Stretch audio to fit video

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Level 4

1,194 points

Stretch audio to fit video

Sorry for asking a question that's been posted a million times, but I can't seem to find an answer through "search". Also, I've done this before for an iMovie project, but I cannot remember how to do this and I need to do it again:

I am running QT7 Pro. I have a 4 minute video clip with bad audio. I have the same clip with good audio, but the audio came from a tape that was slightly compressed. Both clips are saved in iMovie, so each has it's own QT file. How can I take the good audio that is 10 seconds too short and stretch it to fit the good video clip? I know about exporting a movie as an audio-only file, but if I do this to the "good" audio clip, how do I insert this over the "bad" audio and stretch it to fit.

I could swear this was covered in my "Missing Manual" book, but I can't seem to find it there.

Thanks!

Posted on Sep 19, 2005 2:33 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 19, 2005 2:50 PM in response to Daniel Filice

Your first job is to get both the video and audio file to the same "time". Synchronizing is nearly impossible if the file are not the same duration.
The QT Movie Info window will show the time for each file. You have three options.
Slow down the video (not too bad unless the mouth doesn't sync with the words).
Speed up the audio (terrible if the file is music).
Trim ten seconds from the video (probably impossible to sync anything) over 4 minutes.
I would slow down the video track and here's how to do it.
Open the QT movie (sound and video) and the Movie Properties window.
Highlight the video track and choose "Extract". Now you have a video only movie.
Open the audio track movie, Command-A (to select all) and "Copy".
Open the video track movie (created from the extracted track), Command-A and choose "Add to Selection and Scale".
Use the Save As menu (so you don't overwrite the existing video only movie).

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Answer 2

Daniel Filice Author

Level 4

1,194 points

Sep 19, 2005 3:59 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

QTKirk,

The suggestion about highlighting the video track and doing "Extract", then applying with "Scale" is what I had done before. Thanks! I'll print this page and store it in my Mac folder for reference.

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