.mts audio out of sync with video. Please fix. resume support for dolby files.

[AlanaTreppler]

after updating cc to the latest, my project with .mts video files (Panasonic AVCHD files), the audio is no longer in sync with the video. I have already tried clearing the cache files, .pek files, and .cfa files. completely out of sync. In addition, i tried rendering a short clip and that is out of sync. This is a major problem.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is a quick follow up, take it or leave it.

I have footage from a Panasonic AG-AC160 from 2014 that I was working with and found out that Premiere reads the video 9 frames behind the audio, even though Windows doesn't have an issue. After a lot of troubleshooting with an Adobe tech, I went ahead and downloaded and installed Blackmagic Davinci Resolve, and found that DaVInci has no problem syncing video and audio together.

So, I asked him to report it to Adobe (After he directed me here and showed me this thread), and in response, I got an email from someone saying that my AVCHD folder was corrupted, along with a link to a third party website explaining how AVCHD worked.

While Adobe may have a point, if both Microsoft and Blackmagic Design can both accommodate for this, certainly Adobe can figure this out with its Video editor?

I am dropping the issue. I just had to isolate and move *most* of my video clips (that randomly suffered the issue) by 9 frames so that they synced again.

I am more upset that your CRM system has emailed me 3 times to check in with them. This part is nice, the automation works. However, the messages written inside of them must have been done in haste because NOT ONE has a useable link that will get me quickly to where I can update Adobe about the status of my issue, instead routing me to home pages and my account (that has no links to this page or any support page). This leaves me feeling like Adobe lacks polish, doesn't really care about my feedback, and that this issue will just be lost. I don't *want to take this like a slap to the face, but it tells me this company is suffering and perhaps my trust is better suited to other video editors.

I would encourage anyone else reading this to try out DaVinci Resolve. The interface is easier to use than Premiere, seems (once you get more advanced with it) faster than PPro, and more stable.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

STILL AN ISSUE!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have the issue with my audio in my .mts file not syncing with the video. The first .mts file in my sequence does not seem to have this issue, but beginning with the second video in my sequence, there is a lag in the video. I have Adobe Premiere Pro 2019, and I have been experiencing this issue for at least 3 months, and it seems the issue has been around for a year and a half. The solution offered in the Youtube video linked by [Deleted User] did not work for me. I'm trying the media encoder now to see if that will fix the issue. Simply changing the file extensions to .mov or .mp4 made the videos unusable as they would not import into the sequence.

In addition to all this, my CUDA graphics card does not work as my renderer, so I have been having to work off "Mercury Playback Engine Software Only". I don't think I've had a good experience with Premiere in over a year. 😞

[HarleyTDavis]

Hey guys. Sorry if this is a bit late in the game.
Yes the paired streams have a problem, no adobe didn't break it, and you can get past it easily.

First, We just want the audio to come out right, correct? So all we want is audio. I want you to render out all of your subclips using AME and the WAVEFORM preset. Drop them in and drop it on, set and render the audio out. Now create a bin for subclip containment, create another for subclip sequences. select all subclips, and use the menu to create sequence from clip. In each sequence you will replace the audio with the file you just rendered out. Replace the subclips in your main sequence with your new sequences you just created and built. The audio will line up.

The drift is caused by a problem with frame drop that occurs when your stabilization is on, so the number of frames doesn't actually match the timecode. Manufacturers mistakenly thought that doing this would enhance quality when the video was played back (it either creates a blended smudge or a single still frame), and allow the compression algorithm to function better, saving space on small memory cards. This didn't work. For a while, most software had a problem with this, and after some redesign, most use multiple stream clocks, one for video, one for audio, and both are played simultaneously and kept in sync by a third clock that shows where they should be. If a frame is missing or dropped, it gets blended or still-repeated, leaving the audio at each frame in sync. This also has drawbacks. When the two clocks are so far apart that they don't sync at the second mark, they can drift, so many software manufacturers employ methods of dropping audio samples (smaller than a frame) to make up for the drift, or they speed ramp the audio to correct it. Much of the time it isn't noticeable, but it takes accuracy out of your work, and can be troublesome if music and other tonal qualities are important. For me they are, so I just use the method above as a "Pre-edit", rendering out my entire set of files first to a video file, and audio file separate, then sequence together, then output to a set of clean dailies. Prelude used to be able to do this with the FRAME BLENDING mode, but recently this has been broken. I'll try the other modes later, but it used to work in AME as well.
CORRUPTED AVCHD folder? AVCHD is a corrupted version of MP4 compression! Of course the folder's corrupted! Whatever numbskull told you the folder was corrupted was probably not a video engineer in any way, just giving you a run around so you'd leave them alone. The formatting the camera employs is the problem. Get a new camera, turn off stabilizer, use tripod. When you cannot control those three, use my method. Works every time.

[HarleyTDavis]

Kendra, if you have a cuda card, MERCURY will use it, check the end of the title of the renderer. Mercury playback now seeks out your installed card, checks for renderers, and special renderers are loaded into your apps. If you have cuda, the mercury coding language now uses ubiquitous calls to it, and will pass data to it on your card. It will also utilize the main cpu. It will not forceably only use one or the other. This is due to the latest windows upgrades. Unless you are a super hacker\coder and can write a driver for this, you're stuck with using both. Major effects will out to cuda, but most frames will pass through main-concept to the primary cpu graphics. It does speed some things up, others it drastically slows. It's also better quality.

[rayl47012204]

Bryan Campbell's solution worked for me. Just copy the ENTIRE private folder to your computer, and leave the file structure the same. You also can't rename any of the individual videos. If you import into the project like this, the video and audio will stay in sync.

Other than that, I think it's best to probably just record XAVC when you can.

[Jeff Schaap]

Someone along the way had also suggested transcoding with AME from MTS to MOV. This did not solve the problem for me. The audio is still out of sync.

[Jeff Schaap]

DaVinci Resolve was able not able to correctly interpret the audio on these clips. It was out of sync as well.

[Jeff Schaap]

Harley Davis thanks for writing that up but this solution does not work for me. I took my .MTS file (Sony NEX-VG10), took it into AME, rendered the audio out as a wave and lined it up with the original clip. The audio still still out of sync by the exact same amount. Presumably, this is because AME and Pr are using the same software to process the clip. If I am misunderstanding something about your instructions please let me know.

Ray Li, the assumption here is that you still have the original structure. Sadly, I don't, just the .MTS files.

[m1ndfrq]

Hello guys,
I like many others were looking for a quick solution and I came across this
https://youtu.be/4WnXn5mm1u8
I had some doubts about it, but it turned out it worked perfectly fine.
Before that, I tried encoding it to different formats and frame rates through AME, but unfortunately, nothing worked. My guess is that Adobe just doesn't like the Dolby codecs and that's why AME failed to fix it.
NOTE: In my case the footage was 50 fps originally and after converting it through the windows 10 photo app it was encoded to 30 fps. I'm not sure if it's possible to change it, but so far this is the only solution that worked for me.
Best of luck everybody!

[jimp80808263]

I have tons of video filmed on Panasonic (mts) files. Never had problem with audio/video sync until upgrading past 2017.1.2 (v11.1.2 (Build 22). This is the same time Dolby codec was ditched by Adobe only to rely on the Dolby Codec in Windows 10. Therein lies the problem. Adobe needs to support its long time users by providing the Dolby Codec for Premier. There is no sense in all the work to sync video/audio when Adobe can fix the issue by supporting and installing the Dolby Codec.

[Loft54]

Sorry to do this, The simple solution is to transcode all the footage to pro-res or or H-264.
But don't use adobe media encoder because it throws the audio out of synch too.
We always record separate audio, then snych everything to out slates or time code on the picture and track. There will probably never be a fix for this so you need to get a new camera.

[Mas Reza5DD6]

Hohoho.. FYI, In Premiere Pro 2021 you will still have this issue with .MTS files. So prepare yourself. LOL

[Ahnmin5CD0]

@bill simonett
what software do you use to transcode then?

[Ιωάννης Κωτσής]

@Ray Li, give the solution, "Just copy the ENTIRE private folder to your computer, and leave the file structure the same. You also can't rename any of the individual videos. If you import into the project like this, the video and audio will stay in sync".
THANK YOU RAY

[Mick27974716x4p0]

I wonder what decision was made, I have the same problem

[lflegg]

"Resolve was able not able to"   : /

[Jeff Schaap]

Apologies @lflegg (and everyone else) for the typo. Just to clarify, Resolve was NOT able to do it. I would go back and correct it but I no longer have acess to the profile I wrote that under.

[Robert373667212dp6]

Someone suggested using handbrake to transcode / convert footage to constant frames ... this worked for me . But hoping there is better solution from Panasonic or Adobe 

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

Hello @AlanaTreppler,

Thanks for your message. The issue has to do with the AC3 audio format used in AVCHD recordings. It is obsolete.

Please see user @RjL190365's response here.

Since version 2017.1.4, Adobe no longer included an AC3 decoder or encoder due to Dolby Laboratories' increasingly restrictive licensing rules.

So, on MacOS newer versions of Premiere Pro now no longer support AC3 audio at all without the installation of a third-party audio plugin.

The Dolby suite for MacOS has not been updated much since 2017, and is not guaranteed to work properly on an Apple-silicon Mac.

In other words, AVCHD is now considered obsolete by the video recording industry. Newer consumer camcorders record in regular H.264 (not AVCHD) format, with audio now encoded as AAC instead of AC3.

Dolby indicates that AC3 is supported on macOS; however: https://developer.dolby.com/platforms/apple/macos/os-support/

I'm afraid Windows users might also be having trouble with AC3 audio. From what I recall, the OS is supposed to support AC3 audio.

I advise copying the entire contents of your Private folder to your HD and importing via Media Browser to see if that works for you. This has worked for other users. All card-based media should be imported to Premiere Pro in this fashion.

If that won't work, try exploring other format options for the camcorder or purchasing a newer device.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Robert373667212dp6]

Appreciate the first direct answer . And it seems credible .  Easy for u to say to replace a perfectly good $3500 camera . Not happy with ADOBE and PP. 

[Warren Heaton]

@Robert373667212dp6 

If you use Shutter Encoder (donationware) to transcode the MTS streams of the AVCHD data structure to ProRes (ProRes 422 LT, ProRes 422, or ProRes 422 HQ), the resulting files should play fine in Premiere Pro.  In the current version of Shutter Encoder, we can preview the file and check lip sync before transcoding it.

For organization, I copy the AVCHD folders to a "Camera Originals" folder and transcode to a folder called "Source Footage".  

[Kevin-Monahan]

Sorry, @Robert373667212dp6.
I didn't mean to be flippant. I understand a new camcorder can be super expensive.

Can you shoot a format and avoid AC3 audio? If you provide the camera model, we can help you check. I hope we can help you.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Robert373667212dp6]

Kevin ,

So cool of you to write back offering to help . Camera is Panasonic HMC- 150 … AVHCS … not great, but still sold used often , surprisingly .

I’ll try to check that audio spec , see if it can be changed ,

Thank u !

Rob


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