I'm making a video in iMovie, and I have lined up the video with the audio just right. When I watch it in iMovie, it looks and sounds correct. When I export it, the audio and video are no longer in sync. Am I doing something wrong?
The video was shot on my iPhone 8, and the audio is a .wav file.
MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)
Hi, Helen,
I don't know why your audio and video are out of sync when sharing out the movie. Sometimes these types of issues are confined to one specific project. You might try creating a new project with this media and see if the problem replicates. Also, you can try opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if the project shares out properly.
WAV is supported by iMovie. However you might try converting it to aiff or AAC and see if one of those sync. Another thing you can try is to reduce the resolution of the video clip (particularly if it is 4k) and see if that makes a difference.
-- Rich
Hi, Helen,
I don't know why your audio and video are out of sync when sharing out the movie. Sometimes these types of issues are confined to one specific project. You might try creating a new project with this media and see if the problem replicates. Also, you can try opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if the project shares out properly.
WAV is supported by iMovie. However you might try converting it to aiff or AAC and see if one of those sync. Another thing you can try is to reduce the resolution of the video clip (particularly if it is 4k) and see if that makes a difference.
-- Rich
As I mentioned earlier, sync issues can be pesky. Perhaps it's the frame rate of the video that is the problem this time. Is it variable or constant? I believe that iPhone videos are variable frame rate. Perhaps that is messing up the sync, in which case you can use the free download Handbrake to convert it to a constant frame rate.
If the above doesn't fix it, I can only suggest trying some of the things I mentioned earlier. Also, you could try exporting the project as audio-only, and then reimporting it back into your project to see if that makes any difference.
As a workaround, you might try splitting the audio clip at appropriate places and realigning the segments to sync with the video. Sometimes that works pretty well. Or you can trim the video here and there to make it line up.
-- Rich
When the audio is captured on a different device than the video sometimes that can cause sync problems. Also, check the sample rate of the audio. Is it 44.1kHz or 48 kHz.? They play at different speeds. Read this link and see if there is anything in there that helps you:
I think that the suggestion in the above link is to resample the audio from 44.1kHz to 48kHz. That might speed up the audio enough to catch up with the video.
You might try sharing out your video using different audio and see if you get a sync problem.
Sync problems can be pesky, for sure. There are audio apps out there that let you make finite adjustments to the speed of the audio clip.
-- Rich
Thanks Rich, that fixed it! The audio had been in 44.1, when I changed it to 48 it exported correctly.
Thanks for the suggestions. No luck however. I started a new project, still the same issue. I deleted the preferences, same issue. I used mp3 instead of wav, same issue. The audio is always a little bit earlier than the video.
Welllll, I was able to export that one video one time, with the audio and video lining up correctly. But then I went to make another video today, using audio with 48kHz, and it is exporting out of sync again. I've tried both mp3 and wav. I have no idea why it isn't working this time, when it works for the other project. Any ideas?
Great. Glad that that solved it.
-- Rich
iMovie audio and video out of sync when exported
