Virtual choir loses sync lags

Dan8644

Newbie Joined: Mar 27, 2020 13:39 Messages: 4 Offline

Solved by

Dec 20, 2020 21:34

Looking for some hints. I'm doing "virtual choir" videos with about thirty separate oploaded files, I mix the audio in Audacity and then drop it into PowerDirector and align the signers and put them in a grid using picture in picture.

1. My i7 PC lags so badly after a dozen singers of so, I have taken to creating two or three videos with a different groups of singers and pull them in and add effects to each group.

Am I doing something wrong that creates such terrible lag once I get too many singers? My i7 is eight years old with a new 8GB video card, SSD, 32GB ram, but still an eight year old i7)

2. Syncing the mouths to the music... I line up a dozen singers one at a time and when I render the syncing is HORRIBLE.

Should I be processing these individual videos with an app like video proc to make the rates all match? Or other software? Or am I rendering or creating the choir grid wrong? Help! I'm at my deadline! Thanks

PowerDirector Moderator

Senior Contributor Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan Joined: Oct 18, 2016 00:25 Messages: 2104 Offline

Dec 21, 2020 01:43

Hello,

You never mentioned the format or resolution/quality of the 30 video files you are using in your project, but that is probably a good place to start. Some people's computer's encounter issues editing one or two HD videos at a time, and you most likely are trying to edit 30 at a time on "an eight year old i7".

I am sure you don't have time to upgrade your PC, so why not try converting the 30 videos to smaller resolution versions? Since most of them probably won't be playing at full screen, using a batch video conversion tool like Handbrake should help you resolve this issue.

Cheers
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tbridge

Newbie Joined: Jun 13, 2011 09:19 Messages: 27 Offline

Dec 27, 2020 11:11

Hello Dan and Happy Christmas! How did you get on with your Virtual Choir?

I've done several of these in PD - my computer is a similar set up to yours, though my PC is a bit younger. I had trouble with my first project, with about 40 singers, so rendered each section (Orchestra, Sops, Altos etc.) and that made things much easier. But you have to plan well ahead and take careful notes of positioning and so on. I find the audio needs much more work to get every voice in sync and to trim all the late/early 'S's and 'T's and so on. I think viewers notice the audio far more than small differences in video sync.

Can you post a link here to your Virtual Choir (btw, there is a very useful page on Facebook - Virtual Music Creators Forum which might be of interest to you)?

In a bit of shameless self-promotion, here's my latest attempt, a beautiful new arrangement of an old favourite Carol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aysjit95QTI

tbridge

Newbie Joined: Jun 13, 2011 09:19 Messages: 27 Offline

Dec 27, 2020 11:22

If you watch the video I linked to, you'll notice that the grid lines are a bit haphazard - I just do them by hand, but you talk about doing yours in PiP. Can you give me a few hints about your procedure?

TIA

GordonJ

Newbie Joined: Oct 09, 2020 07:56 Messages: 1 Offline

Dec 27, 2020 15:19

tbridge, your YouTube video is beautiful, and you've used so many cool effects! I've done a bunch of similar videos for my church choir, just to keep us musically involved during Covid. I agree with you that the audio synchronization is more important than the video sync ... the audio requires so many microscopic adjustments, things singers would do instinctively in person to create a clean choral sound.

As for losing sync in putting together a video with many participants, I've found that sometimes you just have to put it together using the various audio-line cues, then "produce" the video. Often the final video will be good even though the playback in production is sketchy.