Composing to Video - Out of Sync on Export

[enerate josh]

Hi there,

I'm composing to video and have come across a sync issue. When i'm playing back in Live, everything is perfectly synced. On export to wav, playing back the video in premiere pro the audio is about a half second in front of the video. I've checked by doing an export video straight out of Ableton - same thing happens - out of sync. It's incredibly frustrating...

I've brought the video in as motion-jpeg as reccommended in the manual. My in/out sample rate is 48000. i've tried not warping the video, and i've also tried warping the video set as "Leader". Everything renders the same result.

Any tips? Or anything i've missed in the manual?

Many Thanks,
J

[Da hand]

Hi !

I realize you were just trying things out, but warping video is the wrong path. You should never Warp the video if you want to avoid sync problems when exporting to a video editor after.

Now if things are in perfect sync in Live, but the audio is ahead of the picture in your video editor, it usually means that either:

1. You are not selecting the start of your audio for export at the exact same place as the start of the video on the arrangement timeline. You have to export the audio from the same placement as the start of the video clip in the timeline - even if that means exporting some silence at the start of the audio.

2. Or, you are selecting the audio for export in the arrangement timeline at the exact same place as the video clip start, and the problem instead is inside the video's audio clip (see below).

One thing to check is whether the video clip you have imported your video into actually starts playing at the beginning inside the clip. Even if the video clip is placed at the very beginning "1" (0 seconds) on your arrangement timeline, the start marker inside the video's clip (the video's audio clip) might be slightly off the real start of the video file - this can happen quite often with Live importing long files.

If scenario 2 is your case, then read below.

Normally this is the first thing I do when importing video into Live - I make sure that Warp is off and then I drag the start marker inside the video clip fully to the left (even if it seems like it is.) This is fine to do if you don't have any audio created in your project yet, but DON'T DO THIS IN YOUR SITUATION, as by moving the start marker inside the video clip will move the video on the arrangement timeline and throw your audio out of sync. What you can do is the following:

1. If your video clip is placed at the very beginning of your arrangement timeline, create some silence at the start of the timeline - "insert silence" - long enough in measures to be longer than the half second you need. For example, if your project's tempo is 120 bpm then 1 measure is plenty. Basically we need some space before the start of your video and audio clips in order to extend the video clip to the left.

2. Make sure your video clip's Warp is off.

3. Now in the arrangement timeline, drag the left edge of the video clip as for to the left as it will go. This will now automatically set the start marker inside your video clip fully to the left inside the clip, but it will not move the sync of the video on your timeline.

4. Now select the audio for export in the arrangement timeline at the exact same starting place as the video clip's newly extended starting point.

[enerate josh]

Hi Da hand!

Thank you very much for your clear and detailed response - much appreciated!

Unfortunately I've tried all the steps below, but to no avail.

1. I've double checked i've been exporting the audio by selecting the whole duration of the video clip, from the exact start.

2. I've checked warp is off, and i've confirmed the start marker inside the video clip is starting at absolute 0.

It's really weird, it exports out, and in premiere i have to drag the resulting wav exactly 5 frames to the right to be in sync.

It's like Ableton is playing my video ahead of the audio in arrangement and it syncs fine, and then on export the audio gets pushed...
Do you know if there's any video playback offset in Ableton? I haven't been able to find one, but that would probably fix my problem.

It was a pretty large session, so for testing sake, I just tried loaded this into a new set, vastly reduce the track count to see if that would make a difference, and sadly, exactly the same result... I may have to submit a ticket with ableton..

Thanks again for your reply!

[chris vine]

Have you tried importing the video in another format? just a thought.

I'm doing scene edits for a film in Ableton and the picture editor is sending me AAFs plus MOV video files. I put the MOV in the arrangement page, organise the audio clips and then export a WAV to send to the editor. No sync issues. He's using Final Cut X on mac and I'm using Win 7 (still) on PC. Have done this using the same method when the editor was using Premiere as well.

[[jur]]

You're not using MP3 audio for your video export, just to be sure? (I'm not even sure exporting a video from Live with compressed audio is an option and I can't check right now - but just in case).
Also, what Live version are you running, and what's your OS?

[enerate josh]

Hi all! Thank you for all your ideas on this one! Much appreciated!

To answer your questions:

- I'm not using MP3 Audio, i'm exporting a WAV
- I've tried importing video in all sorts of formats including, h264 mp4 1080p, h264 mp4 1/2 resolution, motion jpeg qt, dvpal. all render same results.
- I've listed my system details below.

What is very interesting is I am now working on a different project in a new live set, and this new set exports completely in sync. So the only thing i can think of is there might be some plugin i have used somewhere in the old set that is throwing something out of whack? or the old set has been corrupted somehow? the old live set was mighty big in track count and in duration. It was a campaign so it had 16x 15 sec videos in there. Still don't want to go back to Pro Tools, so i'm hoping it was just a once off with that set!

Cheers,
J

System details:
Ableton Live Suite 10.1.25
iMac Pro 2017
OSX Mojave 10.14.5
Processor 10 core x 3GHz Intel Xeon W
128 GB Ram
GFX Radeon Pro Vega 64x16GB

[[jur]]

Yep, maybe plugins with crazy latency, compensated while using Live but not during export? I never experienced that and have exported hundreds of videos from Live, but at least it's good to know that it was only happening with one specific set.
I don't remember: did you try exporting only your main stereo out, then import it back into a new set alongside the video (like a m"mastering" set) and export form there?

[Nyyx]

Delay compensation is the cause. If you go to Options and turn it off you will never have any syncing issues when working with video. It took me forever to realize this was what was causing the problem. Of course the only down side is the obvious latency issues that occur when disabling it. Farewell parallel processing. I really wish someone would fix this because it is incredibly annoying.

[grrrz]

As other people say; it's a delay compensation problem; it's really annoying.
If you know exactly the timing you could try using the delay function (little d in the botton right corner); you can offset any track; you could try offseting the video track when rendering to see if it solves the problem.

[enerate josh]

Cheers for the replies everyone. I am now enlightened on delay compensation! Many thanks!!!!

[tsbense]

I also have this issue when exporting video with parallel processing. Turning off delay compensation fixes it but then the music is out of sync. You can get close by setting the track delay on the master to the overall latency listed in audio settings.

[Airhaert]

So there is not yet a solution to remove the delay comp?

What is this sorcery!?

Thank you for the pro tips!

[Razzkazz]

True, in version 12 issue remains. So annoying.