Audio out of sync

[Weeination]

I finished a project I was working on with 119 parts with a length of 127 minutes.

As I mentioned in my Audio Briefly Muted topic...

I have a project where I am using around 60 clips played one after the other. The range in length from 20 seconds to 6 minutes however most are between one and a half to two minutes. before each clip there is a black screen with some text indicating what the next clip is. A few of the clips are back to back with one another but for most there is one clip and then on to the next black screen with text and then the next clip. In total with the black screen there are 119 parts to this project which totals 126 minutes. The video clips come from different DVD recorders over the years. Therefore the properties of the source videos vary slightly.

Before I place any clip into the project I just clip the part I want from the source recording and go to Share. From there I click on MPEG-4 and select 720x480, 30p, 2.5 Mbps and uncheck Smart Render. I don't make a project just to obtain the clip I want. Then I place the clip into the project. To render the video file I again use MPEG-4 and select 720x480, 30p, 2.5 Mbps and uncheck Smart Render.

I added extra time to the beginning of many of the clips due to the audio being briefly muted. That resulted in audio being muted at the beginning of other clips. After seventeen attempts and adding a bit more time than I would like to the beginning of some clips, the video file has all of the audio that I wanted to keep intact on all of the clips.

The video file rendered plays great on both Films & TV and Media Player for Windows. On VLC, the audio starts to go a little out of sync with the video not too far in. It continues to get more out of sync as the video is played. Near the end it's off by at least fifteen seconds. I put the file on a USB drive and played it on my television. It plays exactly the same as it does on VLC.

Are there any settings in Share that may prevent this from happening?

[asik1]

Are your DVD's were 29.97 or 30 fps?
Is it off on your TV when you just jump to the 26 or 53 or 106 minute?
If it's basically a collection of clips with a header, why not render 2-3 shorter parts?

[Weeination]

The first three clips are not sourced from DVDs and they are 30 fps. The remaining clips clips are all 29.97 fps.

The video plays the same way on my television as it does with VLC. I notice the audio and video getting a little out of sync even by the 20 minute mark. Then it gradually gets worse. At the end they are out of sync by nearly 20 seconds.

I considered breaking up the video into more parts, but before that I decided to render an MPEG-2 file. That file played in sync on both VLC and on my television.

The file was obviously larger than the MPEG-4 file, so I had to format the USB drive from FAT32 to NTFS due to the 4 GB limitation on FAT32 files. The MPEG-2 file is almost 7.5 GB. However my television will also play files on NTFS drives.

The display of the MPEG-4 video was automatically correct on my television. The MPEG-2 file display was not wide enough whether the video was source from a 4:3 or 16:9 recording. However, all I had to do was make a display setting adjustment on the television to get the video to play the same way that the MPEG-2 video played.

The clips have varying volume levels. I split the audio on the ones that were not as loud and used the Amplify audio filter. After I did that, I noticed that there is also a Clip volume scale to increase the volume. I doesn't give you the ability to increase the volume as much as the Amplify filter. Should I be using the Clip volume feature first and then if after setting it at the maximum level, then use the Amplify filter to increase the volume any further if needed?

Also, in order the get the volume levels to match, I was just simply playing them one after another and adjusting the Amplify setting accordingly. It's a little difficult to get the clips to exactly match in volume level, but I have them a lot closer to each other than before. Is there any way to precisely measure the volume levels in order to make it easier to get them to match up more closely?

[Weeination]

By the way, a correction. Actually four of the first five clips were originally 30 fps. They were stream captures. I could have captured them at 29.97 with the capture program's setting, but I didn't think at the time of matching up with the frame rate of the nearly 60 clips from the DVD recordings with 29.97 fps. Could the source videos captured at 30 fps have contributed to the problem with playing the MPEG-4 video with VLC? Remember that the MPEG-4 file still played fine on three other media players in Windows. Also, when I edited out the beginning and end of those captures, the new videos made for the project were rendered at 29.97 fps.

[lata]

Hi
1 / You mention the source video are from a DVD recorder, I would think those will be Mpeg2 video files as DVD uses that format. Or are the videos from a DVD Disc, if so did you use Video Studio to import those files.
What are the properties of these original files?
Check carefully that the original video does not have audio sync issues.

2 / I assume you then insert the original video to the timeline, are you given the message to match the project properties to your video files?
3 / You mention cropping the video then saving / rendering the section to a new Mpeg4, why do you do that?
This introduces an additional rendering. I would avoid by editing the original video files.

4 / What are you intending to create, a DVD Disc, or a file to play on the computer or TV via USB..
I can see you may wish to convert to Mpeg4.

As a side note take care when converting that the Interlacing is correct, DVD Mpeg2 may well use lower Field First whilst Video Studio now uses Upper Field by default.

[Weeination]

Hi,

Aside from the four of the first five clips that I mentioned (one of which was about six minutes long) there was one more clip to mention before I began using the clips from the DVD recorders. This sixth clip was about five minutes long. It is WEBM VP8 Video at 29.97 fps. It too was of course rendered to an MPEG-4 file for the project.

One of the first five clips along with all of the clips after clip six were sourced from DVDs and the files imported into Video Studio. None of the source videos have any out of sync issues.

When I placed the video to be edited at the beginning and end into the timeline, for some reason I was not always given the message to match the project properties to the video files. I checked "Show message when first inserting clip" in my preferences.

I am not planning on creating a DVD disc, just a file to play on the computer or TV via USB. I wanted to use MPEG-4 for two reasons. On the USB using the FAT32 format, it does not accept files past 4 GB. I was not aware until later that my television will accept files on an NTFS formatted drive, just not exFAT. That allowed me to have a larger file size, hence the render to MPEG-2 from all of the MPEG-4 files. Secondly, I plan on adding more files the project in the future. Keeping all of the other MPEG-4 files on my computer takes up less space.


Properties

First clip
Video Type: MPEG-2
Attributes: 24 bits, 1180 x 886
Frame Rate: 30.000 frames/sec
Data Rate: Variable (Max. 9000 kbps)
Audio: MPEG Audio layer 2
Attributes: 48000 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo
Layer: 2
Bit rate: 128 kbps

Second Clip (Imported from a DVD)
Video Type: MPEG-2 Video, Upper Field First
Attributes: 24 bits, 720 x 480
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/sec
Data Rate: Variable (Max. 6124 kbps)
Audio: Dolby Digital
Attributes: 48000 Hz
Bit rate 256 kbps

Third Clip
Video Type: MPEG-2
Attributes: 24 bits, 1280 x 884
Frame Rate: 30.000 frames/sec
Data Rate: Variable (Max. 13000 kbps)
Audio: MPEG Audio Layer 2
Attributes: 48000 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo
Bit rate: 192 kbps

Fourth Clip
Video Type: MPEG-2
Attributes: 24 bits, 1180 x 886
Frame Rate: 30.000 frames/sec
Data Rate: Variable (Max. 9000 kbps)
Audio: MPEG Audio Layer 2
Attributes: 48000 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo
Bit rate: 128 kbps

Fifth Clip
Video Type: MPEG-2
Attributes: 24 bits, 1180 x 886
Frame Rate: 30.000 frames/sec
Data Rate: Variable (Max. 9000 kbps)
Audio: MPEG Audio Layer 2
Attributes: 48000 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo
Bit rate: 128 kbps

Sixth Clip
Video Type: VP8 Video
Attributes: 12 bits, 640 x 360
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/sec
Data Rate: -266 KPps (it looks like a minus sign in front of the number 266)
Audio: Ogg Vorbis
Attributes: 44100 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo
Bit rate: Nothing indicated

The nearly 60 remaining clips are all sourced from imported DVD content made from a few different DVD recorders. I obviously won't give the properties for each one as they may have just a slightly different data rate, but here are the typical properties.

Video Type: MPEG- 2 Upper Field First
Attributes: 24 bits, 704 x 480 4:3
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/sec
Data Rate: Variable (Max. 9558)
Audio: Dolby Digital
Attributes: 48000 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo
Bit rate: 256 kbps

However, the last eight clips (also sourced from DVDs) were recorded in 16:9. While the other DVD recordings were made with Panasonic recorders, these were made with a Toshiba DVD recorder.

Video Type: MPEG- 2 Upper Field First
Attributes: 24 bits, 704 x 480 16:9
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/sec
Data Rate: Variable (Max. 6124)
Audio: Dolby Digital
Attributes: 48000 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo
Bit rate: 256 kbps

[asik1]

one thing pops to me, its 44.1k and 48k mix, this can cause audio sync issues.

[Weeination]

I have another copy of the sixth clip in 4:3 with these properties.

File Format: Microsoft AVI
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/sec
Data Rate: 133.28 kbps
Compression: Mpeg4s Decoder DMO
Attributes: 24 bits, 640 x 480
Audio Compression: MPEG Layer-3
Attributes: 192 kBit/s, 48,000 Hz, Stereo

However I rather the one I used which is in 16:9. The first five clips are 4:3, clip six is supposed to be 16:9. Then back to 4:3 until starting at clip 44 where all clips are supposed to be in 16:9 going forward. However clips 44 through 54 were recorded in 4:3. For them I used Crop Borders to zoom them in at 100% to remove a lot of the black on the top, bottom and sides. That gives a display closer to 16:9. Clips 55 to 62 were already recorded in 16:9.

[lata]

All of your video clips are Mpeg2 except the 6th – not sure about that one?
I would set my project properties to match the Mpeg2 16:9

Video Studio using these as default, I am assuming X8 will use these settings.
MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-NTSC), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48 KHz, 2/0(L,R)

Adding the various Mpeg2 to the timeline, the 4:3 may need resizing to convert to 16:9
Edit the project then render to Mpeg 2, checking this video for audio sync, although rendering Mpeg2 to Mpeg2 should not be a problem, if there is I would inspect the original files.

Mpeg2 will play on my TV, but could now convert to Mpeg4 to compare quality.
Another option could be AVCHD, m2ts files, using these we could upscale to HD sizes, worth a try to see if it improves the Mpeg2 quality

You have a lot going on here with video from various sources, it may be best to split the project into shorter segments, 3 or 4 projects, render each to Mpeg2 before finally combining to complete the video.

[Weeination]

In Project Properties project format I am in Mobile. The only encoder drive option for Mobile is Ulead MPEG4 vio Driver.

I did not save any projects for each clip when editing and converting to MPEG-4. Also, most of the imported DVD files have been deleted. I would have to copy them over again from my external drive and start all over for the very beginning, aside from the black screens with the text I typed between clips.

[Weeination]

Also, the MPEG-2 file that was rendered from the project plays in sync on my television and VLC. How much difference would the quality of the final result be if I rendered each clip as MPEG-2 instead of MPEG-4 and then the final result also rendered as MPEG2?

[Weeination]

If I started over again and used MPEG-2 files, I wonder if that would eliminate the problem I was having after rending a video file from the project. Some of the clips had the audio muted for a half second to a second. Then when I went back to re-edit those clips to add more time, that affected other clips and I had to add more time to them. That took seventeen attempts to get where I am at now. I mentioned this in my Audio Briefly Muted topic.

[lata]

You mentioned “I added extra time to the beginning of many of the clips due to the audio being briefly muted.”
And indeed posted another topic relating to this, having to extend the beginning of the clips.
It does not make sense that many of your video clips need this attention. Are you able to share those files.

Importing video from DVD should not cause any issues, did you use Video Studio to import those files? If the original discs were copywriter protected then that may be a different matter.
I am suspecting that the video transferred from the recorders maybe causing the problem.
Those files being rendered to mp4, the original mpeg2 being deleted, do you have any of those mpeg2 files to share with us.

The out of sync audio has to start somewhere.
If the mpeg2 are ok then rendering to mpeg4 should not normally cause audio problems, unless of course you use split audio but that would only affect individual clips.

I do not know what to suggest to fix the audio issues, normally we would go back a step to the original files, matching project properties to original video, then rendering to same. (Disable Smart Render)
Otherwise use a video converter to create files that Video Studio can edit, but you should not have a problem as DVD mpeg2 are bog standard.

[Weeination]

I have started to edit and render the files all over again in MPEG-2.

My project setting is at 16:9. When I am in Share and select MPEG-2 there are two options.

The default appears to be
MPEG-2 (720 x 480, 16:9, 60i, 8Mbps)

and the other similar option is

MPEG-2 (720 x 480, 16:9, 30p, 8Mbps)

So far I have just been using whichever one appears automatically which seems to be the first one.

Is one preferable to the other?

I already started rendering some new MPEG-2 files. I assume they are all made with whichever option appeared automatically. If however a couple were made with the 30p setting could that potentially cause any problem?

I have checked the project properties of the clips I have rendered so far. I don't see anything which distinguishes between 60i or 30p.

[Weeination]

I just remember that when I started redoing the clips to MPEG-2 that I already noticed the difference.

60i is Upper Field first which is the one I was using because it matches the DVDs properties. The 30p option is Frame Based.