Synchronize Clips

Has anyone had issues with trying to synchronize more than 3 sources. I can not get it to work, I have 6 camera angles, and 1 master stereo track, I want to sync up.

It will sync 1 camera and the audio then everything else is left alone and stacked up at the beginning. I can sync any camera to the good audio so I know it can sync it but it just doesn't work. I went through the help and there is no mention of limits to how many items can be synced. The help even shows a clip and 2 audio files being synced, so I know it should do at least a few clips.

If anyone has seen this or knows how to fix it please let me know.

Sync is for synchronizing a separate audio file recorded on an audio device to video file recorded on a video device that has also recorded audio. It is not made to do multicam sync'ing. Multicam is coming first quarter of 2012.

Actually the user manual shows a single video clip that has an audio track, being synchronized to a separate single audio only clip.

Then why is it called synchronize clips. In my mind clips represent video not just audio. I know multicam am is coming in 2012, but I just want to stack clips up and edit like I used to before mulitcam. And it does work with 3 video clips but the minute I add a 4th clip it only syncs, the first.

I explained, it's only meant to marry 1 audio file from an audio recorder to 1 video file from a video recorder, which is very common now with DSLR cameras. It is NOT meant to, nor does any user or training manual say it is to sync multiple video angles together for multicam editing.

It will work with 2-3 "video" clips by shear happy accident.

That is the fact, I can't change that.

In legacy FCP we had to manually set an In point (or Out point) to sync our multicam angles together.

In FCP X, set your Range to start at that point in the Event Browser, and the end of the range at the end of the clip (or where ever desired). Then set that as a Favorite. When you have that done to all of your clips, set the Browser Filter (top left of the Browser window) to show only Favorite. You'll only see the favorite ranges. Then just start dropping those into the Timeline on top of each other, they'll be in sync. This is how we did it before multicam, too.

You may also want to look at PluralEyes (or whatever the stand alone version of that is) to sync by sound tracks in the mean time.

There is also an article here on FCP.co that talks about various ways to edit multi-cam shoots.
www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/522-h...icam-editing-in-fcpx

It will work with 2-3 "video" clips by shear happy accident.

Ben,
I understand how to sync up clips, I actually did it by syncing each clip to the master audio and trimming it to its length, then I simply placed each clip on top of each other to cut.

But here is a screen shot of the Help menu in Final Cut Pro X. It says

For example, if you select two video clips and three separate audio clips from different sources that were all recorded during the same take, Final Cut Pro automatically analyzes and syncs the clips together into a compound clip in the Event Browser.

So it should sync more than 3 items, regardless of it being audio or video.

I look forward to your response, I know you are a Certified Master Trainer and I respect your input.

That's a limit, the user manual pushes it more than any demos or training does, it's not meant to be a multiclip function, that's it. It won't do unlimited clips, it won't do more than about three, really, that's about it. Not sure what else you want to hear.

I get, that I was just wondering if it was a bug where it really won't do more than 3 clips. In the document the example they state uses 5 clips. 2 video clips and 3 audio. I was just wondering if you had new information or more insight into why this is happening.

I understand that Multicam is coming and I hope that it takes advantage of the Synchronize clips feature that is built into Final Cut Pro but again the user manual states something that in Real World just does not work. This is why I feel it is a bug and not "Just a happy accident."

I have submitted feed back to Apple for this.

It's a weird situation, because that page of the user manual sort of is sort of in conflict with the official demo and class. That's all I know, besides the fact that I don't know anyone who can get it to actually sync as many as 5 clips.

@Mikey you might want to take a look at this tutorial.

www.fcp.co/forum/7-how-to-tutorials/1201...udio-and-video-clips

I've only done two cameras synched to an audio track and it worked fine (I was quite happy about it!) but this gentleman seems to have had more luck than what BenB's comments would suggest are possible. Looks like he's got about 7 or 8 video tracks all synched to a single music track.

Now I dunno if it matters, but I'm sure it helps that he's feeding a music track exactly the same into the camera each time he sets up a different angle. For a one-camera-faking-multi-cam music video type thing maybe that's what makes a difference? I dunno but when I have some time I might experiment with this on my own (have one of my drunken friends lip sink to some track and record them from different angles) for a test.

Your mileage may vary. Hope that helps!

Some folks get it to work, some can't. It's one of those really buggy features we hope gets fixed soon.

Crap shoot. Good to know the user has a chance of it working, at least with a few cameras (or angles from the same camera). I'm definitely a fan of the clip synching when it does work.

I think the multicam update will give us a solid solution to all of this. Give it some time.

I'm using the FCP 5 APTS 'All Hours' multicam footage, it will sync all 7 angles together, accurately and consistently. Has good sync audio points to work with though