Can I shoot video and sync sound separately and sync in iMovie?

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Level 1

1 points

Can I shoot video and sync sound separately and sync in iMovie?

I hope this is the right board to post this question. (I'm posting on the iMovie board as well)

Can I shoot a video (of people talking) on a camera (using 720p or 1080p) at 30 fps, while recording the sound on a separate mic (usb) plugged directly into the computer (iMac) using GarageBand and have them sync up in iMovie for editing?

I know how to add sound from GarageBand to iMovie - the question is - will they be in sync?

What is the "frame rate" of GarageBand? Is it compatible with a video camera if the video and audio are shot separately? We're talking about sync sound here - that is - people talking - so it has to be in perfect sync

Since the camcorder I'm using doesn't have an external mic, I want to shoot somewhat like the old film method when we shot on a duel system using a camera and a Nagra tape recorder. Of course in that case the camera and recorder were synced using a vibrating crystal.

Thank you.

Posted on Oct 19, 2012 2:00 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 21, 2012 11:49 AM in response to acewriter

It should work fine. The audio in movies doesn't have "frames", or better: its "frame number" is the sample rate of the audio. GB's is 44.1K, i.e. 44,100 samples per second.

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Answer 2

Junky099

Level 1

0 points

Nov 5, 2012 12:08 PM in response to Christoph Drösser

For me it doesn't work.

I recorded the video with Photo Booth (using the webcam), and recorded the audio with GarageBand, and I tried to sync them in iMovie, but it's not possible. They have different speeds (different frames per second), so if I sync them at one place, they'll just get out of sync futher along the clip.

Does anyone know how to sync them?

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Answer 3

isteveus

Level 5

4,340 points

Nov 5, 2012 3:10 PM in response to Junky099

Junky099, Why not use iMovie for rcording the video and the usb audio. You can use the iMovie audio eq for adjustment or send the movie to garageband for audio work.

I just want to say that I make a lot of video with video shot or still and video cameras and record audio with a old Zoom or Mic on my iPad and sync them with iMovie without a problem.

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Answer 4

Junky099

Level 1

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Nov 6, 2012 12:41 AM in response to isteveus

I'm not using USB to record audio, I'm using just a minijack, which I plug into Mac's Line-In. I don't know how to record sound through Line-In in iMovie. I think that's what GarageBand should be for.

I just don't get it how I can have such problems with such simple stuff. Whenever I see tutorials for syncing audio with video, nobody has this problem of different speeds, they just align them together and it works.

What I still haven't tried was to record the video in iMovie (instead of Photo Booth), I don't know if that would help. So, I'm recording me playing piano, that's why I want to record the sound through line-in, so that the quality of the piano is better.

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Answer 5

isteveus

Level 5

4,340 points

Nov 6, 2012 5:12 AM in response to Junky099

Doesn't matter if you are using usb or line in for audio with iMovie. Just click on the mic icon and choose built in input.

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Answer 6

Junky099

Level 1

0 points

Nov 6, 2012 7:37 AM in response to isteveus

I managed to record it. Now I recorded the video in iMovie (and audio still in GarageBand), and it worked 🙂

I guess Photo Booth just screws up the video or something.

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Answer 7

acewriter Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 6, 2012 11:04 AM in response to acewriter

Just an update - I'm still researching cameras, so I decided to do a test using my Snowball mic plugged into the iMac and opened in GarageBand, and shooting about 30 seconds of video with my iPod of me talking. I then uploaded the video to iMovie (through iPhoto - maybe there's a way to directly upload it to iMovie from the iPod, but this is a GarageBand forum, so I won't ask here.).

Anyway, I then created a media browser file of the audio that was in GarageBand so that I could access it in iMovie. In iMovie, I detached and muted the original audio that was shot on the iPod, and, using the Media browser, brought the external mic's audio into iMovie and synced them up perfectly. Don't know if they would stay in perfect sync if the clip was longer - say five minutes instead of 30 seconds, but it did work.

Since this was only a test, I didn't complete the project, which would have meant deleting the original audio and uploading the file to another format.

So now I'm off to buy a camera without worrying about the sound quality from the camera's internal mic.

Thanks for all your replies.

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