What does the Multi-Camera Record On/Off Toggle do in Premiere Pro?

Question

My experience

I'm currently creating a multi-camera sequence in Premiere Pro CC 2020 14.1.0 (build 116). I created my multicam sequence and everything is working fine.

When I press play, my sequence start playing and I can than switch between the multiple angles by clicking on a different angle or by pressing 1, 2 or 3 on my keyboard. After I've done that once I notice that the rectangle around the active angle becomes red and that the record button, the Multi-Camera Record On/Off Toggle, has a blue circle around it.

If I than pause playback, a cut has appeared in my sequence on the position where I switched angles, as expected. The rectangle is yellow again and the circle around the record button is gone. Everything works. But than what happens if I press this record button?

• If I press it before I start playback, a blue circle appears around the button. If I than move my playhead the circle disappears. If after clicking the button I start playback or choose a different angle, the circle stays, but it doesn't appear to change the recording behaviour of the angles I can switch to at all.

• If I press the record button during playback, but before I switched to a different angle, it makes a blue circle around the button appear. The rectangle around the active angle stays yellow though. I can than still switch to different angles and the switches I make are being recorded as usual.

• If I press the button during playback after I switched to a different angle, the circle around the button disappears, but more noteworthy, the red rectangle around the active angle becomes yellow. If I than pause the playback, the angle switch is still recorded however. Once again this button doesn't seem to have any impact at all apart from UI appearance.

Research

I searched the web, checked multiple tutorial video's, searched Reddit, but no one mentions this button.

I searched this site and I found someone in 2015 mention this button in an answer. This user describes the button as a way to Toggle Multi-Cam recording. I believe he sees the pressing of this button as a required step before the angle-switches are recorded, however, as I described above, this doesn't seem to be in line with the behaviour I'm experiencing.

Over at Adobe's help website, there also is a tutorial that mentions pressing the button as a step in the Multi-camera editing workflow (step 6). It doesn't state though what the exact function of the button is.

My question

Could someone shine some light on what the purpose of this button is? Or to word it differently, what difference is there between state A and B?

Answer 1

The record button has three states:

Record is disabled

You're not selected on a multi-camera sequence, or you haven't enabled the Multi-camera View button, so you can't record camera cuts. (You can still change camera on a selected clip).

Record standby

If you have a clip selected, and select a different camera, the whole clip will be changed to the new camera. If you are playing a multi-camera clip, in multi-camera view and change cameras, the changes will be recorded as cuts, nothing will happen.

Record enabled Does exactly the same as record standby, as far as I can tell.

At this point, I think the blue circle must only be there because they though it looks nice. It's like the close button on an elevator door....

The rectangles around the multi-view cameras show:

yellow - which cut is active red - a new cut that you have just written

As soon as you stop playback, the red rectangle highlights become yellow highlights.

Answer 2

The button is used to show, in the main window, the original top video in the source, and the selected video. It ignores your current camera selection if off, or shows your current camera selection when on.

The problem is that when you select a new camera, it automatically goes on. Thats the confusion :)