trouble playing synchronized clips smoothly

Hello friends,


I have trouble playing synchronized clips - they falter on the video line, the audio is fine. Once I export the whole project, the video plays correctly but the audio falters. Either way, I cannot edit them if I cannot see the transitions from one clip to the next.

I use fcp 10.0.9 and I have imported the video and audio files with optimized settings, 25 fp. Here is what I have already tried:

I cleaned up all the projects I do not use at the moment and exported them, so fcpx is definately not overstrained. I tried to change the playback options in the settings from better to good and vice versa, I checked my computer working storage (700 GB from 900 free).

I cannot update my fcpx version - as it is a working computer and the higher version needs a new ios version, which would imply more that 1000 Computers in the house to update (individual updates are not possible).

Has anybody ever had the same problem or knows how to fix it?

Thank you for your comments,

Amelia

Are you working off the system drive? Sync clips means playing back to source files simultaneously, and if the video is optimized it's high data rate ProRes. That's a lot of work for the system drive running the application and the OS as well.

Hello Tom,

hm, I guess, how can I check and change that?

Is your library in your Movies folder? Select the library in FCP and use Shift-Cmd-R. What are you using for media storage.

Yes my media is stored in my movies folder.

You need a separate storage drive for your media. Either a separate internal drive or a fast external USB 3 or Thunderbolt.

I will try that, though now that I have tried to play the pure video not synchronized with the audio file, fc still falters when playing it in the timeline.

That's surprising. What are your computer specs?

These:

iMac? Standard hard drive not SSD? Should be enough you might try making a new user and seeing how it performs there. You really do need to always use a dedicated media drive.

The problem does not seem to be with the synchronized clips, but with the audio. I changed the sample rate from 48 kHz to 32/ 44,1 / 88,2 and back to 48 kHz but it still won't play smoothly. It will still drop out audio frames when I export it, though while in the timeline video and audio is now fine apart from one short passage.

It's weird, I don't get the problem.

You should check the original video file and the original audio file that you have synchronized.

What is the source format of the original video file ? (codec, frame rate)
Does the original video file also have an audio track?
What is the source format of the external audio file? (codec, audio sample rate)

You can check the source formats of the original video file and the original audio file in the Inspector > Info tab.

My guess is that you have been synchronizing video clips that contain AIFF 48 KHz audio with external MP3 audio clips that have a 44.1 KHz sample rate. Any sample rate mismatch can cause audio drift or audio drops.

- Ronny