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I am working on a project on human-robot interaction that involves me capturing videos of two humans working on a task together. Eventually, I will analyze the videos and try to model how these humans are working together.

In order to capture their teamwork effectively, I set up three cameras at multiple angles (one at the starting location of the task, one at the ending location and an overhead camera that spans the entire task area). I have obtained these videos. Each of the cameras were started 1 second apart. This is because all three cameras are connected to a laptop computer, so I didn't want to overload the system with 3 camera worth of the video information at the same time.

The first step in modeling this, is to make sure that all the 3 videos are time-synced so that I can apply any number of modeling techniques that depend on time (such as HMM, CRF, DBN's etc). Furthermore, I would need to freeze frame at every time step (granularity of the time step would be determined later but might be as small as one-tenth of a second) and note different features for my modeling algorithm. I am a complete noob in video editing so if anyone could suggest a software that could accomplish what I desire, I would greatly appreciate it. I have access to all three platforms: Windows 7, Ubuntu 12.04, Mac OS X 10.7 (although I would prefer Windows or Ubuntu as my Macbook is quite old and might not be able to perform video editing with ease).

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  • Once all 3 camera's started to roll, did you 'slate' them, as in say a flash or other visual sync mark that all captured on the same frame?
    – filzilla
    Jun 20, 2013 at 22:41
  • I did not. However, since there isn't any real overlap between what they are capturing, would this be an issue? Also, 2 of the 3 cameras capture at a different frame rate than the other one. This is because 2 cameras are USB cameras and the overhead camera is an ethernet camera.
    – shaun
    Jun 21, 2013 at 1:00
  • @Shaun - if they are different cameras with different frame rates, it is going to be messy. Things aren't going to line up perfectly and your best bet is probably just to eyeball an approximation, but they won't be the exact same moments since the frame rates differ.
    – AJ Henderson
    Jun 21, 2013 at 2:10
  • I figured as much. Do you guys have a suggestion of a video editor that could help me do this which doesn't have a steep learning curve?
    – shaun
    Jun 21, 2013 at 2:14

1 Answer 1

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Not sure if this can help you, but take a look at PluralEyes. It can automatically sync your videos based on audio.

As for video editor, I recommend Sony Vegas Pro

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  • Thanks for your help. Unfortunately my videos have no audio in them. I'll check out both the editors though.
    – shaun
    Jun 21, 2013 at 13:38

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