Audio out of sync - Finalcut 7, Canon 7D, Marantz PMD 670

Question

Audio out of sync - Finalcut 7, Canon 7D, Marantz PMD 670

Having some serious audio slip (out of sync) issues - looks like some people already have this using various equipment (h4 zoom, Tascam, Olympus etc):

Shot an interview with Canon 7D

Recorded audio on a Marantz PMD 671 and converted to 48Khz (several times in Compressor, QuickTime Pro 7, Bigasoft Audio Converter):

MacPro (2008) - running 10.6.8

Finalcut pro 7.0.3

When I import both the video and the audio from the two sources they are fine at the start of the audio sync mark, but slip badly after a few minutes.

Have exported the audio in different AIFF ways 44Khz, 48Khz, 16 bit 32 bit, little endian etc, but it fails to sync up.

Have had a look at the forums on Creative Cow, but this just says to adjust the speed settings of the audio to 99.89%. This is almost fine.

Another thing I found is when I scrub through the audio track from the camera, the waveform syncs up with audio I listen to it, eg I see a spike and corresponds to a loud pop sound through my headphones

However...

When I scrub through the audio from the Marantz, the waveform does not seem to reflect what I hear, eg I see a quiet passage but can clearly hear audio at level 10dB.

I've restarted, updated, everything.

Lost and frustrated of Cheam

Posted on Apr 16, 2012 6:49 AM

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Answer 1

Studio X

Level 7

27,229 points

Apr 16, 2012 9:16 AM in response to Ahad Surooprajallly

You'd think it would all be seamless, but it isn't.

This is why you either use gear that can all access a sync signal from a TC generator or route audio back to a camera so that it gets locked to a video stream.

Without that lock, it's just the wild west.

x

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Answer 2

Apr 17, 2012 2:28 AM in response to Ahad Surooprajallly

OK FIXED! This is what you need to do:

These THREE steps will work if you have shot video and audio from TWO separate sources, eg:

- Video shot on a DSLR (Canon 7d in my case)

- Audio recorded on a digital recorder (Marantz PMD 671 - in my case, Zoom h4n etc)

1. DON'T PANIC!- Make a fresh brew, and sit comfortably

2. Delete or (better still) rename your FCP prefs. I suggest instead of deleting the prefs, add ".OLD" to the end of the file name. In the unlikely event this doesn't work, then you might need to put your prefs back.

This is an extract from Apple support page :

Delete the User Preferences

You can resolve many issues by restoring Final Cut Pro 7 back to its original settings. This will not impact your project files, but you should verify your Scratch Disk location setting after doing this. To reset your Final Cut Pro 7 user preferences to their original state, do the following:

In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Preferences—the tilde (~) represents your Home folder.
Remove the "com.apple.finalcutpro.plist" file from the Preferences folder.
Remove the "Final Cut Pro User Data" folder from the Preferences folder.
Restart your computer

3. This is the crucial step from Michael Gissing Creative Cow (nuff respect bro):

http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/1151955

I used QuickTime Pro 7 to export the original "Original" WAVE file to an AIFF 48Khz, 16-bit audio file. But you can use SoundTrack Pro, Bigasoft Audio Converter. As a side note, MP3 are notorious for a slippling - this AIFF conversion will normally help.

This will fix your audio slip if you find you have had to adjust the speed (eg, 99.89% etc).

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