Video/audio sync for dummies

[Wengr]

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

it's usually done via a timecode sync between all devices to line-up in post is easy.

What I would do is get the track your going to lip-sync to and pull it into a DAW (like ProTools) and do 1 of 2 things:

Yes, I can do it in Samplitude.

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

If they recorded to a click and you know (and can verify) the tempo add 2 bars of click count off before downbeat of the song and export. That way when you start the camera and begin playback you have the clicks to use to line everything up in the beginning.

If that isn't possible I would add a 3 beep...which is 3 beeps, 1 second apart leading into the start of the audio (the 3rd beep is usually higher pitched and/or louder). So you'd hear: [beep] [1 second gap] [beep] [1 second gap] [BEEP] [1 second gap] [audio starts]

No click was used, but I will be able to get those beeps in position without issue.

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

both of these will help you line up the tracks at the start. Now, because the video & audio are not running from the same clock you will likely get drift and have to nudge things as you get into the video. The longer the video goes the more noticeable the drift becomes.

HTH.

I suspect it will be pieced together from multiple clips, different angles, settings etc. I don't see any clip being more than 15 seconds in duration, so hopefully the drift will not be too bad. Thanks for this.

[Wengr]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

Here's an example of pretty much exactly the same thing you want to do. The audio was already recorded and I basically lip-synched while doing the video pass. It wasn't so much of a deception, since the set-up in the video basically duplicates what I used to do the multi-track recording.

https://youtu.be/iuuhEqeb_X0

The whole process could obviously be done much better, since I did a quick-n-dirty multi-track audio just to capture what I ultimately wanted the song to sound like and then did the video with a cheap point-and-shot camera using its video mode. They were combined in Windows movie maker and rendered for Youtube use.

It's not a great "music video" but it does demonstrate that it CAN be done with a little better equipment and a bit of editing to sync the tracks. If you sync from the starting point of your recording the accuracy of your sync is going to depend on the timebase within your recording devices, but these are generally pretty accurate even in the consumer stuff purchased today.

It's good to see good results using the technique I'm considering. Very helpful. I checked it out to gauge the sync, and watched it twice because I enjoyed the music.

[Wengr]

Originally Posted by MikeBmusic

If only one camera, just shoot multiple times, moving the camera around, shooting some longer shots and some close ups. Then LOTS of editing!

Yes Sir, this is the plan.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by MikeBmusic

I've never used Reaper for video work - is there an extra Codex that needs to be installed? Is it easy to move video slices around? I've used an old version of Roxio Creator forever, but it doesn't allow very precise movement.

Hi Mike,
Whatever was needed to do video was already present in Reaper.

You can certainly move the clips, both audio and video, easily. Reaper seems to be working towards incorporating video editing into the core program but I'm not sure how much effort they are going to put into it. Edits are easy, but there's not much as far as effects unless that's been improved in the latest versions.

I'm pretty much a hack at the video thing at present due to the low res "camera" I'm using. I do prefer the point-and-shoot to the wide angle cameras that seem to be popular at present. I can't stand the fisheye that is evidenced in these videos.

I have a few videos I've done in Reaper that incorporate a title / end credit page as well as still photos, video clips, and audio dialog and Reaper has proved to be very easy to use in that case. Here's an example of that, with video clips starting around 2:10:

https://youtu.be/eOfdGJ9llbY

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Wengr

It's good to see good results using the technique I'm considering. Very helpful. I checked it out to gauge the sync, and watched it twice because I enjoyed the music.

Thanks kindly. As far as sync goes, I'll say that I didn't work much to get it precisely aligned. I figure there's not a lot of sense putting a ton of effort into working with low resolution video, so I slid the audio a bit maybe something like a dozen times til it was reasonably close. I could have probably made it much easier by adding a hand clap or similar to sync, but it's close enough to capture the idea.

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by MikeBmusic

I've never used Reaper for video work - is there an extra Codex that needs to be installed? Is it easy to move video slices around? I've used an old version of Roxio Creator forever, but it doesn't allow very precise movement.

Up until the latest version there were external codecs to install, but version 5 has a lot more video functionality built-in.

I've done several looks at REAPER video at the Homebrewed Music blog, the latest was a tutorial on self-duets.

REAPER is really a strong tool for merging video and audio, you can move the audio with sub-frame accuracy which my $700 NLE cannot manage. And of course it's cool to record the audio in REAPER, mix it, apply effects, trim and tweak, then pull in the video and replace the camera audio.

Fran

[Rudy4]

One more comment for folks that are unfamiliar with the basics of using Reaper for video, it's worth your time to check out the excellent video help on the Cockos website.

Here's one on basic video editing:

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/videos.php#QHcjUEOfAA0

The effects are a bit more complex to use than some of the other editing programs out there, but don't fear. The basic video effects plug-in isn't really that hard to figure out.

[Wengr]

Interesting. Will Reaper 5 work with AVCHD video files?