MS Teams recording looses audio in the timeline

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Level 1

8 points

MS Teams recording looses audio in the timeline

I am dragging Microsoft Teams recordings into a Final Cut timeline. What happens is the following:

The issue is:

The audio is in the file! I sometimes have the issue that I scrub through and hear the sound, but it will not be exported. In that special case above, no visible waveform and no sound at all. (But there is sound in there as I can hear it playing in quicktime!)

How to get this working? What I already did that DID NOT WORK:

a. Right click on the source in finder and under services -> encode selected video files, I encoded both audio and video, I tried encode only video, I tried encode only audio to new files. Didn't help. Still the same issue.

b. opened the audio in Logic Pro. There only the part where you could see the waveform was imported. After that the timeline was empty.

I can open the Teams recording in quicktime player and it plays. I exported it from quicktime player as H.264 as well as source is H.264 as well. Then I imported it into FCP and I could see the soundwave. Yipieee!

I edited it, exported it in FinalCut......but ..........NO LUCK.

Sound was exported just to the point where in the image above the waveform disappeared.

There must be a somehow a bad data structure of the recordings to force FinalCut, Logic Pro, Quicktime Pro jump off the train. With any of these tools I didn't get the expected output.

Any ideas out there? this workflow is a major part of my daily work life in editing. I need to find a solution for that.

Would be happy for any workflow tip to get this done. Preferably a workflow that doesn't include a re-conversion of the footage before being able to edit it.

Thanks in advance

Marcus

Posted on May 7, 2021 5:48 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

73,500 points

May 8, 2021 5:39 AM in response to mayanimation

It seems very likely to me that the problem may be related to the audio being 16KHz only.

One could say, as you noted that FCP "prefers" 48KHz.

You could try converting the audio using, e.g., Audacity, and see if that helps. Changing the sampling frequency to 48KHz should not cause sync issues.

Note that the frame rate of the video is also very unusual and low, and I wonder if that too can cause issues.

Can you open the video in Quicktime Player, press Command-I and post a screenshot of the Movie Inspector?

Also: would it be possible to post one sample video with these settings so we can test? You could send it to yourself using wetransfer, and post a link here.

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Answer 2

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

May 8, 2021 5:41 AM in response to mayanimation

8 fps has to be converted. That’s an absurd frame rate. Compressor or Handbrake should be able to do this, though I’m not sure as the frame rate is so non-standard. Convert to QuickTime H.264 48K audio. Can’t tell you what frame rate to convert to. Depends on what you want and where you are mainly.

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Answer 3

May 7, 2021 6:20 AM in response to mayanimation

This is a long shot but you may try opening the audio in Audacity and try to export as AIFF or WAV.

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Answer 4

mayanimation Author

Level 1

8 points

May 7, 2021 8:02 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks so much Luis,

there is actually an arsenal of different tools to solve the problem. But what strikes me is the fact, that Final Cut, Logic Pro and the underlying Quicktime cannot handle this. All of them fail. Apple software doesn't like MS Teams recordings.

While writing the first entry, I tried all possibilities I had and I solved my problem.

If I want to stay on the Apple side I definitely need to convert it somehow before actually editing it. Not a big thing. In general this M1 MBP is quite fast and nice to work such tip and tail jobs.

Do I want to convert crappy MS Teams recordings? Not really.

I am still super happy about anything I can get this job done in FCP. In the meantime, I am resolving my issues! ;-)

Happy editing!

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Answer 5

May 7, 2021 8:13 AM in response to mayanimation

Apple would not get out of its way to make it harder to use a video just because it was made with one of MS tools (or Adobe's or Google's, for that matter).

If, say, FCP imports a video file recorded as an mp4 with H264 codec for video and AAC for audio and cannot play, it is certainly not "because it is from Teams". It is because something went wrong with the recording.

I am sure if you do a recording from Teams now, and import it, it will work.

I'd expect this was just a freak accident.

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Answer 6

mayanimation Author

Level 1

8 points

May 8, 2021 5:32 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hey Luis,

you are completely right and I don't want to end it talking about who is best.

Coming back to the technical side of it.

Yes, it is a H.264 encoded 8 fps video and a 16 kHz encoded mono signal audio. Out of these specs you can see that there is no need to deliver high quality.

I read some forum posts talking about sound. Some say, Final Cut wants 48kHz.

Any idea how I can upsample this? Will it be insynch with the video after?

I might have a try.

Cheers

Marcus

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MS Teams recording looses audio in the timeline

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