Any way to dissolve between clips and keep audio in sync?

Question

I've read through some previous postings but haven't found a good resolution. I'm editing a 2 camera shoot from a wedding where the b-camera is in a balcony and the a-camera is close to the couple. I'm using the audio from the a-camera, but whenever I insert shots from the b-camera (to cover cut aways) and try to use a nice dissolve transition the audio get out of sync and it's a real pain fixing it (regardless of whether I extract audio or not). "Overlap" will work but it freezes the last frame and just does not look good. Are there any soultions, possible through a 3rd party (like Gee Three)? I'll use iMovie 5 if needed. Thanks.

Answer 1

You're in LA, so you're on NTSC.
It should work on short sections, BUT, every minute (..because NTSC's real frame rate is 29.97 frames-per-sec..) you have to disregard a couple of frames of video to keep it in sync with the audio!
Let's see if I can find a table to explain it..
Ah; here's one, but there's a clearer explanation, halfway down this page.
In other words, at the end of each minute, ignore the next minute's frame numbers 00:00 and 00:01, so after 00:59:29 and 01:59:29, etc, jump straight to 02: (i.e; the next minute) 00:02. But not on the tenth minute.
You ignore the code for those two frames, but the frames themselves are not 'dropped' in any way. You just 'gloss over' counting them, and everything should stay in sync.
To show that you're using "drop-frame time code" (i.e; not counting those two frames every minute) the NTSC timecode (the business of counting frames) is properly shown with a semi-colon between the seconds and frames, like this "01:59;12" to show that it is "drop-frame timecode" ..whereas PAL timecode - which doesn't involve ignoring the numbering of those two frames every minute except the tenth minute - is properly shown with colons throughout ..as "03:15:23" for example.
So the problem you're having - which we don't have in Europe <..phew!..> - may be that your audio may slip out of sync by two frames per minute, unless you ignore two frames each minute (except for the tenth minute), and just skip over them.
Any use?
{..P.S: I didn't mention all this in my original reply, as I thought it might be too confusing and much first-time editing is often out by a few frames here and there anyway, so I reckoned that it probably wouldn't show up. But when you're used to ensuring that lips and speech, or music and movement, ought to be exactly in sync, then this drop-frame business needs to be taken into account..]