Premiere Audio Sync Bug
Howard Eweno
This is an expensive program, and I expect the product to function properly. No tricks, just work.
My system is a PC and running XP and in spec.
I captured a very long (2.7 hr.) analog video .AVI file via a Sony VCR thru a Sony DCR-TRV730 camcorder to an OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 port using DV specs.
The capture was perfect; no dropped frames. When played on Premiere 6.5, the audio drifts, and is noticeably out of sync at 1 hr, and is about 1-2 seconds out of sync at 2 hr 42 min.
Also, when exported to MPEG, the resulting file is also out of sync.
However, this same .AVI file that was captured in Premiere can be played by 4 other programs with no sync problems, and can be rendered correctly by 2 other programs without sync problems.
I believe Premiere 6.5 has a bug. If I am wrong, please show me the light.
Thanks
Daniel Conklin
Howard Eweno
Go F--k yourself. You don't know what a bug is, so don't define what a bug is to me. You have a solution? You have test that I can preform? If not, stick your comments up your ass.
Susan Thompson
Frans Vermeulen
I am running a similar system to yours and have EXACTLY the same problem as you do. My captured file size is 29 gig(2hours 7 mins)with firewire on Sony TRV30E videocam. In windows mediaplayer it plays fine with no sync problems. But the moment you open it in Premiere 6.5 the sync problem starts and it gets worse towards the end. The only solution I can think of is to either capture in 20 minute blocks or if you don't want to do that razor cut and play with the speed option once you have unlocked the video from the audio.All my other projects are fine (I think only because they all consist of numerous short clips)
Jeff Bellune
Since Daniel has about 40 times the experience you do with Premiere, maybe you should listen to him.
If you search this forum for audio synch problems, you will find that very often it is a system or settings problem that is causing the difficulty. Troubleshooting this will be time consuming and frustrating, no doubt.
Since I am afraid of offering any more help to you lest you piss on my grave, someone else will need to lead you by the hand through the system/settings maze.
Jeff
Edmund Campion
I had the same problem with an import, the original captured on a Sony mini DV camera by highly paid video guys. I imported the video from a Canon GL1. The resulting file was about 1 1/2 hours, and had been captured in LP mode. The audio drifted slowly out over time. I razored the audio every few minutes and lined up the audio with the video. I tried all sorts of things. I have imported long video before with NO problem. I never figured it out. Especially since the audio and video are locked over firewire (at least I have understood them to be). Almost forgot, I am still running 6.01. My 6.5 is on its way but not arrived yet.
Look at what the captured frame rate is. Mine showed it was 29.94 or 29.96. Go figure. I have a dual Athlon 1.4 Ghz with plenty of ram and optimized drives. This tape was weird!
Edmund
James Moses
By the way Jeff, what did Daniel contribute to this topic that makes him an expert?
Adobe should search this forum so that they can address the bugs.
Jeff Bellune
what did Daniel contribute to this topic that makes him an expert?
Have a look around the forum; you'll see that it is what he contributes there that qualifies him as such.
Jeff
Mitch411
Honestly you'll get better help if you can keep your tempers under control.
Rather than contribute to everyones frustration, I'll toss a couple of things out there that might help (hopefully it won't piss you all off more).
Howard, Frans, James, Edmund, and anyone else I might have missed,
Here are the tests:
1. If the clip goes slowly out of sync over time, stop the clip playing in the Timeline and then start playing it again. If the clip goes back into sync, the problem is probably your project settings. This most commonly happens because the Project Settings>Video Settings are set to 30 fps instead of 29.97 fps. Change the settings for your project back to 29.97 fps and your problem will go away.
2. If the clip goes slowly out of sync over time AND if you stop/start playing the clip and it stays out of sync (Edmund, this one's for you), then check the properties of the clip. If the properties window reports 29.96 or something slower than 29.97, then your video was recorded on a Canon camera that is recording at an off sampling rate (yes, it's true, your very expensive Canon camera is defective). Instead of recording audio at a true 32000Hz or 48000Hz, it's recording at around 32042Hz or 48054Hz. Canon is aware of this problem, although I've never heard anyone say they heard Canon admit it. The web is full of info on this. Do a Google search on Canon DV audio sync. You'll get an eyefull. As for fixing it in Premiere, well, you can't really. The best you can do is delay how long before it starts to drift. Add the following enty into the prem60.ini.
[Override]
ForceDVNTSCTimebase=1
Save the prem60.ini, close and restart Premiere. Now re-import your video clips into Premiere (you can use the Replace Clips command to do this). Now the clip properties of the re-imported clips will show 29.97 fps. The clips will now play in sync for longer than 7 minutes, however it starts to drift again at about 13 minutes (told you that you couldn't really fix it). The only real fix for this is to get a replacement camera or to capture 7 minute or less clips.
3.If the clips are always out of sync, Open the Project Setting viewer and compare your captured clips to your project settings. If you are seeing a lot of red entries, pay attention, it means something. In particular look for discrepencies in sampling rate and compressor fields. Make your changes to your project settings as necessary.
Hope this helps.
Remember to smile a little, Christmas is coming and nobody wants coal in their stocking.
Mitch411
Daniel Conklin
Edmund, and whoever, there are four real possibilities that can contribute to audio being out of sync with video in a DV editing situation:
1. The AVI file itself can be instable. This is a well known characteristic of AVI since the beginning, but there have been improvements. Despite the fact that audio and video can be locked within the professional DV/DVCAM/DVCpro standard(s), in an AVI, they still are two separate parts, and can come unglued. DirectX 9 is supposed to fix most of the problems inherent in the way DirectX 8.0-8.1 makes DV AVIs, so we can hope. It was a LOT worse just a couple of years ago.
2. Hard drive errors, DMA related hard drive problems, badly fragmented hardrives, hard drives with slow seek rates, overly full hard drives, badly organized hard drives, etc... can all cause the audio to go out from the video. Why? Because video is a bigger bunch of 1s and 0s to encode and decode than audio. This disparity can cause your poor little, puny processor to get overwhelmed and try to do the easy thing by decoding first one part, then the other, and not the two together, thus causing avideo to go out of sync with its audio; get it??? The solution is to do a bit of tuning of your computer, and throw out all the bad things that can cause editing disfunction. There are abundant articles on the web about how to do this, including Adobe's own tech articles.
3. PCI cards and drivers, and other programs that conflict during critical times in playback and drag down the weakest part of the system, which is usually your audio card. This can be fixed by updating drivers, swapping PCI slots, forcing IRQ changes in the BIOS, or in extreme cases, changing to another brand of sound card.
4. Sample rate irregularities. This has been a problem since the days of film, when audio was recorded on a separate recorder from the film camera. They fixed that with film, but it still plagues us in video today. The video frames run at a constant rate, but the audio rate can fluxuate in relation to the original recording, if something in the system, hardware, or software fluxuates while processing it. You can compensate for this by cutting out spaces, or adding spaces in the audio track when you edit. That's the way we did it in the old days. However, the better choice takes some perseverence, and thought. That is to find out why your system is dragging you down. I have used Premiere on five different sytems, using five different motherboard, sound cards, video cards, hardrive, and memory configurations. There were some difficulties sometimes, but I always solved the problem by working on it, and I never pissed on those who helped me.
Howard Eweno
The clips are always out of sync in Premiere, and the Project Viewer settings are all identical (standrad DV settings).
I have tested a number of clips and they all play out of sync and render out of sync in Premiere. These same clips play perfectly in a number of other video editing programs, rendering programs, and players.
Even if I trim a clip in Premiere so that only the last 5 minutes remain, the last 5 minutes are still out of sync. (I guess that sounds reasonable.)
And thanks for input.
Edmund Campion
Thanks for that info. RGBaker had also pointed to the Canon as the culprit, however, I have imported a full hour from the same camera before and had no issues with sync, or the frame rate showing it was slower than it should be. I don't own either camera (the Sony it was shot on or the GL1). I have an aquaintance with a PD-100A that I almost borrowed to try it for playback, but didn't get to it.
We thought that the audio rate being off was actually what was making the video frame rate appear off. All I know now is that after editing and adding titles and some graphics, I exported back to the Canon and our school just got tapes and DVDs back. I haven't heard any screams yet!
We can only learn and try to verify things the best we can and learn from them (mistakes and successes).
Edmund