Shift audio track vs video track using Windows Movie Maker - possible?

[newbee]

I'm using Windows Movie Maker version 5.1 on a new Dell WinXP Media
Center, 3.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM system.

I've successfully recorded video/audio from my analog VCR into my
computer. The audio outputs of my VCR were Y-cabled not into the TV
tuner card with the video cable, but into the computer's sound card,
an SB Audigy 2ZS Audio (D8CO). The audio track appears in the "Audio"
track when viewing the Timeline, not the Audio/Music track - I believe
that's normal.

However, the audio track is a split-second before the corresponding
video.

Question #1: how to shift that audio track very slightly and synch it
up perfectly to the video? My guess is that WMM can't do it, so if
that's the case, what is the best software to get that will do the
job?

Am not sure whether the video itself has an audio-shift problem. Am
about to do more homework and find out whether it was the source,
whether not going into the TV tuner card's audio IN made a difference,
etc., but wanted to find out about WMM's audio-track-shifting feature
regardless of this current problem.

Question #2: How, using WMM, can audio be cleaned up using a different
program (such as Cool Edit Pro) and then precisely pasted back onto
the video track?

It seems to me that WMM can't separate the audio track from the video
track. Thus the audio track should be recording into a different input
(mic?) so that it appears in the Audio/Music track, not the Audio
track. Is that the best solution?

If there's a better program, will it be able to read the .MSWMM files
created by WMM or will the video have to be recaptured?

Thanks for all suggestions...

 

[Bob [MVP]]

If you want to split the audio and video tracks within MM,
simply drop a copy of your movie on both the video and
the audio/music tracks. Then mute the sound in the video
track. You can then shift audio/music track to try to
sync it up with the video.

If you want to try to extract the audio, just drop the
movie on the audio/music track only. Then when you save
your movie, it will create an audio-only WMA file. You
could then import that into some other program to clean
it up.

NOTE: I've trimmed your crossposting distribution to include
only the microsoft newsgroups.

--
-Bob
_______________________________
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Media Center Edition
http://www.microsoft.com/ehome

 

[Graham Hughes]

When you capture analogue via sound card and graphics/video card the
different items are processed differently, which nearly always ends up with
sync problems. The only way to get rid of this in capture is to invest in a
quality analogue to digital conversion device such as canopus or miglia.
As Bob has said you can export audio only from MM which can be taken into
cool edit pro for editing and then placed back in the timeline.
Only MM can read the MSWMM file as this is the movie maker project file, not
the movie. If you export the movie as an avi then all other editing apps
will be able to work with it, but the sync problem will still be there, as
this was done at the capture stage.

Graham

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
www.myvideoproblems.co.uk
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com

 

[elmo]

Hi, Bob,

Thanks very much for your & Graham's help. How can the audio be
recorded onto the Audio/Music track? I just tried, by changing the
audio cable to the Microphone input on my Audigy sound card, but the
audio once again recorded onto the Audio track (not the Audio/Music
track)?

Also, how should the Audio track be muted? Clip/Audio/Mute, or Audio
Levels, where it shows "Audio from video" on the left and "Audio/Music"
on the right, or some other method?

Thanks again, very much...

 

[elmojr]

Have solved both those probs, but new questions arise. Please check
these two new Subjects:

How to black-out a few seconds of bad video while keeping the audio?

After clicking on "Capture from video device", the cursor changes to an
hour-glass, but never stops


(Am enjoying learning WMM, but certainly need and appreciate others'
help)