Audio ahead of video

Question

Hi,
I work with low resolution video and graphics. I don't anticipate working with higher resolution at all, I am not going to buy a digital videocamera. I take pictures with my digital still camera at 640x480. My screen resolution is set for the lowest I can use iMovie with, 1024x768 (stretched). I capture video with an XLR8 USB device which feeds video from my tv/vcr/VHS camcorder. The driver is from InterView and I capture with either BTV or InterVew Capture. (See my separate thread on resolutions)
(I managed to get iMovie to show the video window at 641x480 but I will have to check each time if I want to be sure I am set right (although it doesn't really matter.) It would be nice if there was a setting that I could keep it at... Yes, I can try to leave the window at that setting but I would prefer it be kept as a preference.)
Some of the material I want to deal with is VHS video, video from the tv, webcam video that I have laid off onto VHS. I want to edit and put that stuff on DVD. I have have figured out how to do most of what I want to do (and it looks fine when played back on the tv which is all I am asking for) but here is a problem I am not sure hot to work around:
The audio is ahead of the video. I feed the audio from my tv to my stereo and from there it goes into the computer. It ends up pretty close. I didn't notice it until I started using iMovie and iDVD; I've captured lots of video before on an older machine. Help in iMovie says I should "extract the video", save the project to Quicktime and see if that helps. Isn't that just incase the problem is a Quicktime bug or something? In my situation, as far as I can tell, the reason the audio is out of sync with the video is that the video is going in via a USB 1 device and the audio is getting into the computer faster via the audio-in port. While capturing (with BTV or InterView Capture) there is a bit of a delay anyway, the audio and video are behind what I am seeing on the tv. It never really bothered me before but it is much more noticeable now when I look at the results (It's not noticeable during the capture.)
I could try to select the audio track (after extracting it)and try to noodge it to the right spot (using the arrow key?) but I am skeptical. It is so hard to cue with iMovie, trying to synchronize audio would be an exercise in futility. I might be able to noodge it to the right of left by using the arrow key but it will be real hard to tell if it is synched up.
Which brings me to another problem. The only way I have ever been able to see waveforms is by extracting audio. Shouldn't I be able to see them by just checking the menu item Show Audio Waveforms? It never showed them until I extracted them into their own separate track. (One other feature I would LOVE to see is being able to hear the audio at various speeds. I would be able cue/synchronize much better being to hear when something starts. Better movement controls would help me alot too.)
Does anyone have any ideas on how I can make sure my audio is in sync in the future? My XLR8 device does not have an audio input which, I think, would solve it.
Thanks.
John L

Answer 1

OK. Here is what I did for this round which wasn't successful (was still out of sync) but I wanted to try it anyway. At one point when I looked at the iDVD preview some of it actually seemed to be in sync.
Back to the beginning. I set iMove to 640x480. I get those numbers in yellow on the screen. (I had set the screen to 640x480 once before. It did not remember that when I started up iMovie...) I hope those numbers go away; they're sticking around...
I check the source files and the audio is good there. In sync. They are InterView Exported from the original QT format to .dv to get rid of InterView's encoding which supposedly prevents people without it from seeing the video (but I have never noticed that it made any difference. It does fix the 16x9 aspect ratio problem I noted in an earlier thread though so I do it.)
I import/save as MPEG-4. Importing slows down on the last two clips. It says it will be done in 23 minutes for a long time. Tabbing between a few other open apps seems to encourage it to speed up... I check Activity Monitor and there are no stalled processes. OK.
I have 13 GB available. I know I should have more but unless it gives me an error message I will attempt to go with what I have. (I did throw out all earlier versions of iMovie and iDVD files.)
OK, It's done importing. The 640x480 lettering has gone away, thank you. Now I will edit each clip separately. I think it will be easier that way. Hopefully putting them back on the clip tray(?) after I I'm done won't be a problem.
I check, the audio is NOT in sync but I will try to fix that with the suggestions from the link above, before I export to iDVD.
Trying to edit is very difficult. All I want to do is just cut some of the beginning and ends off of these clips. Sometimes I get a vertical bar with the arrow facing in, sometimes I don't. Also, sometimes it shows me the whole clip as being selected, sometimes it only shows from the beginning to a little past the playhead marker. Very weird (but alas, not surprising). Saving and quitting and restarting iMovie does not help. Eventually the vertical bars appear when needed and I move on. (I assume all I have to do is move that bar to the where I have left the playhead. That seems to work most of the time. I bookmarked certain points as well and dragged the vertical bars to those points and if it did what I wanted, I moved on. Sometimes weirder things happened but I can't describe them.
Now to put all the clips on the timeline and see if I can sync up the audio. I (Select all and) extract. The progress bars do their thing. I get a red bar under the first clip so I scroll to the right and eventually get all the of them done and proper waveforms. I extract. The audio is NOT in sync. OK. I try suggestion #3 (putting in one or two second gaps at chapter markers but have difficulty with that and give up. I don't have QT Pro so option #4 is out. Option #2 I discard since I want all my segments as one movie and as individual segments but I later realize I could do that anyway. My DVD would end up in slightly different format but it may be workable. I may try that if what I am doing now in iDVD doesn't work out. (I may just give up at this point too. It isn't worth the trouble...)
One reason I gave up with #3 was that I could not select all! I get the selected blue indication from the beginning and a little after the playhead but not after that. Other weirdness occurs...
I ignore that and put in chapter markers. I put in 4 for one clip and I see that the entire timeline is selected. Good.
I bring it into iDVD. (I suppose I should continue this thread in an iDVD message...) I'll just leave it here: things look out of sync in iDVD as I am encoding it. I doubt it will be fixed but I will let it run its course. I do have an earlier attempt which may be a little better/not bad.
OK. iDVD is all set up but the sync isn't any better. I just wanted to try it and see.
Maybe I'll try iMovie 3...
Thanks for your interest and all you help.
John