Import to FCP on DVX, sound out of sync?

evolvnyc

evolvnyc

Well-known member
I have some footage I shot in the dvx which is fine, (I watched it in vcr mode on the dvx with headphones and it's perfect.) But when I captured it into fcp, I did 3 clips, 20 mins each. The first is fine. The second is off by less than a second, the subject's lips move almost a second after he starts talking on the audio. The 3rd clip is WAY off. I only did these imports to log the footage which seems impossible now since I can't match the audio to the timecode. I'm on a g5 tower running FCP Studio.

Does anyone know what would cause it and if there is an easy fix without re-importing?

Thanks!
 
Are the off ones off the same amount thru the entire clip, or do they drift?

Were these captured from the same tape? Were all three LOGGED then captured? Or were they split due to dropped frames?

Yes, there's a way to fix it without re-importing. You sure you want to do that?

CaptM
 
2 are from the same tape (the one that's fine and the one that's slightly off) and the way off one is from a separate tape. I just watched them more closely and on one, there's a point half way through (clip is fine up to this point) where the video pauses and seems stuck, but the audio keeps going, then the video unsticks and keeps going but is now a second or two behind the audio for the remainder of the clip.

On the other one, at the very beginning, the sound keeps going slightly tinny (?) like it's squelching and it slowly drags the audio out of sync from the video over the course of the first minute, then it remains out of sync for the rest of the 20 minute clip.

Does this mean I need to clean the heads of the dvx I used to import? The source footage is fine (I recorded and imported on the same camera.)?
 
Cleaning heads would be a good start.

Restarting your computer would be a good idea too. Are you capturing to an drive other than the system drive? If so, internal? External? If external... usb or firewire?

All of these things can have a part in the issue.

Since it is drifting you can't fix it in the timeline very easily.

CaptM
 
Ah, I am capturing to an external drive over USB 2. Would that effect audio quality? Is there any way to tell if it's def the heads? I'd rather not subject them to a cleaning unless absolutely necessary... (You think I should just slide the clip to match in the timeline?) This footage won't be used for anything other than logging, so it doesn't have to be perfect or pretty, just true to the timecode.
 
The USB drive isn't any good. If you HAVE to use it, I'd limit my captures to under 10 minutes. Maybe even only 5. USB can't sustain the thruput needed. Probably not the heads.

You might be better off capturing at an offline quality if all you need to use it for is logging.

That might/should work for the USB drive.

CaptM
 
Btw, you can get a cleaning tape. They are dirty cheap. You just play them for 5-10 seconds and helps keep your heads clean(er).
 
I was dealing with a similar issue, but I kept having audio dropouts. I was freaking out that it was either my camera or my capture deck, but the dropouts would always come at different points when I recaptured the footage. Finally I figured it must be the external USB2 drive that I was capturing to. Now I capture via firewire or to an internal drive and that seems to solve the problem.
 
Cools said:
Btw, you can get a cleaning tape. They are dirty cheap. You just play them for 5-10 seconds and helps keep your heads clean(er).
Click to expand...

Beware of cleaning cassettes. They are abrasive and can actually do more harm than good. If you absolutely must use one, avoid using it more than once or twice a year, if that.
 
evolvnyc said:
Ah, I am capturing to an external drive over USB 2. Would that effect audio quality? Is there any way to tell if it's def the heads? I'd rather not subject them to a cleaning unless absolutely necessary... (You think I should just slide the clip to match in the timeline?) This footage won't be used for anything other than logging, so it doesn't have to be perfect or pretty, just true to the timecode.
Click to expand...

I would recommend only capturing to the system hard disk, then transfer the capture to whatever extern drive you want to use for editing. RT performance on playback may be impacted, but it has been my experence, that capturing to the system disk eliminates a number of 'bus' bottlenecks that impact the capture.

With a G5 and on separate Firewire (400Mbs) connections you should be able to transfer from Firewire Camera to Firewire Disk. I would not recommend capturing from the camer to a disk on the same Firewire daisychain.

Others may have experience with raid setups, etc. but for me, I've used my iBook for quite a while to capture DVX100 footage.

The most frequent cause of out of sync audio, for me, is the occurance of dropped frames, and so I have tended to make shorter takes, and tried to make some sort of slate mark of shots... even if the 'slate' is the snap of my fingers...

Failing that, I have had to adjust the audio to the video and sometimes it has been off by up to about 18 frames, here and there... but not seconds... unless something is really wrong...
 
andythefilmer said:
Was it 24p? FCE doesn't edit 24p or 25p footage because the editing timebase cannot be changed.
Click to expand...
FCP can edit 24p, just change the easy setup and open a new sequence.

Did you use the audio offset tool?

To use the Offset Audio Sync command:
1 In the Browser, select any clips whose source media files were recorded with a Panasonic DVX100 camcorder.
2 Choose Tools > Offset Audio Sync.

The audio tracks of all selected clips are offset two frames later than the clips' video tracks. This puts the video and audio tracks back in sync.

If you don't have it installed yet its on the main FCP install disc under extras.
 
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