Downloading and editing video footage with different audio channels

Question

Hi out there, I usually created photo montages in my iMovie & iDVD, but I have been given the task to edit an event and I believe that there might be an hour to 2 hours of footage. What I would like to know is, how do I focus on the wireless audio when needed and then use the regular audio at other times. I am about to download the footage and would like to make sure that I download it properly and then be able to use the audio as I see fit... ( will I even be able to use the different audio channels) I hope that I am making sense, any suggestions?! THANKS!

Answer 1

The "baked in" audio which is part of the video will sit "inside" the video clips. That audio can be faded up and down as needed.
You'll need to separately import your "wireless" audio if it was recorded onto a separate device such as a mini-disc recorder or somesuch, and it'll then sit in one of the two separate audio tracks. You can also fade that up and down as needed.
IF, however, the "wireless" audio was recorded straight into the camera, via a wireless receiver attached to the cam, then that'll also come in as part of the normal video (see 1st paragraph, above).
So - in that case - to "unravel" or separate the camera's own and the "wireless" audio will only be possible if they were each mono signals, recorded separately to the left and right channels of the camcorder's single stereo track, e.g; camera's mike on left channel, additional "wireless" audio on right channel.
If this was a professional camcorder, like a Canon XLH1, into which you can feed 4 channels at recording time, you won't be able to separate those two pairs of stereo after importing into iMovie, unless you import them separately ..e.g; camera Channels 1 & 2 as an integral part of the video import, and then Channels 3 & 4 imported separately afterwards, into one of the separate audio tracks.
iMovie has no way of separating audio - apart from left and right stereo channels which can easily be done in GarageBand ..or in another external audio editor program. There's no way to "unbake" 4 separate channels of audio within a video clip and to separate them once the video's been imported ..when all audio then appears as simply left and right channels of a stereo signal. You can extract audio from a clip, but you can't separate individual components of the audio, apart from prising apart the left and right channels, no matter how many audio tracks are available ..such as the two extra tracks in iMovie.
You don't say (a) which camcorder(s) had been used for shooting the material, and (b) whether the "wireless" recording was fed into the camera, or was recorded separately.
If you provide further exact details I may be able to help more..