Joining clips - lost footage or audio off track

[imrealdumb]

Hi,

I like to join clips together of my son's sports games and put them up on youtube. I typically join 9-11 clips together lasting 7-9 minutes. I've noticed that I sometimes get one of the two following problems:

1. Sometimes the beginning part of a clip is missing (e.g. 2-4 seconds). Usually the clip in question is either short in duration (e.g. 10 seconds long or less) or the clip preceeding it is short; or

2. Sometimes the resulting joined clip contains all the video, but the audio will get sidetracked at some point (usually at the same point where, if I use a different program, the video is missing the beginning footage.). Usually the audio will be off by a split second. Just enough to be noticeable.


I've tried different joining programs and keep getting similar results (either the audio is off midway in the clip or the clip is missing some of the video). I've used Boilsoft Video Joiner, Ultra Video Joiner, Video Edit Master and others.

Here are my questions:

1. Is missing footage/audio track off by a split second a common problem when joining clips?

2. Could it be my PC?

Is something that just happens and there's nothing that can be done? Thanks for any advice out there.

[minidv2dvd]

it most likely has to do with your source material. what format is it in? if it's an already compressed format like mpg then you will get better results converting all clips to an uncompressed avi first. try huffyuv or lagarith, and the audio in wav format.

[imrealdumb]

Thanks for the reply. I film the video using a Sony Hard Disk Drive camcorder. The source material is indeed in .mpg format. I'll try your suggestion to convert the clips to AVI first. Is this what everyone does? I have an older PC - is that possibly the source of the problem as well?

Thanks.