Hi,
I regularly create videos in iMovie on my Macbook Air, but over recent months I've noticed that the video and audio are completely out of sync once the video is exported.
Videos are imported to iMovie from Photobooth using the Macbook's inner camera with no additional audio or video added, although I will occasionally add a single image at the start of the video and/or a fade-to-black transition at the end.
Could anyone help me resolve this please?
MacBook Air 13″
Hi, Cerynr,
Try deleting preferencs and see if that cures it. To delete preferences open iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and select to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if you can export and preserve the sync. Possibly you may need to reboot to set the changes. Deleting preferences is a safe procedure that will not cause data loss or disruption to your project.
If no luck, a workaround would be to import the exported into a newly created iMovie project. Select it in the timeline. Do a Modify/Detach Audio. That will separate the audio clip from the video. Expand your timeline out with the slider located above and to the right of the timeline. Then try to bring the audio clip into sync by moving it slightly with the cursor.
Another way, after detaching the audio, would be slightly to adjust the speed of either the audio clip or the video clip to bring it into sync. Control click on the clip and, in the pop up menu that appears, click on Show Speed editor. That will cause a speed adjustment handle to appear in the upper right corner of the clip. Move the handle slightly to the left to speed up the clip, and slightly to the right to slow down the clip. Fiddle with it until the audio and video are in sync. Again, for more precision it helps to have expanded out the timeline.
-- Rich
Hi Rich,
Thank you for your response. Unfortunately deleting the preferences didn't work. I have actually tried your other suggestions previously, but with no luck - as the audio seems to gradually move out of sync, it's almost impossible (at least for my amateur skills) to bring the two back in sync for the entire video.
Do you know if this is a generic issue with iMovie and/or Photobooth and, if so, whether there is an alternative piece of software I could be using instead please?
Thanks,
Ceryn
You might try converting the exported movie as re-rendering it sometimes cures audio sync problems.
You can place the movie on your desktop, control-click on it, and select Encode Selected Video Files from the drop down menu. That will create a separately encoded movie. The original movie will still remain on your desktop. Then play the re-encoded movie and see if the audio-sync issue is resolved.
Another way is to convert your troublesome clips to H.264, Mp4/AAC with the free download, Handbrake. Do that even if the codec already is indicated to be Mp4/AAC. Re-rendering often cures the issue.
You can get Handbrake here:
A simple way to do it is to open Handbrake and do a File/Open Source. Navigate to your video and choose it as the source from the resulting screen. Then do File/Start Encoding. Wait a couple of minutes for the conversion to
complete. Handbrake will convert to Mp4/AAC by default. Then save and import the converted clip into iMovie.
-- Rich
iMovie sound sync
