Can it be done?

I'm working on a promo video for a singer friend, which will be a
collage of clips from various performances. The video (and
poor-quality audio) were captured from DV tape shot at the events. I
also have good-quality audio clips dubbed straight from the mixer
board.

BAsically I'm adding the good audio clips to the timeline, shifting
until they synchronize with the poor audio on the video clips, and then
muting the bad audio.

The problem is that I have 4 or 5 video and a corresponding 4 or 5
audio clips to combine into one 3-minute feature. If I decide to
fine-tune anything on the video line (such as slightly stretching a
fade), I lose audio synch for that clip as well as all following clips.
I can re-synch, but it's annoying.

I've tried saving each individual clip with it's synched audio, and
then combining the 4 or 5 clips, but that turns out to be far too
restrictive of any tweaking I might want to do. Basically I want each
sub-clip to start with a title and fade to video, with the synched
audio fading in before the video transition (somewhere in the middle of
the title). And I want to be able to make length and transition
adjustments to the title without de-synching the sound from the main
video.

BTW, thanks to all who emailed me and recommended reading the "Zero to
Hero" book, I bought it and it's helpful. But it's just reinforcing
what I'm beginning to suspect, ie MM2 is a great tool for a beginner to
get his feet wet, but perhaps it falls short in flexibility once you
want to get a little more creative.

thanks,

Martin

Yes... I agree with you on all counts.

It's best to leave the fine-tuning of the audio positioning until the end...
what you can do is note any changes in the timeline when you shift the
video, and grab the batch of audio clips and move/nudge them by that amount
to re-sync them.

Having written most of the Zero to Hero, thanks for the positive comment.
Yes... Movie Maker is an app for beginners and is short of many features
needed as you move up. But one can continue using it with the other
software.... it's not one or the other.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 website - http://www.papajohn.org
MM2 Tips and Tricks: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/simplyBB/viewtopic.php?t=4693
Online Newsletters: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/Index.aspx


"funkychateau" <funkychateau@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1130958468.756429.309970@f14g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...
> Can it be done?
>
> I'm working on a promo video for a singer friend, which will be a
> collage of clips from various performances. The video (and
> poor-quality audio) were captured from DV tape shot at the events. I
> also have good-quality audio clips dubbed straight from the mixer
> board.
>
> BAsically I'm adding the good audio clips to the timeline, shifting
> until they synchronize with the poor audio on the video clips, and then
> muting the bad audio.
>
> The problem is that I have 4 or 5 video and a corresponding 4 or 5
> audio clips to combine into one 3-minute feature. If I decide to
> fine-tune anything on the video line (such as slightly stretching a
> fade), I lose audio synch for that clip as well as all following clips.
> I can re-synch, but it's annoying.
>
> I've tried saving each individual clip with it's synched audio, and
> then combining the 4 or 5 clips, but that turns out to be far too
> restrictive of any tweaking I might want to do. Basically I want each
> sub-clip to start with a title and fade to video, with the synched
> audio fading in before the video transition (somewhere in the middle of
> the title). And I want to be able to make length and transition
> adjustments to the title without de-synching the sound from the main
> video.
>
> BTW, thanks to all who emailed me and recommended reading the "Zero to
> Hero" book, I bought it and it's helpful. But it's just reinforcing
> what I'm beginning to suspect, ie MM2 is a great tool for a beginner to
> get his feet wet, but perhaps it falls short in flexibility once you
> want to get a little more creative.
>
> thanks,
>
> Martin
>

PapaJohn,

Congratulations on a very informative "users manual".

Martin

BTW, do you have any solution for this? I couldn't glean any help from
the book, though I haven't read every word:

http://groups.google.com/group/micro... a38e3578bdb6

I don't see it in the book either...

My approach would be to, at the beginning of an editing session, note the
exact ending of the movie and the exact ending point of the last audio/music
clip.

Do the editing of the video track without adjusting any of the audio
clips.... at the end of the session check the new ending point of the video
track... let's assume it's moved such that it's 32.87 seconds longer than it
was at the beginning of the session.

Grab the batch of audio clips that need re-alignment (select the first one,
hold down the shift key and select the last)... then you can move them as a
batch, to the right by 32.87 seconds. They can be either moved as a batch
with the mouse or nudged as a batch.

It may be a bit more complex than that, but it's the approach.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 website - http://www.papajohn.org
MM2 Tips and Tricks: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/simplyBB/viewtopic.php?t=4693
Online Newsletters: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/Index.aspx


"funkychateau" <funkychateau@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1130964000.808711.115770@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
> BTW, do you have any solution for this? I couldn't glean any help from
> the book, though I haven't read every word:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/micro... a38e3578bdb6
>

Yes, that's what I'm doing for the synch issue. But the question I
referred to in my previous post was the one regarding the aspect-ratio
problems after rotation (see link).

thanks,

Martin

Sorry, missed that one... my approach is to rotate and crop the clip to the
appropriate pixel dimensions using VirtualDub, saving it as a DV-AVI file
with the Panasonic DV codec, and bringing it back into Movie Maker as a new
clip.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 website - http://www.papajohn.org
MM2 Tips and Tricks: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/simplyBB/viewtopic.php?t=4693
Online Newsletters: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/Index.aspx


"funkychateau" <funkychateau@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1130975377.798914.306290@o13g2000cwo.googlegr oups.com...
> Yes, that's what I'm doing for the synch issue. But the question I
> referred to in my previous post was the one regarding the aspect-ratio
> problems after rotation (see link).
>
> thanks,
>
> Martin
>