cameras all shooting the same event. So I have three MiniDV tapes, all of the same event, all shot from different angles...that now want to become one "multi-camera" movie. Is this easy to do or does learning the basics require weeks of practice?. Can it even be done in 6 or 7?

3) This one is about burning CDs, not DVDs. I have a collection of old radio dramas in MP3 format with all the commercials still intact. The cheap audio editing software for computers is for the birds and hard to use. Obviously, my 4.1c Kron right now would upload an AIFF (AIFF = regular CD audio format) file off a CD and then I could create one long black scene out of it and edit out the commercials easily with a track ball. But I don't think I could then burn a three chapter CD on the Kron with 4.1c. If I upgrade, will my Kron upload an MP3 off a CD and let me edit it? I don't imagine a new OS would have the capability of converting my mp3 to AIFF so I can then easily burn it to CD, would it? I don't want to transfer an edited MP3 file from my Kron to a computer just to convert the file to an AIFF and burn a CD. I'd like to do it all in-house in the Kron.


These are my three "must-have's". Does anyone know SE6 and SE7 well enough to authoritatively recommend which I need and also what, if anything, on this list I simply can't do?

Besides telling what I can do, please be specific in letting me know what I can't do from this list, even with a new OS. I really want to know my limitations before I invest.

Thank you in advance for anyone who wants to help me.

John Neumann

[BobC]

Hi John,

1) can be done using Ksebara, which I believe became available with OS6

2) can be done with any OS if just inserting. To use Quadcam (which gives you the multiple shots on screen), I think must be OS5 and above

3) not sure

[Jeanton]

Hi John

Don't know about the first question but the quadcam you could use on smartedit 4.1the only thing is if you want to use the three tapes effectively you had to have it all shot in one single shot to keep the audio insync if there are breaks in the tape it will not be posible to use quadcam the way it is ment to be.

Question 2 you could always record the music true RCA cables into the kron and go from there on don't know about the tracks thought.

This is all I can help you with good luck.

[BobNaughton]

John:

Question 1
You would need OS6 in order to download a dvd into your Kron, using the Ksebara feature

Question 2
You could get the software called Quadcam to do your multi-camera editing. That is what it was designed for. You can use it in OS4 or above. I purchased my Prestige with OS4.1a and it is excellent, however as Jeanton ponted out it, you want to make sure that all cameras stay on throughout the entire shooting sequence. If camera 2 say, shuts off for 3 seconds during the shoot it will always be 3 seconds behind the other two cameras. Quadcam actually does have a feature called auto-sync that will allow you to keep just the main camera you will be using for your audio on, and you can actually shut on and off the other cameras, but you have to "measure" the cameras with your Kron. Basically it reads your timecode before you do the shoot and can keep things in time. The caveat is that you have to shoot the video within an hour of doing the measuring or it may not stay in time. I have never used that feature. I just sync my shoot my putting all cameras on Record and then firing an electronic flash to trim each clip down to when editing in post. If you are going to be using old footage shot by someone else, you will have no idea if there are any breaks or not. One break is not a problem, you can actually re-sync after the break using an audio cue if need be, but if there are many breaks it could be disaster.

Question 3
I dont know if our units can download MP3 files or not. Or what OS might allow it.

[ShadowVision]

I've not cut a music video, but my suggestion is to pick the best audio track and use it as the master. I shot my feature doc with two Panasonics running the whole time. The smaller camera was just on board mic only most of the time. The bigger one I used a decent EV lav. Only once did I use on board sound, and I could fix that with a little time consuming insert editing, but I got lazy.

As far as syncing, it is done manually with insert editing. This is really easy but a little tedious. But if you take your time, frame by frame with the position option in range, it becomes really easy. If the singer's mouth is not visible, this could be more tricky unless you play the instruments and can match the beat. Of course, cut aways are easy since syncing is less important and you can cheat a little.

I've not used quadcam, and now it is not available yet on the S4P in HDV. But it is on my list to get.