syncing audio to video – Forum Post & Discussion Thread : macProVideo.com

Posts: 3

Joined: Dec 13th, 2009, 12:40

syncing audio to video

Dec 15th, 2009, 03:57

Hi all - I've just found macprovideo and am really enjoying all the tutorials - thought I'd give the forum a go with a problem that I'm having... here goes... I'm writing music for picture in Logic 9.0.2. I import the movie and in settings set the movie start to 00:01:28:00 which is the first frame. I then choose the correct frame rate (25fps) and sample rate (48.000) and set the position of the first bar (which is 00:01:30:00 - there's a two second gap between the first frame and when the show starts). I then import audio from movie. All good so far. The first picture syncs with the audio and I'm ready to roll. At this point I've made sure the audio track is locked to smpte. The thing is that I want to write my second cue for the show, which starts at 00:04:53:00. So I go ahead and under synchronization set the bar position (1 1 1 1) to play at smpte 00:04:53:00. When I then play from bar 1, the picture starts at the right point (00:04:53:00) but the audio is all out of whack - its playing audio from earlier on in the show... Any help would be much appreciated - after two hours trying to get it right I've run out of ideas. Thanks - Brett

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Cajypiu

Posts: 400

Joined: Oct 11th, 2006, 09:48

Re: syncing audio to video

Dec 15th, 2009, 11:22

Hi Brett, OK, I'm still not entirely clear as to what is going on here: "... I want to write my second cue for the show, which starts at 00:04:53:00. So I go ahead and under synchronization set the bar position (1 1 1 1) to play at smpte 00:04:53:00." If you just want to write a second cue can you not just move the playhead up to 04:53 and work from there? If you change the bar position @ 1 1 1 1 to equal 04:53 then I think it's moving that part of the movie to the start of the logic arrangement, but you've locked the audio to where it is in the arrange window so it will be 04:53 minutes offset? Changing the sync point won't offset the 'smpte' locked audio. That feature just bolts the audio to the arrange page and stops you from moving it... it doesn't burn an smpte code in to the audio file to sync it with any smpte clocking. If you have some screenshots that will certainly help us out? Cheers, John

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Logic Pro 9

Posts: 3

Joined: Dec 13th, 2009, 12:40

Re: syncing audio to video

Dec 15th, 2009, 02:38

Maybe that first explanation was a bit over the top - I'll try again: I've imported and synched audio and video into an arrange window and everything works fine. Now I want to map smpte 4:53 (the start of my second cue) to bar 1 1 1 1 so I can just start writing the second cue without having to beat map. The audio region is smpte locked. When I use the feature under synchronisation 'bar position 1 1 1 1 plays at smpte 4:53' it moves the video to the write place but the audio is out of sync. And not by 4:53 - by some seemingly random amount of time. Clear as mud? :)

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Cajypiu

Posts: 400

Joined: Oct 11th, 2006, 09:48

Re: syncing audio to video

Dec 15th, 2009, 06:07

Kia Ora! I'd say you have a few options. There may well be another/ better one, but I personally don't know of any so if someone does and is reading this, feel free to chip in! First off, you could create separate video files for each cue you will need to compose for. You can keep file sizes down that way and it also allows you to concentrate on just the cue in mind. Only downside is you can't playback the whole thing without having to stitch together the bounced cue sections you composed, in another master project. If you need to make changes, then you have to open that cue's specific project and re bounce. Another option you have is to keep the start of the whole film at bar 1 1 1 1, but move the start of the project further along the time line using the white square in the top left of the arrange page. It looks identical to the end of project marker and if you grab this with the mouse and move to the right, you are changing the project's arrange page start bar. Downside to this is that it will not allow you to do this if you have audio regions in the arrange page already so you can't simply skip a section already composed... and you will have to drag it to a bar position other than 1 1 1 1. Incidentally, I was able to replicate your problem to a certain extent. I locked the audio and went in to the project's video preferences to reference 4:53 to bar 1 1 1 1 and like yours, it moved the video and not the audio. What I did notice was that you have to wind the clock back rather than move it forward though. You didn't mention you were doing this so wanted to make sure we/ I haven't got any wires crossed. For example, you have to set the movie start time to 00:57:07:00 not 01:04:53:00, assuming the original movie start time was 01:00:00. It offset anything by a random amount?? One thing I also noticed was, if you import the audio from your video in to the arrange page AFTER you reset the movie start position, everything syncs up perfectly. The question I still have though, is if you have cued up some music before 4:53, what is going to happen to it when you set your video position to bar 1 1 1 1. Surely, your original composition is also going to be round there as well? Clear as mud!? Cheers, John

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Logic Pro 9

Posts: 3

Joined: Dec 13th, 2009, 12:40

Re: syncing audio to video

Dec 16th, 2009, 04:01

John - thanks so much for taking the time out to give me hand. I don't write all the music for the show - I get allocated my share of cues. So I setup a session per cue (therefore if I set bar 1111 to 04:53 there's no problem because there's nothing composed before it) I just can't figure out why setting bar position 1111 to 04:53 is working for the picture but the audio isn't moving/syncing with it. I even tried importing the audio after I reset the first bar position and that didn't work for me either... very strange because it seems like 'set bar position to smpte' is tailor made for what I'm trying to do! Brett

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