Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

thoughts

Flip Video Hell

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Good news: wallet found!

Bad news: still in video encoding hell.

Since I’m sure someone else on the face of the internet is experiencing this issue, allow me to expand:

My project: Shoot video with my Flipcam while I record audio in my home studio. After mixing the audio, sync it to the video in Adobe Premiere for a studio-quality music video to post to YouTube.

Sounds straight-forward, yes?

The Flip is certainly straight-forward – about the size of a pack of cigarettes and operates with a single button. Its 1280×720 isn’t the crispest, but it does well in all sorts of lighting conditions, and can absorb loud sound at concerts without clipping.

That said, the sound is still through a relatively tinny single mic, so adding stereo multi-track audio from my studio marks a vast improvement.

The problem comes when I import the MP4 into Adobe Premiere. It looks beautiful! However, its timing is every so slightly off – compared to the audio track the video falls increasingly behind. The difference is less than a second, but enough to ruin the visual sync of the audio to the video.

Not only is it visible against the video, but you can hear it via an increasing echo if you turn up the audio from the Flip. And after encoding the problem seems even more pronounced.

I’ve been trouble-shooting this for 72 hours, and I can’t discern the source of the problem. So far, I have:

  • Installed, uninstalled, and reinstalled all of my various video codecs
  • Tried encoding the end project in a number of formats
  • Tried editing with multi-threading on my system turned on and off
  • Tried converting the Flip video to other formats prior to editing

    At the moment I am truly and completely stumped. On one hand, it could be that I’m simply not unpacking the MP4 file correctly into a format that I can edit with.

    However, my growing suspicion is that the Flip is dropping and/or inserting some frames, and it would only take one or two “skips” to throw the video off several milliseconds against my audio recording.

    I lucked out on Monday with “Icy Cold,” which lags just a hair, but since then I’ve been completely frustrated.

    Unless some video superhero comes through with an explanation and a fix it looks like I’ll be hawking my Flip to step up to a more pro-sumer model for my upcoming projects.

    Updated: Comments from my personal video superhero, Colin, of SeptaWatch.

    MPEG is a compressed format, meaning it uses a combination of dropped frames + keyframes to make up for the lack of real data. When you “decompress” the MPEG, those frames are gone forever, so they have to be recreated. This is an imprecise science. Since the Flip is recording compressed video, you’re not recording with any sort of frame-by-frame accuracy.

    The songwriter’s job is never done, eh?

    PS: Could it be the audio that’s off? It’s possible, but not probable – I’ve been using Cubase for over two years, and my DAW is customized for it. It’s certainly not a logical explanation

    • Unsynced

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    I’m supposed to have another video posted for you in an hour or two.

    In fact, I do have a video. It’s awesome – more HD, more brand new digital audio, and a song overdue for re-recording.

    Except, the sync is off.

    Not the whole time, mind you – just starting from about 1:50. I seem to be moving progressively slower than I’m making noise, until at the end of the video I seem to be lip-synching in delayed reaction to a performing Peter positioned somewhere off-screen.

    However, that’s not really the case. At least, not in Adobe Premiere when I’m editing the video. There it is crystal clear and perfectly aligned.

    Digital video editing is new to me, and I approached it like any other technical skill I’ve acquired in my life – I started doing it blindly and learned more with every mistake. Codecs, lots of mistakes there. Frame rates and aspect ratios, more mistakes. Exporting, metric tons of mistakes.

    I’m pretty sure the syncing is not my mistake, as determined by an unreal number of hours of scientific trial and error. Even the almighty Google doesn’t have a lot of light to shed on the situation.

    That leaves me on day two of my new project with no product. Honestly, it would have been less frustrating if this happened on day one.

    Also, my iPod forgot all of my ratings from yesterday, I think my wallet was stolen on the bus, and I had a dream that Karen O. was following me around the house singing the first verse of “Man” over and over…

    …and if that sounds entertaining to you then you clearly are not having the day I am having.

    Monday Evening Remainders

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    I really need to get better at discharging links more expediently. At the moment sifting for true gold is an all-evening prospect.

    Kevin Smokler highlights eight awesome facts about Michelle Lynn Johnson, AKA Me’shell Ndegeocello.

    Do you feel like your eyes are bigger than your stomach? Well, maybe your eyes and stomach are the same, and the food just got bigger.

    Andre Torrez establishes seemingly unattainable resolutions, like not buying books for an entire year. For 2010 he is only listening to newly released music. I will gladly abet him in that quest.

    James Franco, on Soap Opera as performance art:

    I disrupted the audience’s suspension of disbelief, because no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn’t belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas. Everyone watching would see an actor they recognized, a real person in a made-up world.

    Genius. I love anything that alters an audience’s perception of art based on peripheral factors. See also: Brecht, Dresden Dolls, Lady GaGa. (via Kottke)

    Also via K: a couple paints what they want, then sells the painting for the price of what they want, then buys what they want. Ingenious, no?

    Stumped for a gift for a precious or precocious kid on your list? Get them a pad and some crayons, and spend some time with them on Christmas drawing monsters. Then, have their favorite monster made for them.

    Debbie Millman, one of my favorite bloggers and role models, is launching both a book and a television pilot. Both worth seeing.

    Who Sampled lets you figure out where that sampled hook came from (or, if the song you want to sample has been oversampled already). (via Fresh Arrival)

    Seth Godin’s blog is a goldmine of best-practice thinking and tools. Recently, a post chock full of personal to-do list web apps. Loves it.

    Speed Tracer is a Google Chrome extension that can help you figure out what’s slowing your page load. Remember when every page had to be smaller than 20k? Good times (via Lifehacker).

    PS: I have switched over to Chrome full-time for personal browsing. LOVE. And this is coming from a lifelong Mozilla devotee.

    Time for bed; another AC video in the a.m.

    Adventures in Adulthood

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    The past ten days have been an adventure – from the unreality of the Imogen Heap and Lady Gaga concerts to the front seat of our car parked in Chinatown a few hours ago.

    It felt right to end it sitting on a bedroom floor with E, her sister with her delightful boyfriend, and appearances of an adrenaline-filled little brother and an exhausted dad, both visiting from the cast party downstairs.

    I can find a myriad of reasons to be unhappy. I’ll grant that I used to be better at it, but growing up and getting things that you’ve always wanted for yourself takes the edge off. Still, even all married and with a fulfilling job and being a part time rock star I can make myself miserable. Just ask the me of two Monday’s ago.

    I say that by way of contrast: when I’m happy, I know it. I clap my hands. I laugh. I love my hair. I say delirious things that get tweeted if Britt or Amanda are anywhere near me. I break out into Rent in the middle of E’s dad’s foyer, high school girls tittering as they walk past.

    Those kids sealed the deal for me. I turned around to talk to E and between us was one of the leadz from the play – imperial and larger than life last night, but tiny, young, and fragile between us. I finally got to tell her how awesome she was. She grinned, thanked me, and then yelled, “Steeeeeeeve, where do I get water in your house?”

    She was oblivious, moving through space effortlessly just like she did on stage last night. I never knew how to do that as a teenager. If I was happy, it was fleeting, and if I moved through space effortlessly it was because I forgot myself.

    I could not have possibly pictured this life as a teenager, sitting on the floor with a partner and siblings I love, laughing louder than the combined forty teenagers downstairs.

    Next time I’m feeling grumpy, awful, unhappy, hateful … just remind me about these ten days.

    Filmstar @ Fontana’s

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    I am in Fontana’s in the middle of Chinatown in New York waiting for Filmstar to play, and Emily Cavanagh is talking to me from the stage.

    Well, not just me, but it might as well be, because she has that kind of stage presence where she is drawing us in instead of pushing herself out.

    We are in the midst of a Santa bar crawl, she informs me, clad in a short red skirt and candy cane striped, fur-trimmed arm warmers.

    Emily’s three piece is fun and jazzy, and I am marveling at the merry-go-round of NYC music. I might hate it here (not really) (okay, really), but there’s such a wide range of music to hear. I mean, there’s a show with this fun jazzy stuff followed by Elise and the band glam-rocking through a Filmstar set.

    I don’t feel like that happens in Philadelphia. It’s still more segregated – the jazz kids stay on the jazz side of the line, the acoustic kids hang out with their own, and the bands drive the big shows.

    There are more Santas here by the minute. The room is now filled with Santas. Some are bearded and authentic, while others are half-hearted in hats and vests or just striped stockings.

    Emily is kind of killing it, first with “Branch,” then “Down the Line,” and something about “Sunday Morning.” I think I’m going to have to say hello to her.

    But, first I have to go sit in our parked car and give the appearance of knowing how to drive a car, because our parking pass expires three minutes before parking is free. And god help me if anyone calls that bluff, because I don’t think I know the window wiper fluid from the gas pedal.