It can get complicated, but I always tell myself "It's either perfectly in synch, late or early."

Vegas allows you to play with these properties whilst you listen.

I just finished a DVD project with the exact same setup..minidisc audio and separate footage with no audio. It was very trial and error. I got it 99% there right away and the last 1% took a few days. I would use closeups of the singer to match words and look for closeups of the drummer to match hits.

Still it would look fine on the computer and I would burn a disc and notice some problems. I ended up cutting the concert up into songs to deal with a couple frame drift at the end and rendering them to AVI's and then reassembling the concert in a new project. Burn tests to RW to save some disks. Hope this helps

BB

Thanks to all for the replies.

BB, that was my experience as well. The Vegas preview window/external monitor are not exactly WYSIWYG, and that's understandable.

Maybe the solution is to get it as close as possible, then render a critical part to a track and observe the result of those a/v tracks on an external monitor. That should get a pretty good look without going disc.

I also have a problem in that I am personally sensitive to a/v out of synch, but it's often not obvious to me whether voice leads or lags.

I'd be curious to know if your video was without its own audio by your choice. I always include audio on my video shots whether I'm planning to use a stand alone audio track or not - this way, I can use the audio of the various cams to sync the video - sync the sound that is part of the video with your stand alone audio, then either delete or mute the video's audio, and your video and stand alone track should be in perfect sync.

If the stand alone audio drifts, you could just split all tracks as often as necessary to re-sync.

Works for me.

I've never used a minidisc, but regularly use the equivalent of a DAT to capture the audio I want to use - the method described above has always worked for me.

Caruso

Probably I'm just restating the obvious, but one can't use an external monitor for sync issues--there can be huge timing differences. But the little preview window can be trusted.

Thanks again for the replies,
Caruso: The VHS tape was captured with the accompanying audio. The problem was that Vegas capture would not work for me (VCR using A/D passthrough of my camcorder). Vegas would display the first half second or so, than stop.

I usually use Scenalyzer for analog captures because it is very good at keeping sync. As it was not installed at the time I needed it, I used Pinnacle Studio 8 which has a known sync problem and tried to nudge it back into position.

My reference to minidisc is that I will be using one in addition to on-camera mics to help pick up a stage performance, so I know I will be having to sync up a lot of material.

I use MiniDisc exclusively for weddings. No more wireless headaches.

Occasionally, I'll have a MD recording that will drift slightly out of sync, when compared to the camera's audio.

So when you use MD, if the beginning, middle and end all in in sync, Lock it into place and make your new avi file. Otherwis4e, you may have to shorten or lenghten the MD in spots to sync it.

Ralph - your pass-through problem - stopping after half a second - that may be because you haven't disabled Device Control in Capture preferences.

Thanks PeterWright,
Yep, had reloaded V5 and forgot to disable DV device control. Tired again and works fine.
Thanks