[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

Most of the time when I sync two audio sources, they need to run for an hour or more and what I’ve found is that two cameras will sync perfectly, even up to 2.5 hours, but if one audio recording is from a portable audio recorder, it will drift and not stay in sync with the camera.

One solution might be to adjust the playback speed of the audio clip ever so slightly, but I haven’t tried that I just put a Razor cut in the .wav audio every so often and tweak the position by a frame or so as needed when the lip sync starts getting sloppy.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

I’ve always just done it visually, match up the wave forms between the camera audio and external recording. Of course, it certainly helps to start with a point of reference. With a wedding ceremony, I might use the start of a song, or the minister saying “Welcome…”.

Find that commonality on both recordings, get them close that way, then make the audio tracks fat to show the wave forms and zoom in to frame level and match the two together visually.

Then if there is an echo between the two tracks, I will change the timeline view to “Audio Units” which allows zooming in beyond the limits of 30 or 60 fps, and being able to zoom into the audio timing level (48000 per second!!!), then I can really match them up perfectly.

This is not something I would try to do for sync-sound for multiple clips, I just do it for long-single recordings like a stage event or wedding ceremony.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera

[Jeff Pulera]

The video was fun, it’s neat that you can do that with your son.

How much for the Ebay PC? The Sam’s unit is similar at $799, but with 2TB HD and Windows 10

Dell XPS 8700 Desktop Tower, Intel Core i7-4790, 16GB memory, 2TB Hard Drive, NV GTX 745,Windows 10

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

A lot of these weird export issues involving color/alpha come from GPU Rendering issues. Try setting Premiere to Software mode.

File > Project Settings > General

Set to Mercury Software Render

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

An i7 is much faster than an i5 processor, and the Mercury GPU Acceleration in Premiere can make a big difference in performance, when using a proper display card. Built-in graphics do nothing for you. My i5 in the office here does have an nVidia-based GPU, so that is helping me out.

12GB is not terrible, so that shouldn’t be a big deal on current i5 system. Certainly better than 8GB. Is your second drive internal or external? If external, make sure you are using USB 3.0, as 2.0 is simply too slow.

As Jon stated, if you can get an SSD system drive, that really perks up performance.

Make sure you are not running anti-virus software such as Norton or McAfee, as they will make any system run like a turtle. I’ve used the Microsoft Security Essentials for years without getting any cooties, and I can’t even tell it’s installed, no nags, no performance hits.

I apologize for not speaking up sooner. With your initial posts, it sounded like you were pretty well set on getting the HP, and very excited about it. I was somewhat dismayed to find out you had to return it and got another one which is having similar issues.

The Dell I saw was listed at Sam’s Club. If you find something you are interested in, copy/paste the specs here for review and we’ll let you know if components look good or not for editing.

Just to be clear, if someone is doing professional editing for a living, then spending $2000-$3000 or more is a fair starting point, but for home/hobby use, a system for $1K will do just fine. While a $1K system and a $3K system might share the exact same Intel processor, differences might be:

* Larger power supply
* High-performance motherboard, more slots and ports
* Bigger (more expensive) graphics card
* More hard drives (RAID?)
* More RAM
* Nicer case and cooling

Thank you

Jeff Pulera

[Jeff Pulera]

PS – my office computer at work is a little Intel i5 system and I have Premiere CC 2015 installed and even this lowly computer works fine for editing HD and 4K. But I do recommend the Core i7 for best results/faster exports and such.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

I’ve been following your threads for over a month and have been biting my tongue the entire time, as other posters that I respect were cheerleading for the HP purchase and also singing the praises of the XEON processors. They live in a different world than you and I.

To all that I say…the stuff is obsolete. You are buying stuff that is maybe 4-6 years old. Any new off-the-shelf Core i7 PC at Sam’s, Costco, etc. will be faster (with appropriate display card). You said you tinker as a hobbyist. You don’t need a dual-XEON rig. My core i7-2600 machine is nearly 5 years old and has served me well for HD editing, and over the weekend I cut my first 4K project and it worked. You don’t need dual processors.

Spend $800-1000 on a NEW system with Core i7, nVidia graphics, 16GB RAM, and get editing. The couple hundred you are “saving” with this old used garbage is not saving you anything – the systems are dogs as you are finding out, and you’ve wasted how much time and effort already? And even if you get one that works to your satisfaction, it is still OLD technology…how much life is left in it?

One thing with a new machine – you want a dedicated drive for video, don’t use the C: drive. I have seen new machines with an SSD boot, plus a 1TB SATA drive. That would work, using the 1TB for video. Or connect an external drive via USB 3.0 for editing if the PC comes with only one internal drive.

Just looked online, a Dell XPS 8700 would do the job for $799. BRAND NEW, warranted, with latest technology.

Just my two cents, as a friend

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jon,

It’s been a few years since I’ve used it, but the free MPEG Streamclip software can do what you want – it will pull the video off a DVD as an .m2v file, which is exactly what Adobe Encore wants. AFAIK, the video is not converted/transcoded, and Encore will not need to transcode the .m2v. Just build new menus and burn again and video quality should not have been touched.

I don’t remember what the audio ends up as, but pretty sure about the .m2v thing. Probably been 6-7 years since I’ve used the software to be honest.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera

[Jeff Pulera]

Sorry to say, you will not get good performance with that setup –

• The processor is old/slow
• You don’t have enough RAM
• Premiere CS4 is several years old (and doesn’t support GPU acceleration)
• Your video card does not provide GPU acceleration (see previous)
• And I would guess you are using a single (system) hard drive as well?

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

The System Drive (C:) should NOT be part of a RAID. Leave that drive alone, with the OS and Programs on it. Then use TWO other matching hard drives to create a RAID 0. This is done quickly and easily in the Disk Management Tool included in Windows.

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/36504/how-to-create-a-software-raid-array-in-windows-7/

On another note, I thought you already got your new (used) HP weeks ago? Or did you order it then, and it has taken this long to arrive?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers