Freeware or Shareware that can do this?

[tonyp2]

I have a number of captures that were done with the audio and video streams taken separately (long story). So I now have m2v and mp2 streams that I'd like to be able to synchronize using one tool that will allow me to see both streams accurately (frames, timecodes, audio waveforms) and "slide them around". The goal would be to get the audio stream at least matched at the start of the video stream. I could always use Goldwave afterward if I had to resample to account for gradual loss of sync. Of course it would be great to be able to do all that in one (free or cheap) package, but if I can get one package to at least let me do the initial start sync I'd be happy.

[tonyp2]

Okay, so I'm an idiot. I did more searching and learned that many of the Editing tools seem to have this capability. So can any of the popular ones (VideoReDo, mpeg-vcr, etc) really do what I need?

[AlanHK]

Actually, it's not so easy. MPEG2VCR can't, for instance. I've done it by looking at a waveform in an audio editor, then looking at the corresponding event in a video editor, calculating the time difference and then adding the delay and remuxing. Usually it takes several tries and half an hour to get acceptable results.

SyncView is supposed to be able to do this. Maybe you could give it a try, but I couldn't get it to work at all.

I put a "watch" on your question in the hope someone had a better method....

[tonyp2]

Sigh, I was afraid of this, Alan. I've been doing it the way you've described on a couple of occasions and it's a PITA. Do you know if any of the big dollar tools, like Premier Pro, can even do this?

[Bjs]

Syncview , but a bit tricky , can handle this ... write's the corrected audio out , you then convert to OTHER than mp2 ... ac3 .

Use audacity if minor trim's need to be applied .

Video in one , audio in the other (use a wav) .

With most other tool's , your system would need to be able to perform this "Preview" function at a blistering rate , or the true playback is not correct ... something I have warned user's of vdub , not to do for more than a minute , as the audio will fall behind , even though it is correct .

Doing this with the involvement of using two program's in "parallel" mode is a pain in the ass .

[Pinstripes23]

My preferred app for this is adobe audition. It can import .avi as long as the codec is installed. Audition will decompress the audio part to .wav. But seeing as you have .m2v file, I make a simple .avs file then import the video part that way. No lag when playing the files together, even on a slow PC. When you are done syncing, export only the audio...convert to DVD compliant audio format. Mux, author with untouched video.

[tonyp2]

I read up on Syncview and decided to dl for a try. Any tips on how to get past some of its trickiness?

P23, I didn't realize Audition is the old Cool Edit Pro! It's pretty pricey (I know, I asked for it). If Syncview can't get the job done I may have to give the trial version of Audition a go.

[guns1inger]

This is why I love Vegas. For audio editing it is brilliant.

[tonyp2]

This is why I love Vegas. For audio editing it is brilliant.

guns, can you give me a sense of how well Vegas can do this kind of adjustment? And once done would Vegas just let me save off the audio stream, or would I have to re-encode the video?

[guns1inger]

Vegas allows you to drop any audio onto the timeline, shift it backwards and forwards, time stretch it, cut it up and move segments, then save your audio stream separately as AC3 or many other formats. You can have multiple audio tracks (unlimited) to mix and position each in the sound field. Vegas' heritage is in multi-track audio, which is why it excels in it to this day.

[tonyp2]

I'm trying SyncView right now. It's a little tweaky, I would say, but the Examine feature is handy in looking at a 6 second portion of the combined audio and video in slow motion to really try and match up the audio stream. The thing is I wrote out the new stream and then loaded it and the m2v into TMPGEnc DVD Author, and in there it does not quite match up the way it did in SyncView.

[tonyp2]

Update: With a little trial an error I got SyncView to do not only the initial alignment, but also the rate adjustment to fix the gradual skewing of the audio stream. I'll say again - it's a tweaky tool and takes a bit of sweat, but it does get the job done.

[AlanHK]

Update: With a little trial an error I got SyncView to do not only the initial alignment, but also the rate adjustment to fix the gradual skewing of the audio stream. I'll say again - it's a tweaky tool and takes a bit of sweat, but it does get the job done.

Maybe I'll give it another try.

Also I've been experimenting with using DGIndex so I can use MPEG in Avisynth scripts. Then there are some audio adjustment functions (DelayAudio, eg) that might be useful.