Syncing Audio on Wedding Videos

The next logical step for our wedding videos is to focus on obtaining higher quality audio through a lav mic and external recorder setup.

My question for those with more experience is how to find and sync the audio during post processing?

I just can't see how it's possible to push out a SDE while having to sift through hours of audio to find the 10-15 seconds of audio matching the specific video clip I'm wanting to use it with. I know the 5D Mark III has time stamps, but we only use a 5D Mark II and 60D.

I see good quality audio on many SDE's, so I know there must an efficient way to obtain good audio, but I have no idea what the process looks like. Help please!!!

PluralEyes

That is all.

Ainoko wrote in post #14788846
PluralEyes

That is all.

I agree

Thanks for the heads up, answered my question already!

Sweet!!! Thanks. This looks like exactly what I need.

Aside from simply downloading PluralEyes it is important to try to capture the best sound you can from the camera itself.

So with your 5D and 60D plug in a simple videomic into them so that the reference audio will be better quality, leading to PluralEyes being able to sync more efficiently. The program is great but at times if the reference audio isn't great it can potentially have trouble syncing. Doesn't mean without a basic mic plugged into the cams it won't work, but it can definitely help.

I downloaded the trial and got this error:

I am running CS5.5.

So they don't support CS5, CS5.5, or CS6?

I tried it out. I exported my project to Final Cut XML format.

I opened that in PluralEyes and ran it. It produced a *_synced.xml file.

I tried to open that with Premiere Pro, and it says "The project appears to be damaged". Apparently, it's not in a format that Premiere Pro understands.

SFtag wrote in post #14800884
Aside from simply downloading PluralEyes it is important to try to capture the best sound you can from the camera itself.

So with your 5D and 60D plug in a simple videomic into them so that the reference audio will be better quality, leading to PluralEyes being able to sync more efficiently. The program is great but at times if the reference audio isn't great it can potentially have trouble syncing. Doesn't mean without a basic mic plugged into the cams it won't work, but it can definitely help.

So you must have audio already recorded and uploaded in order the the software to sync the secondary audio source?

If this is true thanks for the heads up. Now I'm not sure this software will work for our needs. We will be shooting from the back of the ceremony with very little chance of picking up good audio, which is the main reason for using an external recorder/lav mic combo.

Is there anyway for plural eyes to sync sound with just a video clip?

I guess I don't see the point of this software if you already have to make sure high quality audio is imported into your editing program. If I already have good quality audio, why would I need to sync a second source?

It doesn't have to be "high quality audio" for it to sync. All SFtag was suggesting was that you use a better mic on your camera so that Pluraleyes has a better chance at syncing the two clips. Any added shotgun style mic added to your camera will be a better sound gathering device than the built in camera mic. That's all. Besides, with an added external mic you might also get some great sound without having to use the recorders and lav mics. I'm assuming that you aren't always at the back of the room shooting and won't always get a chance to put mics on everyone. Having an alternate way to gather "run-n-gun" type shots and audio makes for great videos too. But you know the way you like to shoot better. I'm just talking out loud here.

As for the problem of having to sync hours of video to hours of audio, well that's just part of editing now isn't it? It's not like you're the first to run into that problem. That's why Pluraleyes was created, but it's not a full proof method either. Sometime you just have to go through the footage and get it close. Then Pluraleyes can do the rest.

Maybe you need to rethink your workflow as well.

Good luck with your endeavors!