Audio issue with PPro2.0 and HDV capture
 

Hey there,

I am posting yet again in regards to my issues with editing HDV footage in Premiere 2.0

I know where the problem is, I just don't know how to fix it.

I had posted in the past about the audio getting out of synch with the video when I edit HDV footage. At first I thought it was cheap tapes, so I bought some Panasonic AMQ's.

Still happened. If I play the RAW captured footage in another app the audio and video are fully in synch. When I go to edit it in Premiere sometimes they get out of synch.

I think it has something to with the process Premiere uses after you've capture the footage. First it indexes the MPEG file, then it runs another process on it. I think something goes wrong during the index stage. I've tried deleting the indexes and letting Premiete create new index files, same results.

Anyone else seeing this problem and (crossing fingers) know how to fix it?

It's annoying to have to re-synch my audio with the video this often. I'd say it happen about once every 3 tapes these days. Like I said, it's not a drop out because if I play the captured footage on another app the audio it just fine.

Thanks in advance.

Charlie Durand
San Jose, CA

I have exact the same problem, but sorry dont have a answer. But good to see other have the same problem so I/we can appoint its a bug in premiere(?)

What camera do you use, I have a Canon HV20..

edit: Can it be the soundcard, I use my integrate SoundMAX on my Asus P5B Deluxe board.. What board do you have?

I am using a Canon XH-A1. I've used a Canon GL2 with this same computer and never had an issue. I am guessing there is a problem when PPro indexes the captured HDV footage.

I have a Creative Xifi soundcard.

At this point I'm waiting to get my hands on Premiere CS3 to see if it has the same issue.

It happens when there's a dropout somewhere in the file. Premiere's indexing can screw up when it encounters a dropout and the rest of the file then goes out of sync. That's why it only shows up randomly.

The solution is to try to spot dropouts when capturing. It doesn't always happen even if there is a dropout.

So even if Premiere reports ZERO dropouts during the capture, there might still be a dropout there? Plus there's nothing obvious when watching the video.

=AND= the footage plays fine in Windows Media Player for example. Audio and Video are in synch there. No dropouts evident.

When I first got the camera I was experiencing obvious drop outs which turned out to be cheap tapes I was using. I have remedied that problem with higher quality tapes. Those drop outs were very easy to see during playback.

I believe that a traditional capturing "dropped frame" isn't the same as a GOP dropout, and so PPro is blissfully unaware of dropouts. But it will mess up your synch by 15 frames for each one you get.

I find it also important to kill a lot of background processes on the PC (virus scans, indexes, etc.) when capturing tapes.

HTH,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions
http://www.brownland.org/blog/

Ok, that makes sense as to why Premiere isn't reporting lost frames.

=BUT= does this explain why I can watch the captured footage outside of Premiere and everything is synched up just fine?

I've experienced dropouts in the past and they were in the captured footage regardless of where I played them back. Here I am only experiencing the out of synch audio inside of Premiere. Like I said, I think it has something to do with the index process.

Good point, Charlie! Hmmm... I know you said you can get it to re-index by deleting those files, but have you also tried deleting both the preview and media files (*.cfa and *.pek's) in the PPro folders to try to get it to "re-peak file" the footage?

Does this happen on all mpeg files or just a few?

Just a thought...
bb

This isn't quite the same, but might help.

I really don't know the technicalities but I do know that Premiere reads time codes differently than some other applications. On occasion I've had Premiere totally lose it and start rerunning audio from the top in the middle of a clip.

I record to a laptop using HDVSplit and sometimes timecode gets messed up. I run the m2ts through MPEGStreamclip (free) to "fix timecode" and output as ts file. I rename the ts files to .m2t and Premiere is much happier.

I've always had sync problems with audio in Premiere except when I used Scenalyzer for capture. Streamclip hasn't fixed everything for me but has done a lot. Hoping CS3 with On Location is going to help.