FIXING AUDIO IN VFR VIDEOS FOR EDITING

Transcoding VFR Video to CFR Video to Sync Audio For Editing

Learn how to take control of your videos and force them to have constant frame rates to help mitigate audio sync issues that can occur in video editors like Adobe Premiere.

Episode #9-07 released on September 30, 2018

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The most annoying thing for anyone is to download a video that you cannot play on your computer, smart phone, or tablet. While, this is rare, and often times there are players like VLC that can play most video files, having another solution might actually help deal with the situation. I'll be talking about Handbrake, a program that can help with plenty of issues, and more specifically how using it has made video editing easier to do as a result.

If you like using programs like OBS Studio or XSplit Broadcaster, you may have noticed an issue when importing your video into a program like Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018. Adobe doesn't play nice with variable frame rates, and that causes audio to no longer synchronize with the video playback.

But, how does that problem affect my scenario, and many others? When recording using a webcam and microphone on a computer, using technology that is designed to capture and stream variable rate gameplay because video games are inherently never going to play at a steady framerate, it is expected to have variable frame rates. After all, my recording and encoding are occurring on the same device I do my demonstrations on. And, since the final result won't play nice with Adobe products, I have to do an extra set which, also, makes editing a lot easier in return.

I record newer videos at 60 FPS and in 1080P, but still output to 720P at 30 frames per second. I offer the file as a download, and it easier to make a single file, and size is a lot smaller. It works for my content, too. What I do to set down the resolution and frame rate is open Handbrake, which is free.

When opening Handbrake, it will ask you to select the file. Under summary you can see a lot of information about the video file. You can select a preset and continue down the menus to configure the video file. Word of warning, Handbrake does automatically crop for some annoying reason, so go under dimensions and go to cropping, select manual and put everything back to zero. Adjust the height and width, if needed, too. Go under video and you can select the framerate, and whether it is constant or peak. For editing, always select constant, you will have better compatibility and fewer issues with audio. The last tab you need to deal with is audio, you can add tracks, or delete them. Although, if you are going to edit the file anyway, just leave the audio as is. Don't forget to create an output file using the save as option, and never overwrite a file, just in case it gets corrupted.

You can then add to queue, or just click encode if you only have one file to do.

The end result is pretty simple, since my videos only have lower thirds added to them, editing them is easier and rendering them in Adobe is a lot faster, too.

Host : Steve Smith | Music : | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Dot Net

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