audio and viddeo are out of sync PLEASE HELP

[Lawrence Mcdonough]

Hi Jeff, I shoot with XL2’s and have ran into audio sync drift in FCP 4 and 5. I do not think it is your camera. There are MULTIPLE ways you can lose sync during capture and editing. I will lay out the most common questions and refer you to some help sites. FCP prefs: are u capturing audio at the same bit rate as you recorded it at? (48khz/16bit vs 32khz 12bit) Are you storing the media files on your MAC’s hard drive or an external drive connected via firewire? On an external drive via firewire you are vunerable to dropped frames during capture and editing, eventually the audio can drift. Word is Apple does not recommend storing on an external drive via firewire, although I have not verified that. It is recommended by some to have a separate dedicated internal hard drive just for your media files “scratch disk” Have you enabled “report dropped frames” during capture in FCP settings? Then at least you will know if you are dropping. Capturing clips over 20 minutes at a time seems to be a culprit for some people. There is a rather lengthy list on Apple’s FCP support web site addressing the entire sync drift issue. Quickest way to that site location is select the Help drop down file from FCP tool bar and there is a link. When all is said and done and nothing fixes it you will need to trash your FCP preferences. After you have reset prefs you may have to go to the unsynced clips and de-link them from the video in the timeline and slide them back into sync. First go to https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html a very well described walk through. Then later you can download free a utility that auto trashes and restores your FCP preferences. It is called Final Cut Pro 5 Rescue at https:// http://www.macupdate.com Good luck

Larry

[Tad Newberry]

Jeff,

It sounds like Larry is on to something here. i’ve just noticed a similar problem, though i wasn’t capturing via firewire, but i was capturing direct to my external LaCie drive. i didn’t know what the problem was, whether i lost sync during the compression to m2v, or what, but i saw some drift, as well as some skipped frames. other frames showed up in the FCP timline with some green blocks, and still others would be a full screen of green, some full black. if you have time, i would suggest re-capturing to your internal media drive (if ye have one). unfortunately, i don’t have this luxury as my original footage is gone (back with client), but fortunately my footage was mostly of my son’s football team (sync not a major problem) and i can edit around most of the dropped/green frames.

Good luck!

thanks for helping out a bonehead,

jtn

[Jeff Newton]

Larry,

Thank you very much for the time you spent in your respnse. That is why I love and respect this site. Pro’s helping others…I dig it.

A few things though: On my G5 I have two internal hard drives. The first drive is the 250gb drive that came installed. This drive is where I install all my programs and documents. all that jazz…When I purchased the tower I had a second drive installed just for storage and that drive is a 400gb ‘storage’ drive. This drive is where all my scratch video and audio files are placed. I am capturing my footage on with a firewire 800 cord directly from my XL2 to my tower.

I will definitely check on what settings I am capturing my audio. I am almost positive that I am capturing it at the correct settings…but I could be wrong.

The strange thing is that a little bit after I posted my comment I went back and the footage was syncing again. Even the footage from day one. I started uploading more footage and then watched it again…everything was cool but as I watched more footage it seemed to slowly get off track again.

Could this have something to do with the amount of RAM that I have…I have 2.5gb. My storage drive has about 275 to 300gb’s available so I dont think it’s that I have too much info on there.

I once heard that it is better to capture with a firewire 400 cable than a 800 cable…is that correct?

Thanks again, if nothing changes after tonight I am probably going to have to trash and reset my preferences…AHHH. I’ll admit Im a little worried about that.

Jeff.

Jeff Newton
https://www.jeffnewton.com

[Lawrence Mcdonough]

Jeff, I do not believe a direct capture from your XL2 via firewire is causing the problem. It is when we bring the video back into FCP from an external deck via firewire ( not connected via the motherboard’s main bus, like your second internal one is ) that a dropped frame issue can come up. It sounds like your hardware set up is perfect. Sometimes trashing the FCP preferences is the majic bullet and the process is fairly quick and painless. As far as capturing firewire 400 or 800 better/worse, I have not heard/read either way is better. One tip I read on a forum was try not to have an abundance of short timed video clips strung together in a row on the timeline, it may cause audio sync drift. How short timed or many is a limit I do not know. This issue is so widespread I think it is time for the Wizards of Cupertino to publish a white paper first of all known fixes and then crank out a bullet proof update to FCP!

Larry

[Jeff Newton]

Larry,

Again, thanks for seeing me through this man…I trashed my preferences and reset everything and so far it looks as if it’s syncing up again. I tried old and new clips and everything so far has gone A OKAY.

Thanks again, Jeff.

Jeff Newton
https://www.jeffnewton.com

[Kevin Monahan]

A/V synch problems boil down to two things:

1. Your drives are not fast enough.
2. Your clips are too long.

Those that capture entire rolls to firewire drives have the most problems with this. Now you know why.

Canon XL 1 or XL2 have another black mark against them in that they don’t do well at ALL with long captures, especially capture now.

If you actually logged your clips as “scene and take” (every take has a separate clip), as most pro editors do, you’ll have much fewer headaches in the long run.

Capturing entire rolls seems like a time saving idea, but in the end, it’ll bite you in the rear.

Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Seminar!
fcpworld.com