How to Adjust Audio & Video Sync
When a digital video file is downloaded or saved to your computer, you may experience sync issues between the audio and video when trying to view the video. To adjust the audio and video sync in a video file, you must have a program that can edit digital video. Two types of programs that offer the editing tools needed to adjust audio video sync are video-editing applications and syncing applications.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
Video-Editing Application
-
1
Launch a video-editing application that can unlink audio and video on your computer. Apple's native video editor, iMovie, which comes preinstalled on some systems, offers this capability, as well as Adobe Premiere.
-
2
Import the out-of-sync video file into the program by clicking "File" to open the File menu and choosing "Import." When the "Import" window opens, go to the folder on the hard drive where the file is stored and double-click the file.
-
-
3
Click on the first video clip created from the imported video, press the "Shift" key and use the down arrow to move down through the clips and select all of the clips from the video file. Then, once all of the clips are selected, click on any clip and drag it to the time line to move all of the video clips to the time line in their original order.
-
4
Press the "+" symbol next to the track labeled "Video" to show the "Audio" track if it does not already show. Right-click either the "Video" or "Audio" track and choose "Unlink" to separate the video and audio into two separate tracks.
-
5
Move the clips to the right, one at time, to make the audio track play later than it does, which fixes the sync problem of the audio playing ahead of the corresponding video footage. Move the clips to the left, one at a time, to make the audio track play sooner than it does, which fixes the sync problem of audio playing later than the corresponding video footage. To move the first clip to the left, you must first click the left edge of the clip and move it slightly to the right to create some space.
-
6
Check the audio and video sync each time you move the audio by clicking "Play" on the preview screen in the program. Once the audio and video play in sync, click "File" and "Export." Enter a name for the video when prompted, click "Browse" to choose an output folder for the video file and click "Export."
Syncing Application
-
7
Download a syncing application for your computer. AV-Sync and VirtualDub are tool syncing applications for video files (see Resources). Once downloaded, go to the "Downloads" folder on your computer's "C:" drive, double-click the syncing program icon and follow the instructions to install the program to your computer.
-
8
Go to the "Start" menu, select "All Programs" and find the syncing program you downloaded in the list. Click the program to launch it.
-
9
Open the program's "File" menu and choose "Open." Go to the folder that contains the out-of-sync video file and double-click the file to add it to the syncing program's interface.
-
10
Go to the automatic synchronization feature in the syncing program you downloaded. In AV-Sync, this feature is found under the "Synchronize" tab. In VirtualDub, the feature is found by clicking "Video>Sync."
-
11
Choose the auto-sync option by clicking "Automatic" in AV-Sync or "Change video and audio to match" in VirtualDub. Click "OK" to go back to the main screen in the syncing program. On the main screen, click the "File" menu, choose "Save" or "Apply," enter a name for the file when the box appears and press "Enter."
-
1
Tips & Warnings
If you have done some past video editing, you can likely use a video-editing program, but if you have never edited video, the syncing application may be the simpler option.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jack Hollingsworth/Photodisc/Getty Images
