Visually Syncing Audio with Video

[gonzalu]

Hello,

Not sure if this is the right forium for this but here goes. Have tried to search for a solution to this but all I come up with are the classic sync problems in MKV

I have a Movie with a German soundtrack which I would like to replace with the English soundtrack.

I got the English track from an AVI version of the film. As it happens, the English version of the video has a different start time than the MKV version with the german track.

I would like to mux the Video with the english track but I have no way of doing it visually other than by trial and error by muxing them in MKVMERGEGUI with the delay option. It take a while to mux so after trying it for about 5 timesso far, I am ready to give up.

is there a way for me to visually slide the soundtrack back and forth until it matches the lip sync?

Thanks all for your help!

[poisondeathray]

You can play the mkv in a media player , use the +/- keys to shift the audio, when it sync up, write down the number ms delay. Most media players will allow the shifting eg.. mpc, kmplayer, smplayer etc... Then enter that value in mkvmergegui. This will only work for the constant delay scenario

If your audio version is different e.g. a different cut or different version of the movie it will never work because the lengths are different. You can check with mediainfo to see the reported lengths (they may be different that the actual lengths)

[guns1inger]

If you believe that it is a simply a delay issue, play the file in Media PLayer Classic, and use the + and - keys on the numberpad to shift the delay up and down as you watch. Once you have the audio in sync you can see the delay in the information panel below.

You can even load the German audio mkv, and the external English audio, so you don't have to have a muxed file to begin with.

If you really want to do it visually then you need something like Vegas (which I use quite a bit for syncing audio), but you can have issues with importing some formats.

If it is a constant delay issue, MPC is by far the simplest method.

[gonzalu]

Thanks guys... trying the VLC delay method now... it sure is tough looks like it is off by like 6 or 7 seconds... but it should work out (I hope)

I will report back

Cheers

[gonzalu]

Well, this is simply impossible LOL

So, seems like VLC is not really letting me delay or speed up the audio. I enter the plus or minus and no matter what I put in, it is off...

So I launched Premiere Pro CS4. Loaded the elementary streams (slooooow) and synced it up with the MP3 track. Once this happened, I was able to move the video track forward by 13:19 seconds to sync it up correctly.

Tranlated into ms, I put in the delay into mkvmergeGUI and remux

The resulting file is still not synced. Is as if the timing adjustment is not taking.

Tried the same thing in tsMuxerGUI and get the same results. Tried both .ts and m2ts ... I figured if anything, .m2ts is designed for random access and it would behave better... same difference ;-(

Are there any other tools you can suggest? I am now encoding in Premiere but I can;t seem to get the anamorphic straight

[zoobie]

I'd simply suggest uncompressing your mp3 and using your editor to cut it here and there when it's quiet syncing it up over the whole movie...a hassle not many can be bothered with..except me of course.

[jagabo]

TMPGEnc Plus shows the audio waveform along with the video frames with its "source range" filter. Included in that dialog is an audio skew setting.

[poisondeathray]

You can try KMPlayer or SMPlayer, they shift audio much better

Depending on your mkv, you might be able to do it in avidemux (preview, do the audio shift, and save as mkv without re-encoding all within 1 application)

Again, if your audio is not the same length or mismatched, forget about fixing it by shifting.

[gonzalu]

Thanks guys...

I am currently re-encoding it via Premiere PRO CS4... let's see how that went... likely it will work (taking about 12 hours for 1080p 1.7hr movie)

Now that I have some more choices, I would like to try it out with the tools you suggested. I am curious to be able to do this with other movies since once in a while I get a movie with a different langage track and like to combine with English version.

In this case, thank goodness the audio and the video are at 23.976 fps (whew)

Manny

[gonzalu]

Well, I got close... I mean I am off by like a few ms

Problem is with Premiere PRO CS4, I have no way of just muxing without encoding... it wants to ENCODE everything... geesh. Free tools can mux and the world's most expensive and powerful commercial/prosumer tool can not... LOL what a joke

Now, as for AviDemux... great tool, it opens my files but I am having a lot of trouble with the movinf of the audio. I am gonna have to trim the audio a bit. Problem is that I have no clue how to do it... time to RTFM.

I will keep you guys posted (pun intended)

[guns1inger]

Why do you need to trim the audio in AVIDemux ? You can just move it with the shift function.

[gonzalu]

Well, I was not really GETTING the hang of the UI... but now I did... I am happy to report that I have been successful in shifting the audio track... it was 13400ms ahead of the video so minus that ms and it is perfectly synched. AviDemux is a sweet app... now that I know how to use it LOL.

Turns out any numeric changes in the boxes have to be SET by hitting enter before you can hit the transport controls again after making adjustments...

In any case, I have a good file now.

Thank you all for the terrific advice.

Cheers
Manny