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Solving the audio/video sync problem in Camtasia

For some reason, talking heads don’t run in sync with their audio in Camtasia output. Some videos get a worse case than others. It ranges from “noticeable” to “annoying”.

Solution: write the audio to an mp3, then pull it back in as track 2. Use the pip audio to get your new audio roughly lined up, then kill the pip audio. Now, by trial and error, adjust the sound back on the track so that it is even or slightly behind the video.

Think about it: because light travels faster than sound, we humans are accustomed to seeing someone talk before we hear their voice. The further away they are, the greater the differences. So if the video is slightly ahead of the audio, I’m guessing that most people wouldn’t even pick up on it.

But having the sound arrive first is something we never experience in real life, so use this trick to avoid it in your videos.

Bonus:

Are there advantages to using FLV video over swf – apart from image quality ?

FLV is much more tolerant of high-motion and length, yet it takes a lot longer to encode.


3 Comments

  1. Jesse Fisher

    Thanks! Your suggestion gave me an idea!

    Here’s what worked for me:
    1. Exported the audio as an MP3 as you suggested.
    2. Imported it into the project and added it as track 2.
    3. Locked track 2 and did “Replace with silence” for all of track one.
    4. Then unlocked 2 and locked track 1.
    5. Then recorded one second of blank air.
    6. imported that into the project as well.
    7. Located where I needed to stretch the audio to match the video and used the split function. Since the video was locked, it didn’t split, only track 2.
    8. Inserted as many of the one second of silence as needed.

    Thanks for heading me in the right direction!

  2. Josh

    I use Camtasia 3 and 5, and i also have Cool Edit 2000 for sound editing. I notice that the sound is shrunk to about 98% of the time of the video on play back then the video. so what i do is extract the sound, expanded it the extra 2%, cut off the sielence at the end left from the original recording, and imported it back in as an MP3 to Camtasia.
    Really a crappy workaround for a problem that should of been fixed by version 5

  3. Rodolpho

    Thank you!

    In my case audio was coming after video in about 2 or 3 seconds, which is annoying if the video is a software configuration tutorial and audio narrates each step. This problem occurs quite often when you are recoding a Windows “remote desktop” session. Thankfully this posting helped me think on a solution.

    I have disconnected original audio track and slid it forward 2 or 3 seconds – yes, trial and error – and it worked just fine.

    Thanks

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