Usually just stretching audio not necessarily a good idea, if it works for you, then use it. In PD use the "Ctrl" key and just drag the arrow at the end of the audio clip and the length will be adjusted, i.e. speed change. If you prefer to set an exact length, the "Power Tools" > "Audio Speed" allows one to set a "Modified audio length" too.

Jeff

Quote Usually just stretching audio not necessarily a good idea, if it works for you, then use it. In PD use the "Ctrl" key and just drag the arrow at the end of the audio clip and the length will be adjusted, i.e. speed change. If you prefer to set an exact length, the "Power Tools" > "Audio Speed" allows one to set a "Modified audio length" too.

Jeff

Agreed that stretching/shrinking is not a good idea, however we are talking a difference in timing of less than 2 secs over a 54 min video. it is stretching the entire file by .05847953%




What would be better, is to figure out why it gets out of sync?

Thanks for the in-program path to do this...

You are using a high power audio set up. Can the same be said for your computer. Out of sync is audio is sometimes caused by the computer/audio device not keeping up with the video.

What computer are you using. Do you have anything else running at the same time -- even background application like anti-virus, anti-spam etc. that you don't need to be running. Use Task Monitor to find what is running and start up manager to limit the number of programs that start when you turn off the computer (sorry if I'm suggesting somehting you already do). .
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Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

Quote You are using a high power audio set up. Can the same be said for your computer. Out of sync is audio is sometimes caused by the computer/audio device not keeping up with the video.

What computer are you using. Do you have anything else running at the same time -- even background application like anti-virus, anti-spam etc. that you don't need to be running. Use Task Monitor to find what is running and start up manager to limit the number of programs that start when you turn off the computer (sorry if I'm suggesting somehting you already do).

From my searches for a solution and cause, I have found several YouTube videos that have this issue at the core and the solutions people use... it is always linked to tryign to put audio that has been recorded on a separate device from the camera inputs.

I've trimmed up the system . it is an i7 with 16gb ram and a 6gb nvidia card.. we only edit at 1080 at the highest... SSD main drive with spinners for some data (inherited it, but just built a new i9 box for the studio and am going to move the project there to see if it carries over. )

thanks

Quote Why is this getting out of sync the way it is?

I would assume it's because of how the different equipment keeps track of time when recording. One way to confirm this is to download MediInfo and look at the exact length it shows for each clip.

If the raw tracks aren't perfectly synced, that step may not be all that helpful, but it may provide some insight as to which type of equipment is "off." With that knowledge, you might want to try recording in a different format on one set of equipment during a 20 minute test and see if the relative clip durations change or stay them same.

I agree with JL_JL's approches if you're ok with stretching the audio. Another option might be to split the audio track after each song/act and resync it to the camera audio. That would evenly space out the gaps over the course of the 54 minutes, and you could simply extend the edge of one audio clip at each gap to keep the audio continuous.

Depending on whether you have any noticeable repeating sounds at each gap, you might want to overlap the audio clips a bit or move the gap a little forward or back.

Quote


I agree with JL_JL's approches if you're ok with stretching the audio. Another option might be to split the audio track after each song/act and resync it to the camera audio. That would evenly space out the gaps over the course of the 54 minutes, and you could simply extend the edge of one audio clip at each gap to keep the audio continuous.

Depending on whether you have any noticeable repeating sounds at each gap, you might want to overlap the audio clips a bit or move the gap a little forward or back.

Making smaller sections would certainly work and I considered it... but dagnabit... the difference is so damn minuscule..

.. I work with a person that has been in broadcast TV for decades and has never had this issue come up,,, !

That's why I suggested looking at the raw clips first, and then changing one of the recording formats. It's possible that all clips are fine but something is happening to them when editing with PD, but without the source clips to actually test, I'm just speculating.

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Is the audio truly drifting to create a lip sync issue or just a different length? Independent audio recording is not tied to a video framerate so PD provides a option to move audio 1/10 of a frame for alignment as necessary, obviously 2 sec larger than that. Where applicable, a clapper often works good too.

If the raw audio is mp3, that often causes similar issues as you've noted. I often use a portable field recorder connect to the mixer board for stereo recording raw audio and I have to set my unit to wav as mp3 causes too many sync issues in PD.

Jeff

Quote Is the audio truly drifting to create a lip sync issue or just a different length? Independent audio recording is not tied to a video framerate so PD provides a option to move audio 1/10 of a frame for alignment as necessary, obviously 2 sec larger than that. Where applicable, a clapper often works good too.

If the raw audio is mp3, that often causes similar issues as you've noted. I often use a portable field recorder connect to the mixer board for stereo recording raw audio and I have to set my unit to wav as mp3 causes too many sync issues in PD.

Jeff

Hi jeff...


I specifically avoid MP3 as I learned it doesn't like being edited and using uncompressed file for editing is silly anyway... . The Korg D3200 puts out a .wav file, That I then run through SoundForge to Master, and then back out to a .wav file and imported to Power/Audio director. The raw .wav file does the same thing as the edited and mastered, in that at the end of he 54 min run the edited sound is less than 2 sec behind video, so the per frame difference is really really tiny... stretching the file or choppign it up are both good solutions... but as the guy I work with said, he's never encountered the issue before...

...could it be the difference of 29.97 frames per second Vs a capture of 30fps? or rather.. if this is the case would it... just taking stabs at what it isn't...

Thanks for the activity on this thread.... now if I can just get the Blackmagic Decklink Mini card to work with the Powerdirector capture function..

Jeff may have more/different info, but the 30/29.97 disparity doesn't quite add up. That's a difference of 0.1% (or 3.236 sec after 54 minutes) whereas the difference you're seeing is "only" 2 seconds.

You can easily set PD to not use the drop frame timecode and see if that makes any difference one way or the other. Here's the setting:



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Quote Jeff may have more/different info, but the 30/29.97 disparity doesn't quite add up. That's a difference of 0.1% (or 3.236 sec after 54 minutes) whereas the difference you're seeing is "only" 2 seconds.

..thanks... it is .. odd..

here is the tutorial I follwoed to fix my situation and shows a good example of the effect over a long file. Based on comments on the video, this situation is not isolated.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1tO_zx4LA8

Here is some other information on this issue...

https://youtu.be/CpaPu7RcW2c

This person says ths issue is... Powerdirector sets up the project at 30 FPS, yet the file I am inporting is coming in at 29.97fps. His solution is to set the projecyt to be 29.92, not 30fps and Bob's yer uncle... but PD15 doesn;t have that setting... the new box at work is getting Director Suite 365. Maybe it will allow this change.

Thoughts?

The video in your second post is using a different description when talking about whether their editor uses the drop frame code (29.97fps) or not (30fps). The options in PD18 and PD15 for this setting are the same, so using drop frame means chosing 29.97, while not using it means exactly 30.

I wanted to test this all out before replying, and I found that this isn't going to solve your issue at all

When you change the drop frame setting, the length of the video clips definitely change, but the duration of the audio tracks also change, even when they have no relation whatsoever to the video clips!

This is what I mean:



Setting PD to use the drop frame timecode setting results in my test clips durations becoming exactly 14 min 6 sec + 0 frames. Both the audio-only and video-only clips end at the same point. When I switched the drop frame setting to Yes, the length of both the audio and video clips changed to 14 min 6 sec + 52 frames (in a 60p project).

In other words, the relative duration of the clips didn't change at all, even though the actual playback time did. PD's timecode display also changed: it went from using colons as delimiters when No frame drop was selected, to semicolons when it was enabled.

Originally, I had thought that the drop frame setting would affect only video clips (and video clips with integrated audio), and that other content like isolated audio or titles or images would not be affected.

It rurns out that I was mistaken, and changing that setting has no effect whatsoever on the durations of the clips with respect to one another.

To put it bluntly, the drop frame timecode setting will affect the total length of the project but it won't solve any A/V duration mismatch issues, so we're back to the suggestions Jeff and I made way back at the beginning ...

Note that to make sure PD didn't "know" that the audio clip was related to the video clip on the timeline, I extracted and modifed the original audio in Audio Director, then deleted the .wav clip that AD had placed on the timeline, saved the project and closed PD. I then renamed the .wav clip in File Explorer, reopened the project in PD and imported the new .wav clip and placed it on the timeline in sync with the original video clip.

So there was no longer any association between the video and audio clips, yet both were affected the same way by the drop frame timecode selection.

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Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote Here is some other information on this issue...

https://youtu.be/CpaPu7RcW2c

This person says ths issue is... Powerdirector sets up the project at 30 FPS, yet the file I am inporting is coming in at 29.97fps. His solution is to set the projecyt to be 29.92, not 30fps and Bob's yer uncle... but PD15 doesn;t have that setting... the new box at work is getting Director Suite 365. Maybe it will allow this change.

Thoughts?

At the end of the video i beleive that the speaker meant to say create a new project at 29.97 fps, import the 30 fps recorded audio and produce it as a new wav file. The new wav file will be a longer length. That would then be placed with the original video in a 29.97 fps project timeline and it will be in sync. This does make sense as the difference in 18 min 9 sec. is 1 sec. 4 frames.