Sync Single Audio file over multiple clips?

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pbuedi

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  • Real Name: Patrick Buedi

Sync Single Audio file over multiple clips?

PostThu Jun 03, 2021 10:21 am

I am aware that you can sync audio with a single clip in Resolve. But I wonder if you can sync a single audio file over multiple clips.

To explain:
I have footage from a DJI Osmo Action Camera and it saves the recordings in 4 GB chunks on an SD card. If I put the files into Resolve and use the cut page, resolve puts them all together and I can scrub through the footage and put parts of it into the timeline. There is no frame missing between the clips, when put together in the right order they play like a single clip without any cuts.

Now I plan to get an audio recorder because I am not happy with the audio quality in certain areas of the Camera. This one would of course create a single file for the whole length of my recording session.

If I had a single huge video file, I would have one single clip in resolve and I know how I can sync the audio to it. But I will have multiple clips and only one audio file, so I wonder if it is possible to sync this in some way.
Maybe it is possible to tell resolve that let´s say the 10 4 GB Clips are one "virtual clip" (like in the cut page when using the source tape view and sync the audio to this one?
Synchronizing the audio to each single clip would be a pain. Creating a single clip out of the single clips before importing it into resolve would require me to re-encode the material as far as I know, which reduces quality before I even work with the footage.

There are some clever things in Resolve and I hope there is a solution to that.

Kind regards!
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Jim Simon

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Re: Sync Single Audio file over multiple clips?

PostThu Jun 03, 2021 6:09 pm

You'd have to export out an Intermediate file of all the smaller clips using something like Cineform, DNx or ProRes.
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pbuedi

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Re: Sync Single Audio file over multiple clips?

PostFri Jun 04, 2021 6:25 pm

I found a simple and lightning fast solution. Not to synchronize the audio with multiple clips, but to get rid of the multiple clips. I use ffmpeg and it works as fast as my SSD can.

The process:

  1. Create a Text file which contains all the files you want to concatenate. Since the files the Camera creates have all exactly the same settings, we can just concatenate them. The Text file can look like this:
    Code: Select all
    file 'Y:\DJI_0024_001.MP4'
    file 'Y:\DJI_0024_002.MP4'
    file 'Y:\DJI_0024_003.MP4'
    file 'Y:\DJI_0024_004.MP4'
    file 'Y:\DJI_0024_005.MP4'
    file 'Y:\DJI_0024_006.MP4'
  2. Then you run ffmpeg like this:
    Code: Select all
    ffmpeg.exe -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist.txt -c copy DJI_0024.MP4

That´s it. I do this now when copying the files from the SD card. Apart from creating the Text file for the process, the copy process itself takes the same amount of time and I end up with one big file for the take :-)
Then I can just use the standard Audio sync features resolve offers :D

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