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groove wrote: An audio copy of an already existing audio track (the movie audio track) doesn't need to be part of the back-up. Doing 22x52min and not having to include unnesesary audio track is different in my book.

I agree totally, if you're not editing that audio for production use. I usually do most audio editing in my projects, including dialogue, sound design, final mixing, etc. So for quick BTD to a director, producer, or as a reference to an editor, audio piped to DP is helpful. I was imagining it more along the lines of also seeing the waveforms and now I'm feeling a little like the kid who was promised a train for Christmas and suddenly realized it doesn't go coast to coast, just circles the tree.

That's cool. My overactive imagination made it more than it is. Processing and panning, etc, are certainly not to be dismissed either, but again, if you are actually editing a full mix with that audio, I would assume most would import that waveform - if they didn't get the audio as an OMF/AAF that is. I'd still like to see the waveform, but it is what it is.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the posts very much.

MIDI Life Crisis wrote: As far as your sync issue, kinnylandrum, check your frame rates. I'm staying in perfect sync.

I'm positive. It has nothing to do with frame rate. On this movie at least, when playing back audio as compared to an import, the live audio is between 1 and 2 frames early. I tried it in two different places, although not with multiple movies. If you have a chance, compare your live audio and imported audio and see if it sounds like a real tight digital delay. And the same movie in DP 7 works perfectly, no sync issues. I'll try it with another movie tomorrow.

If we could see the piped audio that would be more reliable as a check. Maybe a bounce would show it better? I'll try again later this evening.

THis is good stuff guys. Thanks for exploring for the rest of us.

Well once again I don't really get it. I compared imported audio to piped-in audio (a good term, by the way, MLC) on two long form features, about 90 minutes for each. They were identical and rock solid, sounding like a perfect double. Maybe a few milliseconds different, but not close to even a frame off.

I went back to the 25-minute PBS doc that was off by a frame or two yesterday and reimported the audio. This time, while it was off maybe slightly more, it was not a frame or two. I compared it to the audio I recorded yesterday from the piped-in stream and they all sounded OK. I did it more than once, and at one point I swore it sounded 1-2 frames off like it did yesterday, but then the phone rang and I went back and I can't be sure.

Two things I am sure about when doing this:
When audio is imported from QT movie file, DP automatically pulls the volume on the piped in audio down to zero. Of course you can raise it back up, but when comparing piped-in to imported audio you have remember to do it.

Likewise, DP does NOT remember if you have the movie at full screen. It reverts to the setting of normal, double or half that you set in the mini-menu and you have to push to full screen button on the QT file. Not a big deal, but something else to remember.

I'm really not sure why the one QT file seems to be causing problems. It is significantly smaller in size (only 54 megs verses 913 for a third less of the running time), but they are all H.264 files with AAC soundtracks (probably all made in Final Cut). However, I am sure it was not my imagination yesterday that it was drifting between 1 and 2 frames.

My takeaway from this is that I will always compared my piped-in audio to imported audio to be sure they are in sync, or at least until I trust implicitly that they are. I will continue to probably record audio into DP rather than import audio for every cue before I make QT files for the director. It takes longer to import audio for every cue of a 90 minute film and then cut off/throw away the parts you don't need than to record the 3 minutes you do need. Plus it eats up more disk space, or you have to remember to delete all the audio you don't need.

I wish you could just treat the piped-in audio the way you treat VIs, that it would just mix that in with your cue and print that to the QT movie. But it is much better that it is piped-in, because you can then use limiters, etc. to increase the volume of the audio. It never ceases to amaze me how soft (and usually noisy) the production audio is on almost every movie I get. This helps make the mixes with music sound much better, and means you can present the music at a much hotter level.

Anyway, that's my report. Hope this helps anyone out there. Thanks for you encouragement, labman. And if anyone else have any insights as to why the sync changes with certain QT files, or how to deal with the piped-in audio better. I'm all ears. and what does 13/13 Squash mean in the MW Limiter presets anyway?

Lastly, maybe MLC was onto something. The frame rates for the movies that gave me no problem were 23.98 FPS as listed in Movie Inspector in QT. The smaller doc file was 15 FPS.

What if!

Although a professional program like DP should be able to handle all frame rates and not drift, regardless.

As long as they match the session rate.

The frame rate of the QT movie in the movie window should have nothing to do with whether the piped-in audio runs in sync to the DP session track. That should happen all the time without any input from the user.

Wouldn't that depend on how DP is bringing it in? If it can bounce with the piped in movie track included (I haven't tried that yet so I assume that is possible) and if DP can apply time based plugs to the track (which it apparently can) then it would follow that the frame rate of the session would, indeed, be relevant.

Dave?

You can't in fact bounce with the piped-in audio. I've tried. First you have to either import or record the audio. The former I presume is always in sync. The latter, at least for this one 15 fps QT movie, has not always been for me. And there is no choice for 15 fps that I can find in DP. These days, I'm not sure that the frame rate matters with whether a QT movie stays in sync. I could be wrong, but I think it really only affects whether timecode numbers match up.

This is above my pay grade now.

LOL Maybe someone like Magic Dave can answer this. Meanwhile I at least know how to handle the piped-in audio. I really wish you could bounce with it, like the audio stream from a VI, without first recording or importing. ah well.

kinnylandrum wrote:I will continue to probably record audio into DP rather than import audio for every cue before I make QT files for the director. It takes longer to import audio for every cue of a 90 minute film and then cut off/throw away the parts you don't need than to record the 3 minutes you do need. Plus it eats up more disk space, or you have to remember to delete all the audio you don't need.

There's another way to handle this that saves time and disk space and hassle. Rather than import movie audio per cue, you can import the entire audio into a master chunk that is set to the same timecode start as the movie. The imported audio will be timestamped. When you go to start a new cue, you just duplicate that master chunk, set a new start time for the cue, then select the audio and "move to original timestamp." Boom! The audio is shifted and in sync with picture, without creating new a audio file (just a new soundbite).

I agree it blows you can't bounce piped in movie audio. I just switched to DP8 and was so excited to be able to use this new piped-in feature. I figured it would save me tons of time, but if I can't bounce production audio I'll have to go back to the old way of doing things.