FCE Video Audio Sync Problem

[Charles Alexander]

Hello

I'm trying to use FCE 1.0 on an AlBook 1.25 Ghz with 1GB RAM. The app is on a 5400 RPM system disk. The captured files are on an external firewire drive(160 GB 7200 RPM). It's a multi partitioned firewire disk.

My question is this, the video runs behind the audio. About roughly 20% behind. Makes it unwatchable or do any work. What settings/prefs should I watch out for. Should I use the FW800 port or the FW400 port?

The FW drive volume has about 3 Gb free. I could conceivably move the files to another partition that has about 17GB free. If that would help.

Any advice?

System info:

FCE 1.0.1
OS 10.3.9
1 GB RAM
15" AlBook 1.25 Ghz

[Kevin Randolph]

If you have the FW800 port available on your external drive and the laptop, use it. It'll has a higher bandwidth than the FW400. I run FCE 2.0 and have all of my files on an external FW800 drive and the application on the internal hard drive and don't experience any problems. However, I do keep much more room available on the external drive for FCE to work with. I've had FCE slow down considerably when there isn't that much free space to play with.

You say that you have your drive partitioned off, are your audio and video files kept in two separate partitions? If so, then I would think that would be your problem. If you keep them on two separate physical drives, it will work out fine, but two separate partitions would cause a slowdown.

Just my thoughts, hope it helps...

Kevin

[Victor Kellar]

You should always have at least 25% free space on your drives

Make sure FCE is on the system and all your captured video (your Scratch Disk) is on the FW

I'm not real fond of partitioning Mac disks ... how is it formatted? It should be OS Extended, non journaled

Another culprit for audio lag is a conflict in settings. What format is your audio 48 or 32 K .. then you Sequence settings need to match. If you have both audio formats in one timeline that can lead to probs as well

The FW 800 port is preferable but not necessarily the reason for the lag

Make sure all the media for your project is on one partition; as already mentioned, splitting up your media is a definite no no

[Charles Alexander]

Thanks guys will try these suggestions. As far as I know the audio and video are on the same disk.

Thanks

Charles

[Charles Alexander]

OK. I'm confused. Because I was having so much trouble with the video/audio sync, I imported the project into iMovie HD. Did my rough edits there and then imported the iMovie project file into a New Project in FCE. Everything works great now!

The only thing I don't know is should I use the .mov or .dv file as my working base in the new FCE project.

Anyone have any idea why everything is copasetic now? What are the pros and cons of doing this? Do I lose anything in bouncing the project back and forth between apps.?

Thanks

Charles

[Charles Alexander]

I thing I figured it out - the moment I use any kind of effect like Color Corrector. Everything goes to hell.

Should I do everything else first and then render and then use Color Correction and/or any other effect?

Thanks

Charles

[Kevin Randolph]

That's pretty close to what I do. I assemble everything first, add transitions, tweak the audio, then do color correcting. And I render as I go. Now I know some will say that rendering as you go will create a lot of little render files on your capture/scratch disk (and that could cause a slowdown by itself), but I still need to see and hear what's happening right away to make sure that I've made the right choice.

As to your previous question, Final Cut should've rendered everything and synced everything up when you exported the file to iMovie. That would account for everything being in sync in iMovie. I'm not a fan of switching back and forth between iMovie and FCE, but if it works for you who am I to say anything...

Hope everything works out...
Kevin

[Charles Alexander]

Kevin

Do you know if the resolution of the files are affected? It doesn't seem that way. Should I use the .dv file?

BTW, checked out your web site. What kind of community grassroots work do you do?

Charles

[Kevin Randolph]

If you export as a quicktime file, and not as a quicktime conversion, there shouldn't be any quality loss. FCE and the other Mac applications work off of the quicktime platform. I think the extension is .dv, but I'm not sure. When I look at the files that I've created this way, there isn't an extension listed. They're just listed as Final Cut Video Files. Just make sure that you are not using any compression at all. It'll make for a large file, but you don't want it any smaller.

Thanks for checking out my site. I know that I've got to get some sample videos up, but that's still a little ways down the road (maybe by summer time it'll happen). I mainly put together fundraising and promotional videos for non-profits, church groups, and social service organizations. You know, people who do "good work." I've done a lot of work around Ohio so far with Community Action Agencies, but I'm trying to get involved with other non-profits as well. Mainly organizations that couldn't afford a BetaCam or Digital BetaCam crew. I'm a "one-man-band," so that cuts down a lot on cost and overhead, but it makes the work a bit longer.

What do you do in Tenn.?

[Charles Alexander]

I'm a singer/songwriter and bioinformaticist. Strange combo I know. Love your Shyamalan quote. I'm of South Indian descent. He's brilliant in any heritage...

Did you see "Lady In the Water"?

Thanks for your help in figuring this stuff out.

C

[Kevin Randolph]

No problem, I'm still learning myself. I've found this board to be very useful. I don't regularly check all the forums I should, but I keep tabs on half a dozen or so. Make use of the guys here, there is a real extensive knowledge base here with not only a wide breadth, but considerable depth.

I've seen almost all of Shyamalan's movies. Actually I would have to say that "Lady in the Water" wasn't one of my most favorite of his movies. The script seemed to not have the depth of his other work, and even though they didn't actually break the 4th wall, it felt like they did several times. That made me too aware that I was watching a movie.

Of all of his movies, I'd have to say that "The Village" is my favorite. The concept of the social experiment and the way that it is written so that it could happen, is very appealing to me. I'm always fascinated with the "world within a world" concept.

Good luck with all your endeavors, you sound like a busy guy...