How to set up recordings of audio and video so that they will sync

Question

I'm editing footage of a dance concert that used CDs for some of the dances and a live pianist for the remainder. In addition to the audio captured by the camera, I have all the CDs that were used and an additional audio recording of the piano that sounds much better than what was captured by the camera. I would like to use to mix the audio from the camera with the audio from the CDs and the additional recording of the piano, but the sources won't sync properly, since the camera, the CD player, and the audio recorder all run at slightly different speeds. For example, if I zoom in and line up the CD audio with the camera audio at the beginning of a song that lasts 3:21, at the end of the song the CD audio is late by about 11 frames. That's enough that I can't use the camera audio as ambient sound, and enough that the dancers are noticeably ahead of the music (by 11 frames).
I know I could time-correct my sources so that they will sync, but I'm wondering how to avoid this problem in the future.
Thanks,
John Link

Answer 1

John,
On most professional recording or editing environments we try to run a sync signal to all the devices. Many of the audio recorders out there are not equipped to accept or send sync. For that matter, neither are the consumer and prosumer cameras. That's one of the many things dividing pro from non-pro.
Wild sync , just running at a true and constant speed, is a lot easier now than " in the day." but one still sees issues like you have when not running sync between devices.