Eureka!!! Syncing 101

[mewman]

I thought I would take the time to explain how I finally was able to sync music to a quick time video I made from DV camera footage I imported into imovie. I really want to thank those of you who took the time to respond to my pleas for ideas as to how to solve my problem.First off... You were right, stoney I should have been able to choose "export to movie" from "movies" in the options pull down menu. I tried everything and just couldn't get it to work. Finally, I called apple tech support and got a guy named Jason who was a real saint and took the time to actually create a movie and sync it to audio he recorded in Logic 7.0. Armed with the knowledge that I was in fact doing things the right way, I came to the reality that it just wasn't going to work on my system, for reasons I have yet to discover!! My project was to film a friend playing percussion for a demo he wanted and sync it to a simultaneously recorded version done in Logic 7.0 After reviewing the tutorials for imovie, and acting on the advice of my girlfriend, I decided to try a different strategy. I imported my video footage to imovie, edited it, then chose "create quicktime movie" from the "share" dropdown menu. The compressed video was then imported into the Logic song that I created when I recorded him with better mics than the camera had! We synced the two together by having him clap his hands at the beginning of the recording. I should also say that he was asked to play along with four different style tunes that featured different grooves. I imported the prerecorded tunes into track one and then recorded his playing on track two. It was easy to align the video with the audio by finding the exact moment his hands came together using the SMPTE time code and then just dragging the linked first and second tracks to the exact moment the sound wave appeared when he clapped .Once the audio and video was aligned, I bounced the audio and created an mp3. The mp3 was then imported to itunes. Next, I reopened imovie, created a new project, imported the original .mov file (the movie) and dragged the mp3 onto the first thumbnail. Because my audio bounce used the "1 1 1 1"starting point, the mp3 easily aligned itself correctly as it was the same starting point for the video. Finally, I created a new quicktime movie of the almost finished version, then re imported the clip with the synced audio to edit the beginning hand claps out of the video. Once more "create quicktime movie and, Voila, Demo!!!!!I realize that this is probably the hard way to do this, but hey, it friggen worked!!! The demo is done, it looks good, and my friend gets to live in China working for the Cirque du Soliel if he gets the gig. I hope this helps for anyone else tearing their hair out trying to figure out how to do this!!!!Mewman

[mazz]

Man, that's the long way around!! There's gotta be a better way! Apple makes Quicktime and Logic and the computer you run it on, it should be a lot easier than that!!Glad you got it done, I hope your buddy gets the gig and sends you a plane ticket to China for your troubles!!Mazz

[mewman]

Hi mazzYeah, it is definitely the long way around!!!! I'm going to invest in Quicktime Pro soon . It should allow me to skip several steps. Ultimately, I just need to figure out why the "export to movie" command isn't working in my set up. That would make things MUCH easier!mewman

[mazz]

I use Quicktime Pro after I've exported my movie from Digital Performer. I use it to export to smaller sizes for e-mailing. You shouldn't need it to export a movie from Logic.I bet there's a Logic forum somewhere that might already have this topic discussed. It might be worth a few minutes doing a search.Cheers,Mazz

[mewman]

It is definitely worth a few minutes!!!!!Thanks mazzmewman

[stoney]

Hey MewmanGlad you have managed to get it sorted. Bet it felt good when it finally worked! I wonder if your original problem lies with the DV camera and the format the file is in??? Have you tried other quicktime files?I rarely have to export audio to movie as that is something that is always done in the dub but on very rare occasions I have synced audio to mov for clients. I have always had the movie file from graphics/TV companies so have only ever had quicktime files from someone else. So the usual logic way is quick and simple.Maybe you have a version of Logic that just doesn't like exporting audio????!!Best Regards

[mewman]

Hi stoneyYeah, it felt REALLY good to get this project done, though it was most likely taking the long way home! According to my manual, only quicktime movies in DV format are supported. Because my original footage was done with a DV camera and was converted successfully by imovie to a quicktime movie which, in turn, was imported into Logic without a problem, (all in my imac) I feel that the criteria was met. Still, I'm intrigued by the idea of trying other quicktime files to see if they will allow me to export audio into them.Thanks for taking the time to help me out with this!mewman