Please help. Audio becomes exponentially out of sync.

Hello,

Just signed up to this forum because couldn't find the answer online. I'm working on a music video. Imported my footage and synced it up with the music. It's fine for the first few seconds, but the longer the video plays, the more video becomes out of sync.

The song is in in .WAV format. My camera shot in 60i (it's like fps but more optimized for full HD) and my project in FCPX is in 60 fps as well.

If any of you guys could give me some suggestions, I would deeply appreciate it!

Cheers,
Artem

Please give complete specs of your media. Open the audio file in the QT player and post a screenshot of the inspector window. Do the same for the video file.

Hi Artem, welcome to the forums.

- Your video was shot in 60i, which actually is 29.97 fps interlaced. If your project settings are set to 60fps, this is wrong and it could be a reason for the audio drift you are having. Testing this is easy: create a new project and set your video properties to "Set based on first video clip". Then drop your 29.97 interlaced video clip onto the timeline, add your WAV file and see if you still get the drift.

- Another issue we often see with people who record music videos is a drift caused by non-synchronized playback. If you have recorded the video while playing back the music on an audio player that has inconsistent playback speed, or using an music track that is different from the WAV file you use for editing, this can cause audio drift during the edit. I hope that's not the case here, because there is little you can do about this.

- Ronny

Hello Tom and Ronny,

Thank you for your fast responses I followed both of your advices. Ronny what you suggested was my fix!! I re-imported my footage and set the event as "Set based on first video clip" and everything is in sync!!! I don't know why no one else has a an answer for this on the internet and it has caused me so much frustration so I am extremely glad I cam here!!

You are my favorite person of the week Ronny!! Thank you a million!!!

Cheers and enjoy your week!
Artem

I guess it's just a "simple NTSC" issue.
NTSC needs 1.001 seconds to play back 1 sec of content. External audio will play 1 sec. within 1 second.

Try to setup a 30p sequence and check the sync again.

- Andreas

P.S.
A bit of math.
Audio runs at 48,000 "frames" per second, video at 30 (interlaced) frames per 1.001 seconds.
At 30 frames of video displayed audio has run 48048 "frames" - so it's ahead of video.