Understanding System Performance with Group Clips and MultiCamera Mode
Playing multiple video clips at the same time requires a lot of processing work from the computer. So, when editing with higher resolution video (for example, HD), you may see that the system drops frames (stutters) during playback. In addition to using a lower resolution of video to improve playback performance, you can also temporarily decrease the quality of the video playback by using the Video Quality Menu (located in the bottom left of the Timeline Window).
When you’re using MultiCamera Mode and you change the Video Quality Menu to a different setting, Media Composer will remember that setting each time you enable MultiCamera Mode during your current editing session. For example, let’s say you’re editing your Sequence not using MultiCamera Mode and the Video Quality Menu is set to Full Quality (green). Then you come to a portion of your Sequence that has some Group Clips, so you enter MultiCamera Mode while you edit that section. At this point, the Video Quality Menu is still set to Full Quality and you experience some dropped frames (stuttering) during playback. So, while still in MultiCamera Mode, you set the video Quality Menu to Draft Quality (yellow/green) to get smooth playback. Later, when you leave MultiCamera Mode, the Video Quality will automatically shift to Full Quality again; and then later, when you re-enter MultiCamera Mode it will automatically shift to Draft Quality for you.
Lastly, when you have finished editing a MultiCamera Sequence and you are happy with all the edits you made, meaning that you are at the point in your project that you feel 100 % comfortable locking-in (in other words, committing to) the camera-angle-choices you’ve made, then you can use a feature called Commit MultiCam Edits. This changes all the Group Clips in your Sequence into regular clips. Doing this accomplishes the following:
Lessens the processing burden on the computer. Avid states,”You can remove the grouped clips in a sequence and replace each of them with its selected clip. This might be useful if you experience poor performance with a very complex MultiCamera sequence on a slower system, for example, a sequence that uses many MultiCamera clips and many effects or color corrections.” The result is that each Segment will reference only the original Master Clip, rather than the Group Clip. While you will no longer be able to switch to the other angles/cameras, you will be able to continue to edit with these clips (for example, Trim them longer or shorter).
Ensures that only the video and/or audio media that is actually used in the Sequence is placed into an
AAFfile export that also includes embedded media. If you do not Commit MultiCam Edits, then all of the media from every clip in the Group Clips is included in theAAFfile, and the file becomes needlessly very large. If you’re unfamiliar with exportingAAFfiles, they are frequently used as a way to transfer audio files and Sequence data over to the audio mixing application called ProTools.
How to do it…
This recipe of steps will take you through the process of using the Commit MultiCam Edits command.
In the bin, right-click on the Sequence.
A menu will appear. Select Commit MultiCam Edits (it’s in the middle of the menu list).
Media Composer will then display a dialog window telling you that you will lose all the references to the alternate angles, and that it will also create a duplicate of the Sequence, so that you’ll have the original as a backup. Click the OK button.
The new Sequence, with the Group Clips removed, is created and appears at the top of the bin. Media Composer adds
.NoGroupsto the end of its name.If all went well, then Media Composer will display a dialog window informing you that All MultiCam Groups were modified in the selected Sequence.
Click the OK button to close the dialog window.
