Out of Sync - Help!

Michelle J. LaBonney

Michelle J. LaBonney

Member
Does anyone have any ideas how to fix an audio syncing problem when exporting from Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 to Quicktime (version 7.5.5)? We have tried everything we know how to do and the audio on the Quicktime version is 4 to 10 frames out of sync.

We need to get the file to the composer and we can't get the audio to match with the video.

Any help is more than greatly appreciated!!
 
When you say the audio is out of sync, is the whole piece out of sync by a constant amount or does it gradually drift out of sync? If it drifts, does the audio gradually seem early or later than the picture? Drifting audio is an indicator that the audio is playing at a different speed than the video, which is usually due to an unnecessary time code pull up or pull down. You'll need to check your time code settings for both the audio and video and make sure that they match.

If on the other hand the audio is constantly out of sync at the same distance, that something that the composer should be able to easily sort out on their own while you try to figure out the cause before final output. Always make sure to have head and tail sync pops for easier syncing.

I'm not familiar with Premiere, so I apologize for not giving you a more detailed answer to your problem.
 
After taking a careful look at the rendered .mov file, it seems to me that the sync problem is really with cutting the video to beats in he songs in the film. The sound captured with the video files seems to be fine. Although it looks great in the Premiere timeline, when I export I think what's happening is that the music is somehow slipping a little. I think this may be because I've been using .mp3 files instead of .wav files. Do you think this might be the problem? I'll have to wait to get .wav's from the artists to test this theory.
 
yes. i had an editor use mp3 files in the timeline and things got very weird with renders not matching exported content. we went back and recut the music after converting the music to 16bit AIFs at 48khz.
 
Zak Forsman said:
yes. i had an editor use mp3 files in the timeline and things got very weird with renders not matching exported content. we went back and recut the music after converting the music to 16bit AIFs at 48khz.
Click to expand...

Zak:

So can I take the mp3 I have and drop it into Audition and simply save it as an AIF? (Could you list the steps for me so I do it properly? I could use a little hand-holding through this process here.) I have Audition 2.0.

John
 
John LaBonney said:
Zak:

So can I take the mp3 I have and drop it into Audition and simply save it as an AIF? (Could you list the steps for me so I do it properly? I could use a little hand-holding through this process here.) I have Audition 2.0.

John
Click to expand...

Hi John I just would like to answer your question, Zak hope you don't mind. I use iTunes to convert to AIFF, here's how:

1.) You have to first change the import settings under Preferences then General's tab to AIFF encoder.

2.) When you're done highlight the song that you'd like to convert to AIFF then go to Advanced tab then click "create AIFF version" this will convert your mp3 file.

3.) Then you can just drag the song to any folder or desktop (if you're using a mac) or directly to your NLE.

Hope this helps. Cheers!
 
+ make sure you machine is not getting hammered during export/creation.

Both CPU and disk activity (CPU maxing out will also cause sync issues).
 
I export all my MP3's to WAV or AIFF.

The plus side to this:

1) You don't have to render the WAV or AIFF
2) Non glitchy

I find MP3's in Final Cut tend to hiccup and what not.

Robbie
 
Well, it's not just the music files, it's the whole thing that's out of sync 4 frames. I'm not the only dvxuser member to suffer from this difficulty, but no real solution has yet been found. There are a couple of dvxuser posts in the Premiere forum on this issue, which I've referenced in my fairly detailed post on the Adobe Forums asking for help: http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b6b7aa/4

I'm stumped. Any ideas? I've got to get this solved.








 
I think I've run across issues with sound cards (and their clocks) running at slightly different speeds than the video, which has affected exports. Can you switch the audio output to something else? I'm not sure about premier, but Final cut can select between Audio Out through the Firewire, or out through my soundcard.

Worth a try.
 
yeehaanow said:
I think I've run across issues with sound cards (and their clocks) running at slightly different speeds than the video, which has affected exports. Can you switch the audio output to something else? I'm not sure about premier, but Final cut can select between Audio Out through the Firewire, or out through my soundcard.

Worth a try.
Click to expand...

There are settings to change the audio hardware to ASIO, but Premiere won't let me switch to that setting from Premiere Pro Windows Sound (probably because I have no exterior sound devices attached to the computer.)
 
I've asked Larry R to move this thread to the Premiere forum in hopes of getting a little more action (and hopefully, fingers crossed) a solution on it. I'm officially now begging for help.

Do you think upgrading to QT pro would make the slightest bit of difference? (Just throwing out an idea here.)
 
John LaBonney said:
Do you think upgrading to QT pro would make the slightest bit of difference? (Just throwing out an idea here.)
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I doubt it. A different QT version is more likely to have an effect than whether it is pro or not. In fact, I just recently had an issue with a newer version of QT where downgrading solved the issue. (totally unrelated to your issue, and on a mac)

Some questions:
Can you export in some other format and have it stay in sync?
If so, you could convert it afterwards.
Can you record it to tape and then recapture it in premier as a single file, then export it?
If you export a single 6 min long clip, does it have the same issue?


4 frames is not many (but still annoying). Could it be a difference between 24p and 23.976? if it were me, I would slide things to line them up again, and worry about the issue after the fest.
 
The sync problems have kept me from my office for over a week. All exported WAV files, AVI, etc. are all ending up out of sync by about 10 frames. I'm using standard DV video too, nothing transcoded or needing to be.

I get things into Encore with a nice m2v and wav....things are out of sync...I've been driving me nuts and no matter what I do it isn't fixed. It's unfortunate really, it seems to happen every once in a while which means its not a specific software issue, might just be buggy.

Hopefully I can figure out a way to fix it.
 
Hi,

It sounds like it's a sampling error, not a timecode error (which kind of, sort of manifests the same sort of troubles).

If the original audio file was a 44.1KHz file and not sampled for a 48KHz project, you'd lose a few frames of sync.
 
As a test, I started a new project, loaded in a piece of .wav music, and created some color mattes in Premiere. Then I synced up the color mattes to change on the beat of the music. On export, the same problem results. So I'm guessing here that it has very little to do with the camera footage at all, since there was none in this test project.

I have checked and the audio is 48KHZ and I'm exporting the same.
 
yeehaanow said:
Can you export in some other format and have it stay in sync? If so, you could convert it afterwards.
Click to expand...

Yes, if I export to Real Media or Windows Media Video, the file is in sync.


Can you record it to tape and then recapture it in premier as a single file, then export it?
Click to expand...
I can't record to tape.

If you export a single 6 min long clip, does it have the same issue?
Click to expand...
I don't think I have a piece of footage that long to try. But I expect so.


4 frames is not many (but still annoying). Could it be a difference between 24p and 23.976? if it were me, I would slide things to line them up again, and worry about the issue after the fest.
Click to expand...
4 frames is tremendously annoying. I will slide the audio to get a file out for the fest, but I'm on a quest now to find a solution.
 
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