Synchronising Audio and Video

PRHunt

PRHunt

I void warranties
I am looking for practical tips for how to approach the synchronisation of video and audio which has been recorded independently of the video camera.

The scenario would be AV recording of student music performances, so in this context, synchronisation implies that the audio needs to be in time with the action of the musicians.

My software is Linux based, but I have a range of audio and video editting tools which allow independent manipulation of audio and video tracks, nudging stuff along a time line, cutting/pasting, etc, etc.

The destination medium is DVD, so tracking would be at 48kHz by default.

I would be grateful if anyone can share some tips or point to helpful tutorials, etc. This is new turf for me.

Cheers, Paul
 
It's pretty simple. Record at 48k (24bit is great, 16bit is the destination so that will work if you have to.)

Ever see the old movies where they use a clapper board? (they're electronic now but if you want to feel pro you can buy a manual one for <$10)
Also called a slate (here's a video).
That's to give a visual and sharp sound so they could match up a point to sync audio. Still works.
Even a hand clap or drumstick tic will do.
 
If you mean an upcoming project...yeah, the clapper board is a good cue device....but also, just record the audio to camera while recording also to your audio deck.
Then, bring the video w/audio into your video editor, and bring the Hi-Q audio recording also into the video editor on a separate audio track.
Now just line up the two audio tracks.
If both recorded at 48kHz...there should be minimal timing differences due to the camera mic maybe being further away...but the time/tempo will be identical, so you just slide the individual audio track into sync, and then delete the camera audio track
 
Thanks guys. I figured it was pretty much an eye and ear thing! Clapper boards may not be appropriate in this context, since some of the performances will be in front of an audience, but I think miroslavs suggestion of aligning the HQ audio with the camera's onboard audio will work well.
 
PRHunt said:
HQ audio with the camera's onboard audio will work well.
Click to expand...

That's what I do. If the performance is long you may have to cut and slide along the way.

I've had clocks slide out of time just slightly and it gets noticable after 40 mins (for me anyway).
 
Guitargodgt said:
That's what I do. If the performance is long you may have to cut and slide along the way.

I've had clocks slide out of time just slightly and it gets noticable after 40 mins (for me anyway).
Click to expand...

OK. These performances are likely to be of 15 minutes duration (or shorter) per item, so hopefully minor clock variations will not be an issue.

Paul
 
This may be off topic, but if you record a score to a video and want the cues to sync up later during final mix, you should use BWF (Broadcast Wave) format files and include a time stamp in the metadata. This way when you import into the final mix session, you can import them at origin, which will be defined by the time stamp.

This may or not be relevant to you but it's a huge time saving trick when working with audio for video.

Cheers :)
 
Cheers Mo! I suspect that your suggestions are probably exceed the limited scope of my scenario, but my DAW certainly provides a range of clocking and timecode options, and does handle BWF. Clearly I have more research ahead :cool:
 
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