Hi, welcome to the Magix forums.

First, please bear in mind that MEP 2017 is now "old", there is a more "modern" version, sometimes known as "2018". Second, as yvon-robert said, consider buying the Premium version for the full range of available facilities.

Yes, MEP can handle multicam work, to a maximum of four cameras I think. However, your mention of two preview screens seems to suggest you have viewed information on the much more expensive Video Pro X, which does include a Preview screen and a separate Program screen.

The audio syncing facility is good - essentially you choose one of your camera files and have MEP "move" the others to align them with it. However, it is not foolproof since, if you are creating a continuous recording of any appreciable length, e.g. a performance by a band or a stage play, the individual cameras may "drift" slightly, thus potentially creating parts where sync between the cameras is not maintained. In that case you may need to "cut" the long files into shorter sections and sync each section separately. Or, as you suggest, you can manually "slide" one or more of the tracks on the timeline to obtain the desired synchronisation.

You can freely choose which camera's view is used at any point in the final video, similarly with the audio. In your case, if you have a separate audio recording, this can be used exclusively, in which case the camera audio is discarded from the final exported video.

Also, you do not need and MEP cannot use for syncing (I think) any date or timestamps on the recorded files.

Finally, a trial download of the current version (i.e. not 2017) can be obtained here.

There is a lot more which could be said about MEP/VPX and multicam so if you do have any further questions please feel free to post to the forum.

HTH

Jeff
Forum Moderator

Hi

To clarify Jeff's comment 'However, your mention of two preview screens seems to suggest you have viewed information on the much more expensive Video Pro X'

This is the Multicam view in MEP

and this the default view in VPX

You will note that VPX has 2 preview monitors - one for the Source and one for the Program (result), whereas MEP has one Preview monitor which displays as a 'splits screen'.

If sound syncing is critical you would be better using VPX - it allows sub frame level syncing, whereas MEP only syncs to the nearest whole frame.

Also if you are doing this professionally VPX has many extra tools to aid colour matching etc and also gives you the option to save different screen layouts - I have 3 different ones as I work with dual monitors.

HTH

John EB

Thanks very much yvon-robert, emmrecs and johnebaker for your super detailed replies,  you've answered all my questions!

I have to say, VPX is too expensive for me, particularly as I won't be doing a lot of multicam editing. It's only going to be occasional home use and I won't need a lot of the extra features, so the basic Movie Edit Pro Plus should be enough for my needs.

emmrecs, many thanks. I'm guessing 2017 should be fine for me though since it seems to have the main features I need and it's less than half the price of 2018. I'm not trying to sound cheap, it's just that I've spent a lot of money recently on audio gear so I can't really afford to spend a lot more at the moment.

johnebaker, thanks for pointing out about sub frame syncing. I'll have to test how accurate I can get the nearest whole frame with the trial version.  Yes,  the preview screen you showed from movie edit pro is all I need. This is a screenshot I took from youtube from movie edit pro 2013 Plus and the preview screen is great. 

https://s10.postimg.org/wexj9skp5/Screenshot_20171230-021958.png

Prior to discovering Magix I had considered Vegas movie studio platinum but it  doesn't have the preview screen, only the cameras, you have to toggle between screens which is not much good to me, so Magix suits me better.
 

My first project in MEP was a multicam project (I bought it for that) and I found with a combination of automatic and manual syncing and the the "live" camera selection I could get good matches between my tracks even though I did not at the time include a clap for audio syncing (but I had music and audience noise, that worked fine). On a few clips where I wanted to mix sound from more than one camera, or wanted to sync music and ambient sound with the clean music tracks, the whole-frame syncing created issues (reverb like effects in the sound). In those cases I could however work around it by increasing the project FPS (and reducing again during export). So I would say on a hobby level MEP should work for what you need. I don't know about the differences between "2017" and "2018", however.

Hi guys. I've been trying out the trial version of MEP 2018 Plus and I love it! Yep it syncs perfectly with the automatic alignment. Even manually, I'm finding it allows me to slide much more smoothly and precisely where other software tends to be less precise. I synced my music video with external audio and exported it as MP4 at 60fps, great quality. It wasn't a multicam video by the way, I just wanted to get used to the basic workflow of the software. My video is 4 minutes but the trial only renders 3 minutes maximum. I'll be buying it anyway.

So today I've been learning the multicam mode. I used my same music video and external audio plus I added a random video just to have two videos be able to get multicam working. I just dragged the files down to the timelines. Before clicking the multicam button, I synced my music video and audio. The random video obviously doesn't have the same audio, so the automatic alignment just pushed it somewhere further along the timeline. It works well, I was able to switch between cameras and have just my external audio as the master track.

However, when I click on each camera to switch, there's a delay, it's not switching instantly. It switches after about 2 seconds or just under. I watched a youtube tutorial and the cameras were switching instantly. My video is of me playing a music instrument, so if for instance I want to switch cameras on a particular beat, it doesn't switch in time. So that's the first problem.

So then I started a new project to try again but when I click on the multicam button all I'm getting now is a message pop up saying 'not enough tracks for multicam mode, please add more tracks'. I don't understand this because I had it working before. There's two videos plus my external audio, and I've left tracks 1 and 2 empty for the multicam master video and audio. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Hi, welcome to the Magix forums.

First, please bear in mind that MEP 2017 is now "old", there is a more "modern" version, sometimes known as "2018". Second, as yvon-robert said, consider buying the Premium version for the full range of available facilities.

There is no 2017 or 2018 Version. Did you never hear of the Update service? After registering you always get the newest version.

The only differences are the premium plugins.

@Larry98

Before making sweeping statements, please check the facts of this thread.

The OP referred to "MEP 2017" because that is what he saw advertised. I merely advised him that there is a more up to date version.

The only differences are the premium plugins Again, please check your facts. That may be true of Music Maker, it is not true of MEP, I believe.

Jeff
Forum Moderator

The OP referred to "MEP 2017" because that is what he saw advertised. I merely advised him that there is a more up to date version.

MAGIX has nothing to do how it is advertised on Amazon itself. They tell it the 2017 version since it is the old box.

But as you can see it says update service on the box so that means:

"Always get the latest software version Software which includes the Update Service will automatically install the latest version at the time of registration. This way, we guarantee that once you register, you'll always be working with the latest features and operating systems - regardless of date and place of purchase."
 

The only differences are the premium plugins Again, please check your facts.

In the older box they plugins were included on the disc while in the newer box you getting another key for unlocking the plugins. This is the only thing which is different.

 

That may be true of Music Maker, it is not true of MEP, I believe.

This is true for Movie Edit Pro, Video Pro X, Fastcut, Video easy, Photostory Deluxe, Photo Manager Deluxe, Photo & Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Xara Designer Pro X.

And in several programms, I already got the newest version without purchasing again since I was in the 365 days of the update service.

http://www.magix.com/int/support/update-service/

Hello Merlin55, you are right, there shouldn't be a delay like that, it's instantaneous on my system. The more experienced forum members may have better advice, but my experience with MEP so far is that if it shows weird behavior, it is often a sign that there are general performance issues, or something isn't set up correctly. Thus, I would recommend to check things like lowering the preview quality, checking your hardware acceleration settings, checking if you have the same issues with lower quality video, and of course recheck if you meet the general system requirements, etc...

Keep in mind though that the realtime-switching of cameras, is, in my experience at least, only a rough tool anyway. You can get more precise cuts by pausing and using track control to define precisely where to cut while in multicam mode, or you can adjust the cutting position manually afterwards in normal editing mode. There is also the BPM wizard, which I haven't used myself yet, but which should be useful to cut video in time with your music.

Regarding your second issue I have no idea what could cause it if you have two videos, below each other, on separate tracks (e.g. 3 & 4). Just to be sure, have you followed the official multicam tutorial? http://www.magix.com/us/movie-edit-pro/tutorials/#c634936

Hi Buergmhe, thanks for your advice. Well, my laptop is new with an i7, SSD and a decent nvidia graphics card, so it's a good spec, but it's a good suggestion you made to lower the preview quality, I'll try that. And yeah, I suppose I should try the camera switching by pausing and track control, though I'd prefer to switch in real time as it would be more spontaneous and far less time consuming for however many cuts I might make during the length of an average 3 or 4 minute song. I appreciate everything you've said though and it's given me some things to experiment with. I'll keep you posted.

Well I really don't get this and am scratching my head. I recorded myself today with two cameras in different positions, synced both clips in movie edit pro, clicked multicam and it still keeps telling me I need more tracks. What on earth? Here's a screenshot.

https://s10.postimg.org/umsrdq4p5/Cant_multicam_movie_edit_pro.jpg

I tried Vegas Pro 15 which is horrible to use compared to Movie Edit Pro, but I had no problem with multicam on these same two clips. There must be some simple solution to this, especially as I've managed to get multicam working once.

@Merlin55

Hi

Check the number of tracks set in the projects setting ( E key)

You should have at least 16 available tracks for multi-cam mode, by default I use 32 tracks and Multicam works OK.

HTH

John EB

Hi John, thanks, that was it! Changing to 16 tracks gave me multicam.  :)

Just one more issue.  Where do I lower the preview resolution settings to see if it would  stop the delay in switching cameras?

Hi

Click the lightning flash symbol at the bottom right of preview monitor and it will turn blue. Rt click to check the reduce resolution option is ticked. If you recorded in 50P or 60P you should also select the reduce frame rate option.

Another option for improving playback smoothness during editing is to Create Proxy files on import.

Peter

Thanks Scenestealer. I noticed that my lightning flash symbol was already blue and had those options already ticked. When I click the symbol so it's grey, the camera switching is faster, I'd say down to about half a second delay which is much better. Still not instant though. I then created proxy files while everything was on the timeline but didn't make any difference. But you said on import so I'll try that.

Well, firstly, I was wrong, the flash does need to be blue, so thanks for that Scenestealer.

Secondly, I've pretty much sorted the camera switch speed. In Program Settings/Display Options/Preview in Arranger, I changed Standard Renderer to Alternative Mode 2 (Video Mixing Renderer9) and now the cameras change instantly, well, fractional lag but good enough.

I've got a question about audio bitrate if you don't mind. The maximum I can select is 192kbps when exporting as mpeg-4 and choosing MP4. That quality is fine. But to get better quality, 384kbps is only available as an m2ts file. Is there a way to get 384kbps and export as MP4? The reason I ask is because I upload my movies to youtube which doesn't have m2ts as one of it's upload formats. On the other hand, youtube compresses videos though I'm not sure if it compresses audio as well. If it does, it probably doesn't matter if my bitrate is 192?

@Merlin55

. . . . I upload my movies to youtube . . . .

Personally I would not bother trying to go to a higher bitrate - the improvement in quality would not be noticed - audio played back on computer is not 'hifi' standard and YT may well lower the bitrate.

. . . . 384kbps is only available as an m2ts file. . . . .

That is because AVCHD supports Surround sound which needs a higher bitrate, Suuround sound is not available for mp4 export.

HTH

John EB