Multi Camera Function

Question

I use 6 cameras when shooting the local roller derby events. I currently use FCE and have to scale down the 6 video feeds to little boxes so they will all fit on the canvas, then choose which angle I am going to use, cut that section out of the time line, pick the next angle and so on and so forth. Squinting at tiny little boxes becomes quite tedious after a few hours. I have read in the FCE forum that FCP has a multi camera function. Can someone please explain exaclty how it works? $1200 is steep for a program, BUT if it saves my hours upon hours of sitting in front of my computer, it will be well worth it. I am getting ready to sign a contract for next year's bouts and would like to know if I should pony up the dough for FCP.

Answer 1

Basically you can see tiny versions of your clips in the Viewer window,
using 4, 9 or 16 views (with 6 cameras, you'd have to use 9), and you play
the multiclip and click on the view you want. You can do this for a while,
and when you stop, all the choices you made are shown as edits in the timeline.
You can then adjust these edits with the roll tool, and adjust the sync
using the slip tool.
If you have rock solid timecode on your cameras the original syncing is easy;
otherwise you have to set in or out points in the clips for sync.
It's the quickest way to get a bunch of edits done in real-time while setting
the pace to the music or the action. If you do a lot of this kind of work,
it's definitely worth it.