FCP introducing audio noise (clicks and pops) in videos from TikTok livestreams

After you finish a livestream in TikTok you can download a copy of the livestream. When I import those livestream videos into Final Cut Pro (10.6.3) I am hearing frequent clicks and pops in the audio, like you'd hear on an old LP record that had scratches in it (if anyone remembers those). The audio artifacts aren't in the original audio, however, because if I play the video file outside of FCP (using QuickTime) the audio sounds fine. No clicks or pops at all. Oddly, when I replay a portion of the video in FCP where I can hear the noise, sometimes it sounds clean, but then the clicks or pops show up in different places. This inconsistency in the location of the noise in the audio leads me to believe that the problem is with FCP. When I export the video, the clicks and pops are unfortunately rendered with the video file created.


The files downloaded from TikTok are MPEG-4 movie files. When I view the info for the downloaded file it says the codecs are MPEG-4 AAC, H.264. Audio channels: Stereo. When I import the video into the timeline, I choose Video based on first clip properties. Here is the file and audio info panels for the video in FCP:




Does anyone see anything odd here that would cause this noise to appear in the audio when I import it into FCP, or have any suggestions on how to fix it? I'm using macOS 13.1 on an iMac M1 with 16GB Memory.

iMac 24″, macOS 13.1

Posted on Jan 31, 2023 6:33 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 1, 2023 1:09 PM

ffprobe shows the TikTok video is 24.99 fps so you could try selecting the clip in the FCP browser, right-clicking and choose Transcode Media... to Optimized. This can often fix non-standard source clips. Be aware that Optimizing creates ProRes files which can be quite large, so be sure to have plenty of available disk space.

31 replies

Feb 1, 2023 9:47 PM in response to terryb

Thank you, Terry. I just did that using Compressor. I used the HD 720 setting and set the audio to 48 kHz, but about halfway through the audio became out of synch with the video. It's a 2.5 hour long video, so, I guess that's part of the problem. Not sure how I fix this so I have the audio in synch without the noise popping sounds.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

FCP introducing audio noise (clicks and pops) in videos from TikTok livestreams

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.