Yeah, I'm a moderator, but I can't get this to work!

It's been a while since I've used group clip, and I'm having trouble getting it to work. Here's what I've done...

1. grouped 4 clips

2. put group into a sequence

3. entered "group clip mode"

But when I playback the sequence (4 camera view in source monitor, single camera in right) and use the keyboard to switch cameras nothing happens, no edits are placed in the timeline and the green underline isn't showing up in the source monitor under the active camera. What am I missing? My system is up to spec to do this, no performance issues. I have mapped M1-4 on my keyboard and it is operational.

what product?

what resolution are you working with?

for best performance you want to work at either 10:1m or 4:1m

Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.1.4 DV25 resolution video.

It's not a horsepower issue, I have no problem playing back the clips, it's that it doesn't seem to be doing what it should be doing. What I'm doing now is pausing when I want to change cameras, use add edit and then select a different camera in the group. Decently fast, but not quite a "live switcher".

Scott i recalled an old thread on the Pro forum with a good setup. Especialy the part where you need to assign keyboard keys to specific actions. Read on...

By Joeyk

• JoeyK  posted March 24, 2005 02:01 PM    

you are right, the avid documentation sucks, but yes realtime multicam is there and it works great.

did you search this forum? I copied the following from posts a couple months ago and added some comments of my own.

you have to set it up by first customizing your keyboard. you can for example make F4 the multicam mode. then make F5 - F8 the cameras 1 -4.

you have to do a group clip first - read up on that if you don't know how. then

1. Create a new sequence
2. use toolset source/record editing
3. Load group in Source
4. Drop entire group in to the new timeline
5. make source active and press F4 (or ctl + sft + M). make composer active and press F4. when it's set up right you will have play and other controls only under the composer window and the 4 way split will be in the source.
6. clicking on a source camera makes it active. hit play and use the F5 - F8 to switch cameras. when you stop playing you will see all the cuts you made on the timeline. you can go back and trim of course and you can even add a camera in the middle by parking where you want it and clicking on the one you want in the source window.

it's an incredible time saver. only downside is you have to use the computer monitor.

You have to turn on multicam mode in order for what you want to do to work.

You're doing everything correct except missing that step.

for best performance you want to work at either 10:1m or 4:1m

Xpress Pro does not support meridien resolutions.

I'm editing this. Group Clip Mode = Multicam Mode in Xpress Pro. Why do they change names between systems?

I do enable group clip/multicam mode, but when I do the switching on the timeline the cuts don't show up. Not sure why. I'm on 5.1.4 and I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to work in this version.

When I am playing in group clip mode, the green underline isn't showing up in the source monitor under the active camera. Not sure if it's supposed to in this case.

I feel like a newbie LOL

I don't know what I did, but it's working now LOL. The green line is showing up and the cuts are appearing, weird.

Sorry to post on this again, but when I am doing the live switiching sometimes when I activate a certain camera, say cam 4, a different camera angle is displayed in the composer monitor. But when I go back or stop to check it what was edited, it was indeed the camera angle I choose. The green line in the source monitor shows up under the proper camera.

In case you're interested, here's a screenshot of what I'm editing.

edit - everything is working now. When I re-ordered the clips in the quad view in the source monitor Avid didn't reflect that order change in the composer monitor. Once I closed and re-opened the project it fixed itself.

Scott Carnegie wrote:

...When I re-ordered the clips in the quad view in the source monitor Avid didn't reflect that order change in the composer monitor. ...

How can you do this re-order? I thought that its determined by the order of the clips when making the group, but sometimes it can be useful to change this order.

Ctrl click in the source monitor and you can change the camera assignment order.

Gee, thanks! I'll try it tomorrow! I just wonder if it changes the clips' order in the group as well, or it only modifies the quad-split screen, but I'll see. Anyway, it's good to know that reopening is recommended after changing the order.

Yes, it only modifies the quad-split screen, and doesn't affect your editing.

Another question about group clips/multicam: can I use an effect on one clip of the group? E.g. I have four camera and one of them has a different color, can I apply a color effect to that cam? Or should I write this to the wish list of new features?

only subclips and master clips can be grouped.  to apply a color effect to a clip means it must be in a sequence.. which means you can't group sequences.  you can apply effects and do a video mixdown and group those clips.. but then you will not be able to uprez later..