PIP synchronization not possible?

[Brucewh]

I have video I shot of a musical event, for which I used two cameras. Camera A has singers participating in the event, and also the principle event audio. Camera B is a close-up of a participant in the event, and also contains commentary audio from two unseen people. The audio from the main event is audible on the B roll, although at a lower volume, which I did for managing exec synchronization. The intention is to have the B roll appear as PIP with the A roll. I've done this several times, and in previous attempts, this has either worked perfectly, or the synchronization was so close that it is almost impossible for even the most discerning eye or ear to catch.

But I just shot another event this way. In VS7, I dropped the A roll into the main track, and the B roll into the overlay track. To my considerable unhappiness, the two are almost exactly half a frame out of sync, which is enough to see. The result makes either the A roll video or the B roll PIP look like a very bad dubbing job, depending on how I adjust the relative volumes of the tracks.

Since VideoStudio uses a frame is the lowest discrete segment available for manipulating, I can't chop half of a frame off the front of the B roll so that it lines up correctly.

Is there any solution to this synchronization nightmare?

[Ken Berry]

I'm probably missing some important point here, but since you can move a clip anyway you want in an overlay track, can't you just move clip B to the right spot to get better sync?

[Brucewh]

As far as I know or can figure out, splitting a frame in half isn't possible, and you can't half-overlay a frame.

The problem I'm fighting is:

A roll audio begins at 00:00:00.08
B roll audio begins at 00:00:00.085

That doesn't seem like much, but it means the PIP can never be lined up precisely with the main video. If the audio for both tracks is on, you hear the sound from the A roll before or after it is heard from the B roll, producing an echo effect. If I kill the A roll audio and use only B roll audio, the people in the A roll are visibly out of sync just slightly with their own voices. It looks like bad dubbing, and it's unusable.

[trailryder42]

Have you tried splitting the B roll audio from the video and manipulating just the audio track?

I'm also thinking You might want to be sure ripple editing is disabled until you get things in sync.

[Brucewh]

I have confirmed that ripple editing is off.

The problem is that I need to B roll audio and video to synch exactly with the A roll audio and video. So I must either trim half a frame from the beginning portion of the B roll, or select and copy the entire overlay track from 00:00:00.085 to the end (which would mean somehow starting a selection in the middle of a frame). If either of those things can be done in VS7, I would love to know how to do it.

[lata]

Hi

First do your project properties match the frame rate of your video files?
I assume both cameras were recording using the same frame rate?
Right click each clip to view its properties.

If your video clips are within one frame I dont think the sync difference would be noticeable, are you sure it is only one frame?

Switch your timelines to Sound Mixer view, your clips should show the Wave form allowing you to compare.
Right click the timeline rule for Zoom to 1 Frame

If the top track is playing first, add a colour clip or image to the beginning of the track, readjusting the duration of this clip will nudge the top track, frame by frame if required.

If out of sync of one frame is the problem then I do not know how to split that to half frames.