MOV to WAV SYNC

[Ezad]

Hello

The task ahead is syncing cassette audio files to film.
The work was done in 1971. The camera and the audio were recorded separtely.
The insight I need is visual on this film. The sync work is with Leonard speaking.

https://youtu.be/Kk2apJpobhc

The sync starts immediately. Good start...
As Leonard talks into 'do it my way - I thought' - it is here there is no audio though we possibly have sync.

Leo's lips move - but there is no audio to go with his visible articulation - and then the vocal picks up with 'so *** it's a matter of necessity '

These audio cassettes were stored away for decades - with the associated films - and then recently this non-profit had the materials transfered to .MOV and .Wav

Possibly there is magnetic material that is missing in places along the tape? If I knew what the nature of this anomoly it would be easier working with these assets.

I need to do a good job restoring these films. Best to have a semblance of appropriate synching.
Thanks for any comment.
Gratitude

[Profanity removed by moderator]

[neil wilkes · Accepted solution]

One HUGE issue with old cassette tapes - hell, any cassette tapes - is that no 2 decks ever ran at quite the same speed, because the rate was a pitiful 1 7/8 IPS and of course they were not crystal locked either and I still have what was at the time a very expensive deck for dubbing where deck 2 is slightly but noticeably faster (once digitized) than deck 2.

This is why manufacturers like Nakamichi added adjustment for this, and why all cassettes used in the audio world generally included reference tones.

Other issues included flutter & wow as well as tapes running in what can only be described as varispeed - this could happen if a tape was not wound/rewound before recording or transcribing to WAVE files.

About all you can do is chop the tape up into sentences and manually sync up as best you can.

If you do this properly you will have 'handles' in each section of audio so that you can 'add' tape tone to prevent pure silence making things sound un-natural.

It's a long, thankless task but there really are no other options