Any suggestions on how to convert the non drop AIFF to drop frame?

[Walter Biscardi]

[Mike Hennessey] “I suspect that the AIFFs are non drop frame and the footage is drop frame.”

Nope, that’s not it. The audio MUST be recorded from the exact same source it was played from, i.e. the same tape format the concert was recorded on. What’s happening is that the music on the tape plays at a slightly different speed than the the MP3’s so you’ll never get them synced up.

What you can do is play the audio down to tape and then capture the audio off the tape, so long as you’re using the same camera or tape deck that was used at the concert.

Whenever I shoot a music video, I always play the song back from the same source that we record the video on to. For instance, if I’m shooting with a DigiBeta camera, I have a DigiBeta player on set to play back the music so the singer is singing in sync with the format for editing.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X

[Mark Raudonis]

Mike,

How are you trying to sync these two sources? Do you have a slate? What’s your common reference point? Timecode, whether drop or non drop does NOT affect the speed at which you record something. You don’t provide enough info to trouble shoot, so I’ll suggest the following. FORGET THE TIMECODE! Find a common point on the video and “bad” audio, that you can easily find on the “good” mp3. First drum hit in a song? Use that to sync. (Hint: Waveforms can be a very helpful visual cue if you have no slate or clap.)

Drop frame and nondrop can easily coexist in a sequence. These differances only become an issue if you’re using the NUMBERS to sync. In your case that seems impossible.

Good luck.

Mark

[Aaron Neitz]

Here’s something that might work out for you real quick – just used this on a major artist’s concert dvd:

Line up the audio at the head, eye match if needed, and then take that audio for the sequence and modify the speed to 99.91%. This should slow the 24.0 fps audio down to the 23.98(29.97)fps video. Set audio quality to High and render.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Walter Biscardi] “Nope, that’s not it. The audio MUST be recorded from the exact same source it was played from, i.e. the same tape format the concert was recorded on. What’s happening is that the music on the tape plays at a slightly different speed than the the MP3’s so you’ll never get them synced up.

What you can do is play the audio down to tape and then capture the audio off the tape, so long as you’re using the same camera or tape deck that was used at the concert.”

My gosh Walter,
That’s some odd-sounding info, for sure.

Today’s digital audio (MD, DAT, HD recorders, Chip recorders)… all can be synced back to video.

In digital (both audio and video), assuming a stable “clock” (and most are VERY stable), you should have no trouble finding a match-point and then it should stay in sync for a long time.

I’ve even shot with consumer camcorders on shows with audio sourced from A-DAT or computer hard drives, then taken a stereo CD dub of those tracks, converted to up to 48 kHz in iTunes and laid it perfectly in FCP to the video (yes, from the free-running battery-operated home video camcorder) for over 15 minutes straight!
Dead-on and no need to dub to a tape.

There is no reason to suspect that an mp3 will play at a different SPEED than its original digital source.
Again, a stable digital “clock” does not “care” how many “samples” are created per second (X per second), it still plays back at X per second. (The key being per “second”… as the TIME will be the REFERENCE, not the number or type of sample.)

The mp3’s I make are EXACTLY the same length as my original 48 kHz audio tracks.
(How could you ever re-sample (or render) ANY audio and have it match-back to the original, if it was not “frame-accurate” for time?)
The same is true of my small QT movies that I can email to clients.
They are the EXACT same length as my original video edits.
(And the QT conversions I use severely reduce and resample the audio tracks.)

Sorry to ramble on, but in all the years I’ve worked with audio and video, I’ve never had it so EASY to sync various and diverse sources as with the amazing STABILITY of virtually any digital medium.

[David Roth weiss]

[Mike Hennessey] “I have some MP3s created from a mini disk recording that I converted to AIFFs and imported them into FCP5 and I can

[Walter Biscardi]

[Thax] “My gosh Walter,
That’s some odd-sounding info, for sure.

Today’s digital audio (MD, DAT, HD recorders, Chip recorders)… all can be synced back to video.”

Not in a continuous shot, not at least that I’ve seen in my experience. If you have a performer sing to a CD in a video, and do this as one continuous shot, while videotaping that performing say on DV, about 1 minute into the song that performer will start to drift out of sync to the CD to the point where it should be very obvious about 2 minutes into the song.

The only way to maintain perfect sync is to record the song to DV and then play it back on a DV tape during the shooting of the song.

As it was explained to me several years ago by an engineer, every tape mechanism plays at a slightly different speed from one another. If you plan to sync a performer to music over a long continuous shot, then you must play back the audio from the same source as what you’re shooting. If you’re doing a whole series of cuts in the song, then it doesn’t matter because you’re only syncing up 10 seconds or less.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X

[Mike Hennessey]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your response. I used a common drum beat to sync them up. The concert is about 40 minutes long and the sync point is at the head. You start to notice the drift about 1 minute from the sync point. By the time the concert ends they are off by about 3 seconds. Any thoughts?

Thanks again – Mike

[Blub06]

In my experience any recording form and any playback form will sync perfectly together in post no matter how long your shot lasts as long as BOTH playback and record systems are running with a crystal that governs the speed of the motor in both systems. I have worked on many different mixtures of systems and it always works, I have never ever tried playback with a CD. I don