Audio tracks are synced; but the video files are not!!!

[Randune23]

Okay, here's something that often happens to me and I have yet to explain it.  I do have a workaround I will discuss at the end.  I upload footage (both at the same frame rate) from my multi-cam video shoots.  One portion of the footage comes from a Canon 80D DSLR.  The other comes from a Sony HDVC.  I am in the process of creating a video on how I set up for these types of video shoots and more importantly on how using the "synchronize" function in Premiere Pro is a life-saver.

But something happens during the process and I would love to have someone please try to explain this one to me.  I import both clips shot at or around the same time into PP.  After I have created a sequence, I drag both clips into the timeline, select both clips, right-click, and select "synchronize."  PP uses the audio from both tracks to "almost" perfectly sync the two files.  

However, when I hit playback the footage the audio is synced almost perfectly but it is obvious that the video tracks are not synced.  Why is that? 

My simple fix is to right-click on the Sony footage and select unlink.  I place the play head at the beginning of the Sony footage, and enter +15 in the timecode (don't ask me how I found this to be the number I use; maybe trial and error).  Now when I play the video clips back they are synced perfectly both audio and video.

Clearly you can see the video footage is not synced even though you can see the audio is synced.

You can see I've just pushed the Sony HDVC footage forward 00;15 and it is synced. 

Explain this one to me.  How can the audio be synced but the video off by 00;00;15???

Randy

[Richard M Knight]

I notice there are not any out of sync indicators showing:

How have you got this preference set?

[Tomghzel]

How many frames is the offset?

There seems to be a fairly large offset. An offset of 1 frame is understandable, since the video's smallest step will be one frame, but the audio's small step will be something like a 6000th of a frame. You can enable the 'Show Audio Time Units' option in the timeline options, than unlink audio from video and manually adjust the one frame. 

Besides that, if you do this kind of work often I highly recommend the application: Plural Eyes, from Red Giant.

Hope it helps you.

[Randune23]

Over the years, I have found if I unlink the video and audio, scrub the timeline forward 00;00;00;15 the audio from the Sony HDVC matches the video.  Then before I link them back together, I scrub the video clip back 00;00;00;15 and cut off the 00;00;00;15 at the end of the clip, highlight both clips, and link them.

It is just weird that it only does it for footage shot on my Sony HDVC.  I double-checked all three camera settings and they are all on the same frame rate.

Randy

[Randune23]

Oh, yes, I just forgot to relink the files.  Once I do that they show the difference between the two clips.  Good job on noticing that!

Randy