MSP12 Synchronizing Follow up question help!

[Jeffrey W. Arnold]

Situation: I recently worked on a Wedding Video for a friend using Movie Studio Platinum 12. My camera is a digital HD Video Camera Recorder model HXR-NX30U. I had 1.5 hours of original footage that I edited down to about 56 minutes. I made several edits shortening clips, manual cross fades, etc. After getting things the way I wanted them, I rendered them matching the project media. I shot the video in AVCHD 1080i, and the picture quality is gorgeous, as is the sound quality. I clicked the make movie button and selected Blu ray, in a few minutes I had my disk. So I watched it, and upon looking at a close up of a person in the video talking, I noticed his lips and hand gestures were about 1 second ahead of the audio. Please note I had separated the audio time line so that it wasn't connected to the video at some point during the editing process and then reconnected them.

Question(s)
What steps can I take to find out if I can still correct the 1 second delay of the audio, for the entire video. Is there a way to avoid getting into this situation in the future?

[Bob]

It sounds like you moved the audio while the audio and video were separated causing it to go out of sync. You can resync the audio and video by separating the audio and video again and slipping the audio with respect to the video. Unfortunately, you will most likely need to fix each out of sync segment individually.

After separating the audio and video place the cursor over the audio clip and hold down alt and drag left or right as needed. This is called a slip edit and the length of the clip will stay the same. Don't place the cursor over the in or out points as this will result in a slip trim instead which will change the duration. Rejoin the audio and video after you're done.

[Steve Grisetti]

Also, this is a professional camcorder that shoots in a variety of modes (including AVCHD version 2). Which mode and format did you shoot in, and at what resolution and frame rate?

When you set up your project in Movie Studio, did you use the Match Project Settings tool to ensure that your project properties were an exact match to your footage?

You also say this is a wedding video. Is it one continuous 1 1/2 hour shot, or is it a number of short takes?

Finally, is the entire video out of sync, from the very beginning, or does it start out in sync and then lose sync as the video continues? And is this out of sync issue showing up on your computer or when you play the disc on your TV?

There are many factors that can cause out of sync problems including, as Bob indicates, simple pilot error. If it isn't the simple answer, though, it's going to take some troubleshooting.

[Jeffrey W. Arnold]

Thanks for taking the time to try and help me sort this out, Bob and Steve. First to what you mention Bob, I haven't separated each clip and tried doing a slip edit on each clip individually yet. I can try that, it sounds like much rework of the project may be required. To answer what Steve asked, I know that I shot the video on the default setting for my camera which is 1080/60i PS. max 28 Mbps FX max 24 Mbps, I am not sure which version of AVCHD it is, but the manual for the camera states the following: (System signal format NTSC color, EIA standards HDTV 1080/60i, 1080/60p, 720/60p specifications with a movie recording format of HD MPEG 4 AVC/H .264 AVCHD format Ver. 2.0 compatible STD: MPEG 2:PS).

When I set up the project in Movie studio I did set it to "Match Project Settings".

When I shot the 1.5 hours of video, it was not continuous it was made up of at least 20 different clip each varying in length. The video is the wedding and reception, with a slight split between the two on the timeline, which I covered the gap on the text timeline with a title announcing the reception.

The video appears in sync in the beginning, and out of sync at some point later, which has be wondering if I mis-aligned one clip which effected the rest of the movie? I noticed this being out of sync after viewing it on TV, but when I went back to my computer, it was out of sync there as well. Not sure why I never noticed it when I did the edit to begin with. Rookie mistake!

Steve, and Bob, it sounds like it will take some extra effort to correct, but each of you have given me some ideas to follow up on. Thank you both, if you think of anything else based on the extra information I gave you let me know.

[vkmast]

Jeffrey, do you see "red" anywhere on the events on your timeline?
Online Help (F1) "Repairing Audio/Video Synchronization Offsets".
Btw, the Synchronize command was not working in MSP 12 until it was fixed in builds 895 (32-bit)/ 896 (64-bit).

[Steve Grisetti]

Also, the main thing for you to troubleshoot now is whether this out of sync issue is abrupt or a slow drift.

In other words, is it, as vkmast points out above, a flaw somewhere in your movie in which the audio was somehow kicked out of place -- or does it start out in sync and, as you spot check it, slowly drift more and more out of sync as the movie progresses.

I'm betting on the latter -- which can be a bit more challenging to fix. Again, depending on whether you're seeing this drift on your computer playback or when you play your DVD or BluRay on your TV.