How hard is it to sync audio from an external mic?

[wildside50]

[If you want to skip the background and get right to the question, skip the next 3 paragraphs]

I am waitint to buy the HV30 until I can afford all of the accessories I would consider necessary. For me, that would mean the editing software, a Canon WD-H43 lens, and an external microphone.

I don't have a lot of money to afford a really high quality microphone, much less several microphones for varrying sittuations (Lav, Shotgun, handheld, etc). I first thought the Rode Videomic would be my best bet (I'm not expecting miracles in sound here or anything), but a lot of my recording is going to be for voiceover (more specifically, puppeteering), so a microphone pointing at the puppets while I'm below them might not turn out so good.

The simple solution of course is to get a shotgun mic and then a headset mic for the puppeteering sittuations, but again, I can't really afford that. So I thought that something like the Zoom H2 or H4 might be able to work in a lot of sittuations for me. My only concern is the difficulty of syncing the audio from an external device like that to the footage captured by the camera.

[Question starts here]

So, my question is, for anyone with experience using a device like the H4, is it difficult to sync? What software would you reccomend for it. Keep in mind, at present I own Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0 and Pinnacle Studio 11, and I'd like to stick to those pieces of software if at all possible. Will they get the job done for these purposes? Lastly, is it possible to plug the H4 or H2 directly into the external mic jack on the HV30 to record the audio right onto the DV tape like any other external mic? That sure would make things easier...

[Cybix]

Use a clap board, like Hollywood hehe.. no, really. Or clap your hands loudly on camera.

You basically sync the audio "clap" noise at the start of each scene, with the visual of the clap device on camera.

of course, during post, you chop out that portion of the scene after you've sync'd everything up.

*edit.. also, your last question, yes you can plug the zoom directly into your HV30 too, if you wish

[wildside50]

Use a clap board, like Hollywood hehe.. no, really. Or clap your hands loudly on camera.

You basically sync the audio "clap" noise at the start of each scene, with the visual of the clap device on camera.

of course, during post, you chop out that portion of the scene after you've sync'd everything up.

*edit.. also, your last question, yes you can plug the zoom directly into your HV30 too, if you wish

Hehe, thanks for the info. Call me an idiot -- but I never knew what the hell the point of those clapperboards were for. I always play as the clapperboard game piece when I play Scene It, and in fact I freaking own one, but I never knew why they clap them. Now I know. That's fantastic...

That is a great suggestion, and one I would use, but is it something a very very neophyte editor could accomplish with relative ease? Or is it going to just make things overly complicated?

[Cybix]

a clap board serves a few purposes..

the ability to 'clap' it for sync'ing audio, and of course for marking/cataloging scenes.. eg writing on the clap board name of feature, scene, take, maybe location, etc.

[alanz]

I've used both H2 and H4 for audio and sync'd with the video.

The first time I tried it, I had to use 99.95% stretch/shrink of the H2 audio because it was off by about 1 second over the hour recording. The H4 required a 99.98% stretch/shrink.

Since then I've found it easier in Sony Movie Studio Platinum to hold down the control key then drag the right edge of the external audio track visually stretching/shrinking it to match that which was recorded on-camera. I then mute the on-camera audio track,

[wildside50]

I've used both H2 and H4 for audio and sync'd with the video.

The first time I tried it, I had to use 99.95% stretch/shrink of the H2 audio because it was off by about 1 second over the hour recording. The H4 required a 99.98% stretch/shrink.

Since then I've found it easier in Sony Movie Studio Platinum to hold down the control key then drag the right edge of the external audio track visually stretching/shrinking it to match that which was recorded on-camera. I then mute the on-camera audio track,

With puppeteering, if after an hour the audio ends up being only 1 second off, I'd call that a win. Since I would obviously be edditing the video a lot more than once every hour, I don't think the 1/3600-1/4 a second would even be noticable with a puppet. I think I'll go with the external for all purposes... thanks guys.

Edit: For the record, I wasn't so much worried about the ACCURACY of a sync job with an external microphone and the video, more the literal difficulty of doing a decent job. Is it as easy as dragging the audio file into the workflow of a program like Adobe Premiere Elements or Pinnacle Studio 11. Keep in mind, when I say the word "Workflow", I only have a very rudimentary understanding of what that even means. I own those programs, but I have only used Studio to capture footage of video games, with no editing yet. I'm a complete Newb and I know it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2RkBXvlsIQ

[ballardgw]

Originally Posted by alanz
Since then I've found it easier in Sony Movie Studio Platinum to hold down the control key then drag the right edge of the external audio track visually stretching/shrinking it to match that which was recorded on-camera. I then mute the on-camera audio track.


Thanks for the brilliant tip. I did not know about the stretching/shrinking trick. :D