Syncing external Audio to Video

Hey Audiophiles!
Hope someone can help. I'm trying to sync using Audio recorded on a Zoom H4N to Apple ProRess originating from RED shot at 24 fps. The Audio seems to be at 30 fps ndf.
Audio was also recorded to the camera, so we have a reference and when I try to set an in point to do the merge clip option the audio is always offset by half a frame.
When I set my in point, I move my play-head in sub frame increments to be right at the beginning of the slate sound, and still, audio is off-set by half a frame which I cannot fix.
Any ideas? what's the issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is a comment from the guy at Singular software - $150 plug that quickly aligns your 2-system audio. He is specifically talking about DSLRs & H4N:
"...The FCP speed issue with the 5D (which some people fix with a 99.9% speed change) shows up in a different form for the 7D (which some people fix with a 100.1% speed change). But DON'T do either of those fixes, they will likely just cause problems somewhere else. Instead, just make sure that the frame rate in your Easy Setup matches the frame rate of your video. If you change the Easy Setup, restart Final Cut before making a new sequence. Don't ask why, just do it. And don't think that you can drag your clip to the timeline and have FCP autoconform the sequence and have it work--it doesn't. You have to go via the Easy Setup route.
If you follow that one simple rule you'll have no problems with timing issues with the 5D or the 7D..."
(from HERE)
It seems like these kinds of issues are more prevalent when someone is using, for example, a 29.97 timeline with straight 30 fps footage. Or 23.98 footage in a straight 24 timeline.
But the HD-DSLR + H4N combo is a popular one in this new, emerging, still-cam-as-video-cam world. And there doesn't seem to be too much squawking. So somebody's making it work - somehow.

Similar Messages

Syncing External Audio with Video on iMovie

If syncing external audio with video on imovie, once successfully syncing the 2 is it possible to permanantly merge them so that I can continue trimming and rearranging clips without having to continue to re-sync the audio and video after every change I make?

In Final Cut Pro X, yes. In iMovie...no.
The workaround in iMovie is to sync your external audio to the video clip. Mute the audio on the video clip so all that is left is the good audio. Then use SHARE/EXPORT TO QUICKTIME. Choose Movie to QuickTime Movie and under Options choose Apple Intermediate Codec as the Video Codec.
Then save this clip in a place you can find it. Finally, import this new clip back into your event.

Lock external audio to video

I am editing a project in iMovie that is using audio recorded on a separate device than the video was shot on. I have successfully synced the audio and video together with the use of hand claps at the beginning of the video. My problem is now editing the project and removing the hand claps from the video. How can I lock the video and external audio clip together so that I can trim the front and back of the project? Right now, the video and audio are 2 separate pieces and trimming one does not trim the other. Basically a reverse of the "detach audio" function that makes the camera audio a separate entity from the video clip.
I am not doing this as background audio as all videos that I saw on how to perform the sync did not do this as background audio. Unfortunately, none of the videos show the step of trimming out the claps.
Thanks,
Roger

The real answer is to use Final Cut Pro. It has a feature that will automatically sync audio clips with video clips from multiple cameras. You could use this feature to automatically line up the external audio with your video clips. Once you do, you can edit your movie easily.
You can do this in iMovie, but it is a lot more of a manual effort.
1. When you add the audio, do not drop it in the background. Drop it on one of the first video clips. The sound file will appear as a ribbon beneath the video clips. You can easily drag it left or right, or trim it.
2. If you need to edit out stuff like hand claps, I suggest you first get the audio and the video lined up. Set the volume of the video clips to zero. Then Share the project. Use SHARE/EXPORT USING QUICKTIME. Choose Movie to QuickTime Movie. Choose Apple Intermediate Codec as the Video codec in the Options. Leave the audio codec as uncompressed. This will create an .mov file in the Apple Intermediate Codec. You can use FILE/IMPORT MOVIE to import this file into an Event. Now the good audio is joined with the good video, and you can edit it like you are used to.
3. There is another way. For simplicity, let's say you have an audio clip with song A, then applause and a pause, and then Song B. You can drag in your audio file twice, again - dropping it on a video clip rather than on the background. Then use the clip trimmer to trim away the back half of the audio clip (Leaving only Song A). Use the clip trimmer to trim away the front half of the other clip (Leaving Song B). Now you have two separate audio clips that you can move around
4. You can also accomplish the steps in #3 above by dragging in the audio clips twice, and then dragging the handles on the edges of the audio clips. Drag the front handle left to right to delete song A and leave Song B. Drag the right handle of the other clip to the left to delete song B and leave Song A.
Bottom line: it is easy in Final Cut Pro X. It is a kluge in iMovie.

Sync Music audio with Video Audio PE10

Hi.
I am new to Premiere elements 10 (Changed from Corel to Adobe, so i'm not new to video editing, but I'm not used to PE10).
I am filming a lot of my daughters Circus performances, so very often I find the music number used at the performance and merge that with the video audio in the project.
But I have a problem syncing the music from the audio track on the video with the seperate music track.
So to specify: I want both Audio tracks running at the same time, so that I keep the clapping and the whisteling from the audience, but get the better quality of the music from the external file merged with the music in the video-audio-clip.
Is there a special tool or can someone help me with a special tecnique?
Regards Settemand

Along with the instructions offered above, when nudging the Audio, I would make sure that Snap is OFF, as Snap will try to align your Audio with the beginning (Head), or end (Tail), of you Video Clips. That is useful for many editing operations, but for nudging Audio will frustrate you. The Snap function is a toggle with the S key. Just do not forget to turn it back ON, when done.
Also, though the Soundtrack Audio Track seems to be the ideal location for your extra music, some users have experienced issues, when using it, or the Narration Audio Track. While it seems that those issues are Project-specific, and those Tracks often work well, to keep from being tripped up later, I recommend putting your music on a free Audio Track, such as Audio 2 - just to be safe.
Also, with either an Audio, or Video Track, you can Zoom IN/OUT horizontally with the Timeline Zoom slider, AND can also Zoom IN/OUT vertically, by going to the Track's Header (where the Track Name is located), then hovering your cursor over the little line between the Track, until it changes to an equal sign with up/down arrows, then click+drag, to enlarge the Track (and the Clip display) vertically. I find that this makes viewing the Audio Waveform Display easier, and the peaks are more obvious. When done, you can just reverse that operation to Zoom OUT on the Track vertically, so that it looks like it did, before you started.
Good luck, and this FAQ Entry might be useful, though it talks about OOS (Out Of Sync) Audio, the functions are the same for syncing additional Audio: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/436751?tstart=0
Hunt

Sync AC3 Audio to Video function problem

Hi there,
I have an AC3 audio track with embedded time code and a video mpeg-2 segment with embedded timecode that I want to sync together. I use DVD Studio Pro 4.0.3.
In the help file it tells me to drag the audio from the Asset tab to the track editor while holding down the OPTION key.
But, when I do this, the track doesn't synch automatically and I have to do it manually anyway. Any thought on why it won't work ? It works on the Scenarist stations we have here and the tracks are made on profesionnal-grade encoders.
Audio track (AC3)
start time: 09:59:55:00
end time: 10:59:36:12
Video track (Mpeg-2)
Start Time Code:09:59:59:00
End Time Code: 10:02:41:07
I have searched the forums and support pages without finding any hints. Your help would be very appreciated. Thanks !
Arnaud
4 x 2.5 Ghz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Thank you Colin. Yes indeed, I have read that part in the help file, but it just didn't make any sense to me at the time.
After running some test to figure it out, I found out that DVD Studio Pro will only sync my audio when the audio starting Time Code is later than the Video starting Time Code.
So in other words, DVDSP only adjust audio start time automatically but does trim the audio automatically, which is just a partial sync function according to me.
I sincerely hope that the development team will add this functionnality in a near future. As it is right now, the DVDSP auto-sync function is almost useless for us here. Moreover, the ability to sync AC3 audio to multiple video segment in the same track would be a great plus. I don't think it would be that hard to implement, but who knows ?
Well at least we can do it manually ! Thanks again Colin !

Syncing External Audio with SMPTE

My 8 track field recorder has a SMPTE sync source. I am going to connected it to the DP's RED camera sync input so my audio and his video have SMPTE sync between the two.
In the past I have used audio waveforms and manually sync'ed everything and although it works very well it is a tedious and time consuming process. It often took me half a day to sync up 8 tracks of audio with the edited video for one two minute scene in STP.
How then, do I match up the audio and video using the sync signal automatically or semi automatically?

In FCP, when you merge clips, one of the sync options is to use Timecode ... but I'm wondering if you shouldn't instead be looking at a helper app called PluralEyes:
http://www.singularsoftware.com/pluraleyes.html

How to sync external audio to clips and KEEP them linked?

I have never been able to do this. Very simple...
1. Shoot some video with a DSLR and...
2. Record audio with external recorder, such as an H4N.
3. Sync then in Premiere Pro (I have CS5)
4. Keep those files associated with each other so that you do not have to keep them in your timeline at all times.
Unfortunately, this is a mystery to me. I'm always stuck with everything in my timeline or I will lose those now linked files.
Below is a video I shot of my computer screen and Premiere Pro so I can explain it visually.
Yes, there is likely an easy solution. But I haven't found it. Please note that I have CS5, no plans to upgrade and no money to do so.
Thank you.

Provided that you are happy to lose the synch with the original audio of the clip, this can be done.
Right click on the original clip and select Unlink from the drop down menu.
Highlight the video and the new audio by clicking on both whilst holding down Shift, and R click. Select Link in the drop-down menu.
If you want synch for both audio clips, then the only work-around that I have found is to duplicate the original video clip in a track which is turned off, so it does not show, and link the new audio to that.

I cant sync the audio and Video

I am using final cut pro X and cant figure out why the video looks like it is in slow motion and the audio is in real time. How do I sync the two so that it runs together? is it something to do with the sequence settings and clip settings?
I didnt use any external mics just the one on the camera which is the HVX200
What are the steps to fix this?
Thank you.

Open the video and audio in the QucikTime player and report exact what movei inspector says about each.
What are the project properties? Cmd-J.

Audio sync with audio and video shot separately

Using Final Cut Express, I am editing some old silent film footage (transferred to video) to a matching audio track that was recorded on a tape recorder. The camera that was used predates crystal sync, so what I have is picture with slightly varying speed throughout and audio with slightly varying speed throughout. This rules out the fit-to-fill type of solution where you get the beginning and end in sync and the middle should naturally fall into place.
What I have been doing is razoring the audio into 10-20 second chunks and applying a speed change to each chunk as I go to pull things back into sync. The speed changes are small enough (less than 1%) that there is no noticable pitch change. Each chunk gets a slightly different speed change to compensate as the camera and audio recorder motors wobbled about. (I'm effectively keyframing the audio speed changes).
All this works reasonably well, but I'd love to know if there was a better way to solve this problem. Some way to mark matching frames of video and frames of audio and letting the computer do the work to manipulate the audio speed would be very nice. There seems to be no way to do this particular trick within Final Cut Express. It was suggested on the Final Cut forums that Soundtrack might be able to.
Any thoughts?

Hi(Bonjour)!
Soundtrack Pro 2 can do a such process by stretching the audio file to match the lengh of video footage. I think you can even automate the process. But STP 2 is only available with Final Cut Studio 2.
Did you ask your question in the soundtrack (regular version) Forum ?
Michel Boissonneault

How do i sync h4n audio to my video

I work for the YMCA and we recently purchased a ZOOM H4N digital recorder to use in conjucting with my Canon t2i for video recording. I also use a Sennheiser lapel kit.
Basically I found a way to use Match Audio where it blends the audio from the t2i with the Zoom, but is there a way to automatically sync my audio file with the the camera audio file, but only use the audio from the ZOOM H4N?
Thanks for any help you can give!

You use the sync clips function to sync the audio and video, and in the inspector's audio tab switch off the audio from the camera.

Audio and video not in sync when exporting to Quicktime file

I use a digital camera to shoot video, which is in .avi format. I then import the clips into IMovie HD (selecting all the clips and dragging all at the same time into IMovie). If I play the video from beginning to end in IMovie, the audio and video line up fine. But, when I 'share' to Quicktime file, the longer the video is, the more out-of-sync the audio and video become.
I didn't have this problem when I used a mini-DV cam and imported using a firewire cable (in real time).
Any ideas as to how to get the audio to sync up with the video once it's shared as a Quicktime file? I've tried .mp4 and .mov, and I have the same problem.

Anything here help?
iMovie: Improving audio and video synchronization
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42974

Syncing audio with video shot at 23.97fps

I recently shot a series of interviews on a Canon 7D. We shot the video at 23.98fps and recorded audio on a TASCAM DR-100, the audio format was 16bit interger 48kHz. I have tried syncing the audio and video in final cut, it starts out ok, but begins to lose sync with clips that last over a couple of minutes.
Is there a way to convert the audio files to remain synced throughout?
Please help...

This may not be satisfactory but it usually works.
Assuming the audio and video clips are started on a clapper, find the exact length of your video clip. Write that down.
Open Speed Adjust on the audio clip and enter the time you wrote down. Render and then link.
If you do this for each clip in a separate sequence you can export the properly synced clips as self-contained media.
Hope you get it sorted, there is probably an easier and much more efficient way to do this. Back when I was shooting film, the speed of the tape deck sometimes drifted (because the producer was too cheap to get a crystal locked deck or Nagra). We'd spend many frustrating hours syncing by inserting cutaways and tiny chips of blank tape.
bogiesan

Audio falling out of sync during playback of videos

I now have Windows 8 on a brand new laptop, and new TV dls fall out of sync between audio and video within minutes. Skipping to the beginning and dragging back to my last place in the timeline corrects this for a minute or so, and then falls out of sync again.
Also, other new purchases skip/pause every few minutes. I tested previous dls (that are still in the cloud) and had no playback problems. I don't want to delete everything and redownload until I know for sure that is the solution.

Hello dreamsofthespider,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
To troubleshoot audio sync issues in iTunes on your PC please follow the steps in the article below.
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows: Audio does not play or plays incorrectly
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1362
Take care,
Alex H.

Audio and Video Performance Tweaking

Hey guys I'm back with more questions. I'm trying to improve the overall quality of my video conference experience.   My target market is the elderly and their families, so not necessarly people who are used to computers and tweaking things so we want to make it as good as we can right out of the box.
Video
1.) All of my decoded video has clearly visible blocks. I've attached a sample screen shot to show what I mean. Is there a deblocking filter option I'm missing somewhere?
2.) The encoder in flash player 10.x is still H.263 based right? I'm not missing a secret option to use the H.264 encoder am I?
Audio
1.) I've set my audio codec to speex in my audio publisher, and it looks like it defaults to a quality setting of 10 (<rtc:AudioPublisher id="audioPub" codec="{SoundCodec.SPEEX}"/>). Am I missing any tweaks to improve the audio quality?
Audio questions where I assume the answer is no but I ask anyway
2.) Does the LCCS code or flash player prioritize audio packets over video packets or are they just sent when they're available. I'd like to sacrafice video for audio if it's possible.
3.) Is there a way to better syncronize the video and audio streams. Right now there's a lot of lag between what is said and how the lips move (this is even with peer to peer on the same private network).   I get the idea that there isn't but I thought I'd ask.
4.) Is there anything I can monitor to give me an idea of the current connection performance?   In otherwords can I monitor something and then make my own decicions to reduce the video quality or audio quality based on avaiable bandwidth between the two connected peers?
5.) You secretely have echo cancellation built in but were waiting till now to tell me right? Just kidding.
Thanks as usual
-Eric

Hironmay,
       Thank you for getting back to me, I know I asked a lot in one post there.   It would be nice to have a way for audio packets to be prioritized over video since they need to get there but you can live with dropped video frames.   I'd love to see a way to sync the audio and video up as well. I was just reading about some research where they showed if you can watch someones mouth move while you hear them talk it's equivelant to a 20dB volume increase (referrning to how well the person can understand you.)   I have elderly users so something like that is very important to me.
I agree with you that when I changed the captureAndHeightFactor that the blocks got smaller, but did not go away. I was hoping there was a way to smooth out the edges of the blocks so the boundries don't look so harsh.   I had been looking at flash.media.video in the flex 3.4 language reference and it talks about deblocking. I copied the relevent text from the documentaiton at the end of this message. I was wondering if there was something there I could use.   I'll play around with it some more.
Believe me I've been very vocal about the need for echo cancellation on the Flash Forums
Thanks for the help,
Eric
relevent text from flash.media.video
deblocking
property
deblocking:intIndicates the type of filter applied to decoded video as part of post-processing.      The default value is 0, which lets the video compressor apply a deblocking filter as needed.
Compression of video can result in undesired artifacts. You can use the       deblocking property to set filters that reduce blocking and,      for video compressed using the On2 codec, ringing.
Blocking refers to visible imperfections between the boundaries      of the blocks that compose each video frame. Ringing refers to distorted      edges around elements within a video image.
Two deblocking filters are available: one in the Sorenson codec and one in the On2 VP6 codec.      In addition, a deringing filter is available when you use the On2 VP6 codec.       To set a filter, use one of the following values:
0—Lets the video compressor apply the deblocking filter as needed.
1—Does not use a deblocking filter.
2—Uses the Sorenson deblocking filter.
3—For On2 video only, uses the On2 deblocking filter but no deringing filter.
4—For On2 video only, uses the On2 deblocking and deringing filter.
5—For On2 video only, uses the On2 deblocking and a higher-performance      On2 deringing filter.
If a value greater than 2 is selected for video when you are using      the Sorenson codec, the Sorenson decoder defaults to 2.
Using a deblocking filter has an effect on overall playback performance, and it is usually      not necessary for high-bandwidth video. If a user's system is not powerful enough,       the user may experience difficulties playing back video with a deblocking filter enabled.

Syncing externally recorded audio and video workflow

I'm looking for advice to sync externally recorded dialogue to video, exporting them, and importing them back into fcp7.
I've done this before, but not on this large scale. I have many clips and I did record audio with the camera as well.
I know how to sync everything up, I'm mostly looking for the best way to combine the footage and export it without loss of quality. Also wondering if I can keep the in camera audio AND the externally recorded audio. So, if at the end of the day, I absolutely need to use one or the other, I can choose which one and hide or delete the other.
My questions are...
1. What's the best way for lossless quality re-exporting and importing for this (some fomat that is still editable)?
2. Is there a way to keep multiple channels of audio (from the camera and the h4n) or do I have to choose before exporting?
3. Is there a "batch" way to do this? Does it consist of making multiple sequences?
Thanks for your help!!!
J
I shot it on a PMW EX3 and the audio was recorded on an H4N, if that helps.

1. Why are you re-exporting? No, that's not what you do. You use the MERGE CLIPS command. This will make a NEW clip with the audio and video files merged. Typically you have a slate to sync to, or timecode is jam sync'd so the camera and audio recorder have the same timecode.
2. When you merge the clip, all the audio channels will be present.
3. Sorta. If you get PluralEyes that will automatically sync everything...but will do so by making a sequence with the video and audio. So a sequence of sync'd audio...not a clip. And if you use the sequence as a source, you need to make sure to use the OVERWRITE WITH SEQUENCE CONTENT mapped to the F keys, otherwise FCP will make those nested clips, and nested clips are not a good thing in this case.

Syncing external Audio to Video

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for