I welcome any comments on this topic. I have searched the forums and there was a brief mention in Power Producer but anyway my notes are for Power Director.

Why use audio tracks ?
I currently make interviews which use one or two cheap JVC camcorders which have no external mic input and they unfortunately pick up all unwanted background noise, so I record a supplemental sound track on an iKey solid-state recorder with an ATR55 shotgun mic which produces an mp3 audio track.

The Problem:
I found that when trying to match the sound to the video in PD I kept getting lip-sync problems. The reason is that sound tracks when imported to PD do not seem to match the total time length of the video. I proved this by shooting a video of a metronome, and now think I have the technique down smoothly.

The Fix:
Two things to always do
1.Use a clapper board at the beginning and end (or a hand clap)
2. Do NOT attempt to stretch the audio timeline by dragging the edge with your mouse, It just does not seem to work and will mess up your sync.
Dont know why technically - its just been my expoerience.

First place your video on the video line and edit (cut it ) at the lead-in at the clapperboard point but do not edit any remaining video after the ending clapperboard point. Leave it there. In fact the video must be longer than the audio for this editing. If it is shorter, the audio track gets truncated.

Place the mouse on the instant in time where the final clapperboard sound happens and make a note of the total run time at this frame by noting the figures just under the display in PD e.g 20 mins 12 secs 11 frames [20:12:11]

Now place your audio track or sound track on the PD and edit (cut) it at the starting lead-in clapper board point. Drag the whole audio track back to 00:00:00 if necessary.

Now go to the end of the audio track and edit (cut) out any audio after the final clapperboard pont.

What you have now is clean starting points for your audio and video, a clean ending point for the audio and you know the exact ending time in [mins:secs:frames] for the video up to the final clapperboard noise.

Now, right-click on the audio track and choose Edit Audio - Speed
On the lower right side of the pop-up you will see the current length of the audo track [Modified Audio Length].

Click into those digits and change them to match the length of the video
(20:12:11 in my example).

Close that pop-up window and your audio track will now be adjusted to the same length.

Check by playing both video and audo track sounds together and the clapperboard should sound in sync. (I use three claps)

Check at other points along the whole video and the lip-sync should be correct.

Edit (cut) the final remaining video after the clapperboard and mute the video track.

Finally, Produce the video at as high resolution as you like and use this video as your new working video with its new high quality sound track.
You can now edit this video track as normal, dropping in PIP tracks and effects.



Regards,
VideoCentricity - Where you see yourself on the web
http://www.VideoCentricity.Net If you can't solve the problem - Change the problem