[OPEN SOURCE] AudioAlign: Audio Synchronization And Analysis Tool

[forart.it]

After more than 5 years, an updated version (now with prebuild Windows binary) finally out:

AudioAlign is a research tool to investigate automatic synchronization of audio and video recordings that have either been recorded in parallel at the same event or contain the same aural information. It is designed as a GUI for the Aurio library.

To see what AudioAlign can do, check the demo videos linked below.


Use cases
AudioAlign has been developed for a research project with the goal to automatically synchronize audio and video recordings, recorded at the same time at the same event, e.g. a speech or a music concert. The idea was to synchronize all those videos taken from the crowd and combine them to

• generate multicamera cuts by switching between perspectives (video),
• create videos with full or at least better event coverage,
• replace bad quality audio or video tracks with better ones, or
• detect interesting moments (where many recordings have been captured at the same time).

For more, see the readme.

AudioAlign can be used for a lot more uses cases though, including

• video mashups (video)
• comparison of live performances (video)
• synchronization of different cover interpretations (video)
• voice dubbing (video)
• ground truth creation (website)
• evaluation of fingerprinting algorithms
• ...

What's new
1.5.1
- silent startup crash on missing native dependency [bugfix]

1.5.0
- allow skipping of missing project assets on load [features]
- improve scheduling of many CC operations [features]
- display number of matches [features]
- bump Aurio to 4.0.0 (incl. FFmpeg 6.0) [features]

See CHANGELOG

Support
For questions and issues, please open an issue on the issue tracker. Commercial support, development and consultation is available through Protyposis Multimedia Solutions.

License
Copyright (C) 2010-2023 Mario Guggenberger mg@protyposis.net. This project is released under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License. See LICENSE for details.

Official git: https://github.com/protyposis/AudioAlign/
Download link: https://github.com/protyposis/AudioAlign/releases/
.NET SDK 6 (needed): https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/visual-studio-sdks

[Cornucopia]

I praise the effort you have put in (especially, assuming you have some substantive pattern matching going on here), but as a (mostly) former industry professional, I have to point out one flaw with these kinds of approaches*: natural desync between different distances of cams/mics/recorders, due to the difference in the speed of sound vs the speed of light. So, close up recordings will have less difference in Arrival Time between Picture & Sound (as well as less ambient sound & echo), whereas long distance shots will have a noticeable difference between the 2 (as well as greater ambient sound & echo). I'm not sure if you have taken this into account. If so, BRAVO! If not, it is possible your "synced" output will actually not be truly synced with picture, or with other perspective tracks. Perhaps you can compensate for this based on the aforementioned ambience/echos.

hoping that helps,


Scott

*(one big reason pros will still use genlock, timecode, slate clapper, click tracks, etc).

[forart.it]

First of all, we would like to underline that we're not the software devs, but rather a mere supporters of open source solutions instead of commercial ones - such as PluralEyes or Syncalia - since are more sustainable and secure.

You can easily keep in touch with Mario Guggenberger (the author of the software) by posting your doubts/constuctive criticism in the official git's issue section:
https://github.com/protyposis/AudioAlign/issues

Anyway, even if we perfectly know that the professional solution is of course an hardware-generated "master clock" for all audio/video recorders, there are many other aspects that matters (such as phase/polarity issues) in software synching.
We've discussed in another GH-project issue if you're interested: https://github.com/benfmiller/audalign/issues/39

Feel free to share your (even technical) knowledge to help devs to evolve their softwares: that's the open source philosophy !

[Cornucopia]

Thanks! I will be contacting them.
Keep up the great work!

Scott

[forart.it]

I will be contacting them.
Scott

Mario - the AudioAlign author - replied to your comment (that we forwarded as a GH issue) here: https://github.com/protyposis/AudioAlign/issues/10

[forart.it]

New Aurio and AudioAlign versions are out !

Aurio v4.2.0 changelog:

Features

• bump FFmpeg to 6.1.1
• direct audio proxy file writing
• improve FFmpeg seeking
• read FFmpeg samples without intermediary buffer

Bug Fixes

• exception on FFmpeg proxy file creation
• infinite read loop at end of FFmpeg stream

https://github.com/protyposis/Aurio/releases/tag/v4.2.0

AudioAlign v1.6.0 changelog:

Features

• bump Aurio to 4.2.0

https://github.com/protyposis/AudioAlign/releases/tag/v1.6.0

[forart.it]

More bugfixes, more fun !

AudioAlign v1.7.0

Features

• selective match flipping

Bug Fixes

• alignment graph plots offsets incorrectly

AudioAlign v1.6.1

Bug Fixes

• bump Aurio to 4.2.1
• missing sign on alignment graph offset axis

Aurio v4.2.1

Bug Fixes

• FFmpeg end-of-stream handling breaks stream contract
• FFmpeg sometimes seeks one frame too far
• initial position not zero when first PTS not zero
• wrongly accepted first PTS when file not seekable