Video and its audio placement

[dwarman]

Hi,

First: really, really nice. Amazing, in fact. I bought it on first release and never regretted it.

However, we are still circling a strange new beastie in discovering how this touch interface needs to work.

I can work around the problem I'm about to describe, but it is very awkward and imprecise.

What I really need is for the video and its imported audio to retain their relative timing. So when I slide the audio region left or right, the video should slide with it. As should the audio placement when I change the pre-roll in the settings. Video/Audio skew adjustment needs to be a separate config parameter, not done by sliding the region.

I ask this because what I am trying to do here is import a video I took with my p&s camera, with its ambient audio, and align it to the take I recorded with Auria, which was acting as my mixer, then replace the movie's audio with the clean Auria audio. I appreciate there is probably no substitute for ears for the latter alignment (I pan the video hard left and the take hard right and listen), but not being able to tweak the video placement just by sliding its audio region makes the task quite difficult. Especially since in this case the video is focussed in on the performers fingers on the keyboard.

I'm thinking just tracking the settings for the video pre-roll with the imported region start time should do the trick, and a knob somewhere to adjust the video/audio relative timing while playing it back.

Thanks again all!

[Rim]

While this would really be a great feature at some point down the line, Auria is not really a video editor, and can't manipulate the video itself (there's no way to cut or slide the video around). I recommend looking into something like Avid Studio or iMovie to do the actual editing in conjunction with Auria for editing the audio.

RIm

[dwarman]

I think you miss my point. Not trying to edit the video. Just keep its audio tracking with it while I work on getting the mix to match the video. Then export my version of the audio back out with the video, replacing the original audio track.

It's a very simple thing I am asking::

on_region_start_time_change(region, start_time)
{
// existing code
region.start_offset = start_time;

// new code
// currently several manual steps
// and is essentially trial and error every time
if (region.is_video_audio && track_video_with_audio) // new code
{
video.start_offset = start_time;
}
}

Auria can adjust the start offset of the video, Auria can adjust the start offset of the audio by a slide gesture. It has all the features I need. Except maintaining audio-video sync. And mucking with the time like that should not break anything or you would not be able to scrub the video with the playback cursor.

While I'm here, why is the frame rate not set in the settings dialog? You must know it or you could not play the movie back at the right speed.

Also I can work a bit more on the mix to match the video, which I can not do in iMovie. And which I need to do.

[Rim]

OK, sorry for the misunderstanding. I don't currently keep track of which track or region is the original audio track which came from the video, and I'm not sure it would make sense to, since it's a normal audio track, and the user could add other regions to it. So having the video get offset by moving something on this track could be confusing if you weren't ready for it. There's a video offset setting in the settings page. Isn't this what you're looking for? If you set this for 1 second, for example, the video will play one second later than the Auria audio. I would think it's just a matter of sliding your original video's audio track back and forth until you don't hear any more phasing with the Auria audio, determining how many samples that is, and entering that value into the video offset on the settings page, right?

Rim

[dwarman]

Sorry for the long delay.

Yes, that is what I do now. But it is tedious and significantly interrupts the workflow since I cannot adjust the offset while watching and listening. A second checkbox beside the "Import Audio Track" checkbox marked "Lock Video Offset to Audio Offset" would mean I can observe the effects of moving the locked pair around as I move the audio, without having to go through the menu to the settings dialog. If this lock is set, that could also disable any edits other than position to the imported audio track. Or the first such edit could unlock them after a confirmation dialog is accepted.

The bigggest problem is, matching ones' visual experience of the video with the auditory experience of its audio to get them back in phase is something I (at least) find very tricky to do.

But it is a "make it easier" kind of thing, not a "make it possible". It is possible - and kudos for that!

[Rim]

That's a good idea. I'll add it to my list for a future version. Not sure yet how difficult it'll be, but I'll look into it.

Thanks,
Rim