Synching Super 8 audio with a WorkPrinter

[brightlight]

Okay, I know this has been a topic before, but if anyone can help me, that would be great.

I have extracted audio from Super 8 film by using a line-out jack from my Elmo GS-1200 and RCA-in into a Hi-8 camcorder. I have tried importing the audio into my Canopus ADVC110 box with no luck, as well as importing it into my Panasonic DVC30 camcorder (it only has an SVHS in/out, or a single mini plug for AV in/out).

My question now is that I am unable to synch up the audio to match my WorkPrinter file which I captured seperately. I am playing the film back at 18 fps, and the audio is running at the same speed (as far as I can tell), but it is out of synch for sure.

Anyone have any experience with this issue?? Also, if anyone has any ideas on a better was to exract the audio (instead of recording to Hi-8, and then capturing into FCP), please help me out.

Cheers,
Kevin

[James E]

Have you tried just recording it directly to your computer as a .wav file? Then synching the .wav w/ a bit of speed adjustment? Probably best you can do is 30-60 seconds of synch at a time. Maybe try breaking the audio files down into sperate segments.
Cheers,

[brightlight]

Have you tried just recording it directly to your computer as a .wav file? Then synching the .wav w/ a bit of speed adjustment? Probably best you can do is 30-60 seconds of synch at a time. Maybe try breaking the audio files down into sperate segments.
Cheers,

I haven't figured out a way to capture the audio directly into my computer. As I said, I have a Canopus in/out box, and I've tried hooking up the analog in, but I am not getting any signal. The strange this is that I can hook the RCAs up to my old camcorder. So I must be able to do it through the Canopus, I just haven't figured it out yet.

[MovieStuff]

I haven't figured out a way to capture the audio directly into my computer. As I said, I have a Canopus in/out box, and I've tried hooking up the analog in, but I am not getting any signal. The strange this is that I can hook the RCAs up to my old camcorder. So I must be able to do it through the Canopus, I just haven't figured it out yet.

The Canopus box requires a video signal along with the audio signal. So it will pass a video without audio but, because it interleaves the audio with a video signal, there must be a video signal present because you aren't just recording a wave file. You are creating a video file that happens to have audio. Plug in your camera to the Canopus box and you'll be able to record video and audio together. Unplug the audio and you'll still be able to record video. But unplug the video and you won't be able to record the audio by itself because there will be no video present to interleave the audio with.

Regarding synch: Just because a projector has a button that says "18fps" doesn't mean that is is really running at 18fps exactly nor does it mean that it will play at a constant rate. Think of two exact same model cars. They can both be running down the road with their speedometers reading 60mph but they will eventually diverge over time and one will be ahead of the other for a variety of reasons, mechanical slippage, air flow, etc.

The same is true with projectors. Two identical projectors both running at 18fps will not stay in synch because there is nothing to regulate their frame rate. So the 18fps marking indicates an average speed and not a synchronous speed.

And, finally, when you transfer your film frame by frame and then use CineCap or your NLE to reconstitute the speed to 18fps on NTSC, it is really running -.1% slower, at about 17.9 fps or so (because NTSC doesn't really run at 30fps). Therefore, even if your projector was running at exactly 18fps with a regulated frame rate, it still would not synch and would diverge over some time.

Here is how to synch your footage: Transfer your movie on the WorkPrinter and then render out the speed change. Put that on the NLE. Point your projector at a piece of paper and use your video camera to record both the picture and audio at the same time. It will be very flickery but the picture quality of this reference transfer does not matter as you only want the audio but are going to use the picture as a synch reference.

Put the reference footage and soundtrack on your NLE along with your WorkPrinter transfer. Find a common point of visual reference at the beginning of both video tracks and then go the end and see if they line up. If not, then make changes to the duration/speed of the reference footage until it ends as closely as possible to the WorkPrinter transfer. On short, 50 foot rolls, everything in between will most likely line up after doing this. On longer transfers, it may begin and end together but the audio synch will be rubbery in between. To solve this, go down the timeline until the synch starts to diverge. Then re-synch the audio at a common reference point. You will probably need to do this every 50 feet or so.

FTR: We are working on an automated hardware/software combo that will work with your sound projector to produce a synchronous audio file so that you don't have to manually synch it. We hope to have it available by the end of the first quarter.

Contact me if offline if you need any assistance.

Roger

[super8man]

Do a search for AUDIO MP3 SOUND RECORDER - a shareware program. Then, simply use the mic on your sound card to record the out from your projecotr - you may have to solder a wire to make it work.

http://www.mp3-recorder.biz/

[brightlight]

Thanks for the help guys. I finally figured out a way to import the audio into my Panasonic camcorder, and record it.

Roger - If I'm laying the reference track in the timeline and messing with the playback speed, won't the audio get distorted (ie; playing too fast or too slow?)

[MovieStuff]

Thanks for the help guys. I finally figured out a way to import the audio into my Panasonic camcorder, and record it.

Roger - If I'm laying the reference track in the timeline and messing with the playback speed, won't the audio get distorted (ie; playing too fast or too slow?)

Not really. Remember, few home movie sound cameras had identical shooting speeds for 18fps, so just because you get used to hearing your audio a particular way when played on your particular sound projector at 18fps, it is a sure bet that it would sound totally different on someone else's sound projector at 18fps.

I mean, let's pretend that you were able to transfer the picture and sound at the same time on something like a Rank. The audio and picture would be playing at 17.9fps anyway, right? This is the same thing. In fact, even if you were to transfer the 18fps audio at 24fps to save time, when you slow it down to match the WorkPrinter transfer, it will sound like it was transferred at 17.9fps. If the pitch bothers you, you can always use software to change the pitch without changing the duration.

Roger

[brightlight]

Thanks Roger, that makes sense.

As far as the visual reference, I did a test with just capturing the audio and using a visual reference with my already altered video clip in my timeling (it is very obvious where the audio starts in reference to the moving image). My question is this: the video is running at 60% (18fps) and the audio is running at 100%. If I change the spped of the audio, the lengths of the clips don't match up, and vice versa. The beginning and end seem to be in the right spot, but the middle is out of synch. How is it possible to play around with the playback speeds, but keep the two clips the same length??

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

You need to chop the audio up to lots of short little clips, and fix the synch on them one by one.

[brightlight]

You need to chop the audio up to lots of short little clips, and fix the synch on them one by one.

Thanks. That's what I've been doing with this test clip. I've got it pretty close right now. Ugh, seems like a lot of extra work if you ask me. :?

[MovieStuff]

Thanks Roger, that makes sense.

As far as the visual reference, I did a test with just capturing the audio and using a visual reference with my already altered video clip in my timeling (it is very obvious where the audio starts in reference to the moving image). My question is this: the video is running at 60% (18fps) and the audio is running at 100%. If I change the spped of the audio, the lengths of the clips don't match up, and vice versa. The beginning and end seem to be in the right spot, but the middle is out of synch. How is it possible to play around with the playback speeds, but keep the two clips the same length??

If you limit your sections to about 3 minutes or less, then it should sync up okay if the two end reference points align.

Roger

[super8man]

If you know someone who plays guitar (or is learning), these folks use audio software to slow down the guitar riffs (to learn them) without changing the pitch - very very common software. Check it out...google...etc. Hence, you can set your pitch and change your length accordingly...for little 1-second movements it should be a no brainer for software meant to retain pitch for 25% playback speeds!

Cheers,
Mike

[johnnhud]

You can even slow down or speed your source video to sync it to the audio. Just keep frame blending off to keep your progressive scan. I have had many projects that ended up playing back at 17.5 frames per second as opposed to a true 18 frames. Obviously this will only work if it's used sparingly as your speeding up or slowing down motion, but I have used it many times.

[johnnhud]

Brightlight. This is VERY important. Make sure that your audio has been captured at 48Khz. This whole problem might be because you are trying to sync audio that has been recorded at 44.1Khz by laying it down on a DV timeline that is 48Khz. DV audio records at this higher bitrate and I have also had this cause sever headaches when syncing.

[Scotness]

If you know someone who plays guitar (or is learning), these folks use audio software to slow down the guitar riffs (to learn them) without changing the pitch - very very common software. Check it out...google...etc. Hence, you can set your pitch and change your length accordingly...for little 1-second movements it should be a no brainer for software meant to retain pitch for 25% playback speeds!

Cheers,
Mike

see
http://www.fileheap.com/software/audio_pitch.html