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merging audio with video
Hi you all,
I’m about to start a work of fiction on an Avid Adrenaline. I worked on this system before, but two of my most recent fiction projects have been on FCP. The studio I work for is used to utilise harddisk recording to capture audio on scene. On my first job they gave me BWF’s. Now it’s just WAV’s. Anyway, in FCP, I could easily click on the captured video and the corresponding WAV-file, hit the right mouse button and select “merge clips” from the menu. I would then get a new clip in my bin with the separated video and audio merged together. (The audio from the harddisk would appear in the next available audiotracks from the captured clip)
Now I want to do the same in Avid.
So: sound and video recorded seperatly on set (like the old days ;-)) How do you guys deal with this, so that an editor can work with clips where the video and the audio are nicely glued together?
Any help will do and thanks in advance!!PS video and audio share the same timecode off course.
StvN
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6 Replies
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The WAV’s you have been supplied are likely BWF’s from a field recorder. I believe some manufacturers of those machines stuck to the .bwf extension for a while, but I think all of them by now have moved to using .wav. BWF (Broadcast Wave File) – or BWAV – is nothing more than a WAV file with a metadata chunk in it. If you import them, you will probably see a set of metatdata (like timecode and shooting day) come into your system as well. That’s the metadata from the BWAV.
Other than that, you are looking for the AutoSync function (under the Bin menu). It will allow you to sync picture and sound clips based timecode or in-points. Take notice that if a Shoot Date is present, the Avid will see that as part of the timecode.
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Thanks slash bedankt, Job!
Your answer didn’t come as a surprise to me. I was kinda hoping there would be another function within Avid to, for instance, make a new clip with only the audio from the wav file in it. Now you still have to first put it on a timeline and then select the other “angle” within the audio track(s) to hear the field recorded audio. The cool thing about auto sync is that you can just select everything and Avid will make groups where possible. Saves some time, yeah… but just out of curiosity 🙂 is there a way to tell avid the audio from the wav file has to be the default track?
I hope this is not gibberish. The producer is very keen on time saving functions and we’re both kinda pushing the envelop. (The show (a telenovella) is filmed with the new HD XDCAMS by Sony. Just arrived.)
Cheers,Steven.
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You seem to describe a scenario where your videoclips also carry audio. In that case AutoSync does not really work, it will actually be Grouping clips rather than syncing them (therefore forcing you to choose a source from a Group).
Autosync needs unique track numbers, so you can merge a V1 clip with an A1A2 clip, or you can merge a V1A1 clip with an A2A3 clip.One way would be to subclip V-only for the videoclips, then Autosync them.
If there are many clips, you could do an ALE export of a bin with all videoclips (V1A1A2), then open the ALE in a text editor and replace VA1A2 with just V, in the Avid select that same bin, choose File->Import, and under Shot Log options, choose “merge with known sources and automatically create subclips”. Now you will have a V-only subclip for each clip you captured/imported. Autosync those with the imported BWAVs.
You can also opt to throw everything into a timeline and sync up in there, allowing you to place the camera A1A2 tracks on A3A4 or A5A6 or whatever. Then create subsequences (without any edits!) from that timeline, select those subsequences and hit AutoSync, after which the subsequences will be turned into sync clips.
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Wow Job, you hit the nail right on the head. Because we import the clips rather than digitize them, I will check if we can import only the video. If not, I will try your ways.
Many thanks man and don’t forget to strech! 😉StvN
StvN
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Keep us posted on how things work out for you.
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Ok, here’s the first followup:
I’ve managed to do the ALE export, but as I try to reimport the modified file, the system states there’s is no tape name assigned.
I changed the ALE in Windows’ notepad. So is it possible that the tabs got screwed up?StvN
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