Posted by William Davis on 09/06/05 19:46

In article <eEhTe.299$nt1.40@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com>,
"Henry Padilla" <padillah@hotmail.com> wrote:

> "eb7g" <eb7g@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:huzSe.369600$s54.356645@pd7tw2no...
> > Hi there,
> >
> > There used to be the known problem of audio drifting out of sync on long
> > video files. I've been using Sony's DVgate for the last little while,
> > which will split the video into 10 minute segments, so I don't get any
> > drift. But the other day, I digitized 3 miniDV tapes and saved them all as
> > one file per tape.... at about 20 minutes in, the audio started to drift
> > and by the end of each tape the audio was out of sync almost a full second
> > of time.
> >
> > Is this common? How do people without DVgate digitize their audio and keep
> > the sound in sync? If I digitize in Premiere, as one large file, will the
> > sound be out of sync as well?

The problem often isn't with the equipment, it's with incorrect USER
SETTINGS.

It's reasonably common to see an audio sample rate that's incompatible
with an NLE's sample rate.

If that happens (AND if your software isn't designed to compensate) you
can easily get "audio drift."

The central fact of DV is that it expects an audio sample rate of 48Khz.

If you set your camcorder to something else (32Khz, is a common
camcorder choice (shudder) you'll likely get drift.

Also, if you're working on a 48Khz timeliine and drag a CD clip (the CD
standard is 44.1Khz) into the mix, you can also get audio drift.

(Imagine a band trying to simultaneously march to two different drum
sections, each playing at a different tempo!)

Smart NLE's can correct this on the fly. Inexpensive or free software
might not. If you're getting significant audio drift, the first thing to
do is check all your clips, and if necessary, resample the audio to the
48Khz DV standard.

Good luck.

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