My compressed audio messed up my synch

[Kero777]

I do have bumpers, but should that really make any difference given the way they're attached to my AMV?

I don't think that's the problem. It happens to me even without the leaders. It's just that little bit that won't seem to fix... about 1, possibly 2 frame(s).

Since I have a pretty big file, it seems like I have three options:

1) Compress the music and have it off-sync with the video.

2) Keep the PCM audio and compress the video so much on the second pass that the video doesn't look appealing.

3) Keep the PCM audio and high quality video, but be left with a file that's 110MB in size.

*Passes out on desk*

[DriftRoot]

This may not be the best solution but I do it all the time...

Export you audio uncompressed from your editing program so it will have any gaps you placed at either the beginning or end for bumpers and whatnot. Then compress THAT file. Seems to work for me

That's basically what I did with my bumpers. I made the intro/outro bumpers in AE, then plopped them, along with a giant, uncompressed AVI of my AMV, into one Premiere project and exported THAT, then compressed that. This is why I said perhaps the silence was being compressed more, but from what Kero says, that has nothing to do with it.

And my synch isn't even off by a few frames until the end of the AMV; the problem starts to get noticeable 20 seconds in or so, when it's off by a fraction of a frame. By the time you get to two minutes, though, all those fractions definitely added up.

2) Keep the PCM audio and compress the video so much on the second pass that the video doesn't look appealing.

You can always put a disclaimer in the AMV info about this problem to make people aware that you didn't have any choice but to massively compress the video.

[Scintilla]

And my synch isn't even off by a few frames until the end of the AMV; the problem starts to get noticeable 20 seconds in or so, when it's off by a fraction of a frame. By the time you get to two minutes, though, all those fractions definitely added up.

Wow. That sounds as bad as if it was due to not being careful about the difference between 23.976 and 24 frames per second.

What did you use to compress the audio? BeSweet, VirtualDubMod, or something else?

[DriftRoot]

Wow. That sounds as bad as if it was due to not being careful about the difference between 23.976 and 24 frames per second.

What did you use to compress the audio? BeSweet, VirtualDubMod, or something else?

That is not the problem. I don't think it is, anyways...great, now I'm paranoid. I've seen that problem before and as far as I recall, it's more obvious than what was going on with my AMV.

I used BeSweet.

Now I'm really paranoid. Tonight I'll remove the audio track and reattach it deliberately with 23.976 and 24 compression to see what happens. I didn't bother testing this before because I found it hard to believe I made that kind of blunder (I make worse blunders, though, so why in the world I couldn't do something like this is beyond even me). I think it's kind of funny no one's brought up this possibility to Kero or I before.

[DriftRoot]

*scratches her head* Ok, this just gets more and more bizarre...

I definitely had 24 FPS compressed audio, not 23.976 compressed audio, attached to my 24 FPS AMV. So that wasn't the problem.

Bizarreness: scrupulously watching my out-of-synch version and my in-synch version side by side, I am now finding it very difficult to see any synch issues with the former. This is maddening, because I know there were a number of places where the synch was off enough to make me cringe. What's changed? I have no idea.

I'm beginning to think that - for some reason - computers are occasionally having a harder time with the MP3 audio than the WAV audio. I've never seen the original WAV file out of synch, for whatever that's worth. This is fairly relieving (seems apparent I didn't mess up the audio), but also very worrying (something else is messing up the audio).

I'm going to keep an eye on this and see if the synch devolves again. I won't continue to fuss about it publicly, though, unless I figure out what the hell is going on.

Kero - if you're keeping tabs on this, I suggest you also try viewing your AMV on someone else's computer. I have no idea how bad your synch issue is, but if it's not too horrendous, it might be worth a shot.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Unfortunately, the capability of your system and your media player can both alter the appearance of your sync. I had the same issue with the last video I made - it seemed to sync a lot better on a higher-end system than on my old laptop. When you're working with compressed components them's the breaks.