Topic: audio out of sync with video

[gladcarrot]

I am trying to sync in my minidisc audio into video footage taken at the Nine Inch Nails show at the Aragon Ballroom, August 28, 2009.  This was the first of two shows.  Oddly my audio is the only one to surface so a member of Echoing the Sound, Alrea sent me his footage to create a DVD of the show. 

The only problem is that my audio and his video are out of sync.  It starts out okay but the audio is slightly shorter and starts to noticeably lag after about a minute.  After about 3 songs, it's off by a few seconds. 

I compared Alrea's video to another video source, this one from the pit, shot by ArabyMusic.  They match so I'm pretty sure the problem is my audio.  I even re-transferred the audio a second time hoping I did something weired the first time.  The problem did not go away. 

I'm not entirely new to this process.  I have sync'ed my minidisc audio with my camcorder video (same type as Alrea, JVC hard disc camcorder) on several occasions and have sync'ed in soundboard audio with a video edit I made of my camcorder and another taper's HD Sony camcorder video.

The only similar situation I've faced was when I ripped separate audio and video from a VHS tape.  I cleaned up the audio and tried to sync it into the video transfer but it was no longer the same length and gradually drifted out of sync after a few minutes. 

Any ideas on how to match up the two properly?  The audio is not terrible, but could be a lot better.  I'd like to release the footage on the one year anniversary of the show, 8/28/10.

Audio: Sharp MD --> Audacity --> .WAVE

Video: JVC Hard Disc camcorder --> .MOD (MPEG)

Editing program: Cyberlink Power Director.

Thanks in advance,
Greg

[mattmiller]

The problem isn't your audio.  And the problem isn't the video.  The problem is the fact that any two different recording devices have slightly different clocks.  Think about it like this:  what one recording device believes is 1 second, another recording device believes is 1.00001 seconds, or 0.999997 seconds.  The result is that they drift out of sync unless you used an external clock that both devices are sync'd to.  When dealing with just two audio sources, multi-track recorders allow us to record several sources with the same deck and keep everything in sync.  Otherwise, audio recorded with two different recorders needs to be fixed too.

Whatever video editing software you're using should let you time-stretch (or shrink) the audio track to match the video.

[gladcarrot]

Thanks Matt.  I'll look for a time stretch feature as a solution.  However, I have not had trouble mixing my audio with videos files from this brand of camcorder before.  I understand the time difference aspect, but a second or two per song is a long time.  People can count seconds more accurately.   

[guysonic]

PowerDirector has an index marker above the timeline with several functions showing when mousing over it.  One is a dual arrow with a clock face when selected and held works for shrinking or expanding the end of the 'unlocked clip' along the timeline.   Suggest only workiing the video clip portion stretching/shortening to match the duration of 'locked' audo tracks.

[exxile]

I've done this quite a few times and it's often easier to split your audio up, so you're effectively sync'ing track by track as opposed to the whole audio at once. Crowd noise between tracks is usually a good place for short overlaps/stretches if necessary. I once had a video source that was so messed up (fast/slow/cut), I had to create 200+ splits over 80mins, took a long time to do but turned out reasonably well. Best of luck.

[beatkilla]

I can do the whole project for you.pm me

[mmadd29]

Use r8brain....that is how I do it.

[beatkilla]

Also remember that synching audio to a videos audio is the first step ,if the video was shot a little distance back the original audio wont be in synch with what your seeing as light travels faster than sound.any time i put in a concert dvd if the sound is not in perfect synch with the drums i eject it and never watch it or fix it myself.so many concert dvds suffer from the time delay its a shame really.

[guysonic]

Some deck models have more accurate clocks, and this might vary a bit even using same deck models.   Some Zoom deck models are infamous for having drift out of time issues.   

My Mt1 seems fairly accurate for over 30 minutes once synched to my small panasonic still camera working video mode.   

Using Cyberlinks PowerDirector seems easiest of the low cost editors in that given time to process the audio tracks put into the timeline editor, it shows the waveform of both the camera audio and the external recorder track audio, so possible to visually rough synch and then work for reducing echo from hearing both play.

This was the method used to record quite a few of my most recent YouTube uploads.  Here is one done with PowerDirector: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhR334zEf4c&feature=player_embedded