Final Cut Express audio sync

[EagleAye]

Does anyone have any idea why audio and video are about 4seconds out of sync when I import DV-PAL or lossless (YUV422) captured clips into FCE4? The same clips opened in iMovie or Quicktime play fine.

[terryj]

What is your Sequence Preset? Is it set to DV PAL, or is it set to DV NTSC?

[EagleAye]

It doesn't seem to make any difference what preset is set, whatever type of file (I've captured in a range of options) is imported into FCE4 the fps is changed to 29.93 and out of sync.
I have found that by passing through MPEG Streamclip the files will play nicely with FCE but I'm concerned that I'll lose something in terms of quality by performing this additional step in my workflow, to be honest I'm new to video and still a little confused about containers, codecs and formats.
I'm surprised FCE doesn't handle the files in the way that iMovie does.

[terryj]

iMovie, the last time I looked at it ( v. 6), actually does what MpegStreamclip does:
transcode the files to DV Stream for use. iMovie 9 may handle the files through the
Apple InterMediate Codec, you can try setting your Sequence Preset to
Apple Intermediate, and then try importing the footage again and see what happens.

The Footage should be captured to match the preset, there fore if you choose
DV NTSC as the Sequence preset, and capture the footage, and the footage
was shot in DV PAL, then FCP / FCE will try and transcode it on the fly to
DV NTSC, which will cause the audio drift as you describe.

Will you take a quality hit is irrevelent. You'll take the quality hit when
transcoding to your final format ( DVD, for the web, etc), so understanding
that to get your footage, and your sequence presets to match, before
shooting and importing into FCP / FCE is essential. Otherwise,
you'll be at the stage your at now: trying to get a round peg to fit
in a square hole.

How I would rectify your problem with the footage you have that is in DV PAL format
would be to Create a new Sequence in FCP /FCE that is set to
Format: DV PAL 48khz 24 @ 25
in Sequence-->Settings--General Tab
:QuickTime Video Settings section, choose DV-PAL

and that should set the Sequence proper, and set Quicktime Preferences for FCP /FCE to recognize the footage as DV -PAL.
Then import the footage in.

[TotallyBragging]

Hi, this is probably a bit late, but my audio and video suddenly went out of sync as well and I was going nuts trying to find out why suddenly, after editing with Final Cut Express for a year, that everything went out of whack. I called Apple, went to a few stores, consulted a Final Cut instructor and nobody had a clue. Finally, I figured it out. I have Adobe SoundBooth installed on my Mac and I never used SoundBooth before. So one day I opened it up and it somehow hijacked my computer's sound output. So everything on Final Cut was going through SoundBooth and that's what caused the delay. To fix the problem, go to your system requirements, click sound, click output, and then make sure "Internal Speakers" is selected. Immediately after I did this, my audio was back in sync and now I'm back in business. Hope this helps!