Replacing the audio of a .mov??

[Mike_E_McGee]

It's been a long while since I've participated in a VOM. It's not for lack of effort. I'm ready to throw in the towel on my recording rig though. Here's my woes:

 

I started using my still camera in movie mode to create a .mov file. I'd also capture the audio on my Zoom H4. I used Windows Movie Maker to replace the audio from the camera with that from the zoom. Everything worked just fine. Then I wanted more.

 

I bought a cheap Aiptek HD camcorder. The HD .mov fies crash Windows Movie Maker though. So I started messing around with video editing software. None of it ran well on my PC. I was able to get Adobe Premiere to do what I wanted, but the process was PAINFULL!. It'd take me a good hour to render 3 minutes of video only to find out that the audio wasn't in sync...

 

That's okay, at least it worked. It worked until my PC crashed. After the rebuild, I decided to simplify and go back to the old still camera. Since rebuilding, Windows Movie Maker no longer imports .mov files. FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've tried every codec pack I can find and I'm having no luck. Since every camera pretty much outputs a .mov, you'd think it'd be an easy task to find a way to edit that in a Windows Vista (home) environment. You'd be sorely mistaken though.

 

I'm thinking about getting a Zoom Q3 (handy cam with half decent mics built in). While this would alleviate a lot of my software issues, I'd be stuck recording my PA. I really get the best sound with the H4 putting an LDC (large diaphragm condensor) on my voice and SDC on my guitar. I'd really like to continue to do that, but not being able to easily mate that audio to the video is killing me. Without a way to do that, the Q3 sounds like my next best compromise.

 

This kills me as I hate throwing money at a problem. I really hate throwing money at a lesser solution to a problem. And I'm a computer tech by trade. I'm sure there's a fix to my issues and I bet there's a free fix. So far I haven't figured it out though. Killing me.

 

So the big question: Does anyone have a simple solution to replacing audio in a .mov (in a windows environment)???

[brahmz118]

 

So the big question: Does anyone have a simple solution to replacing audio in a .mov (in a windows environment)???

 

 

For $30 you can buy QuickTime Pro from Apple - it will still work in Windows. Then it's just a matter of deleting the existing audio track, then copying and pasting the new one.

[Mike_E_McGee]

 

For $30 you can buy QuickTime Pro from Apple - it will still work in Windows. Then it's just a matter of deleting the existing audio track, then copying and pasting the new one.

 

 

 

If this works, you'll be my new hero. If it works with the hd .mov files, again, new hero.

 

I'll let you know once I've tried it.

[Mike_E_McGee]

I'm stumped with QT. It appears to do everything I want, but I haven't the faintest idea how to get it done.

 

Is there a way to view the audio from the camera file to appear as a graphical wave, while showing the wav of the imported music underneath to allow for graphic synchronicity (left/right drag n drop till it lines up)?

 

In addition to sync issues, I've got import/playback issues as well. I've been bringing the "insertion point" to where I think I want to insert the audio, pasting the audio, and my final product is video of me taking that last breath before starting to play, and then the video cuts to a white screen as I hear the audio I've imported. How do you get the audio to be heard without replacing the video with white?

 

Sorry for the ignorance, any help appreciated!

[brahmz118]

 

I'm stumped with QT. It appears to do everything I want, but I haven't the faintest idea how to get it done. Is there a way to view the audio from the camera file to appear as a graphical wave, while showing the wav of the imported music underneath to allow for graphic synchronicity (left/right drag n drop till it lines up)? In addition to sync issues, I've got import/playback issues as well. I've been bringing the "insertion point" to where I think I want to insert the audio, pasting the audio, and my final product is video of me taking that last breath before starting to play, and then the video cuts to a white screen as I hear the audio I've imported. How do you get the audio to be heard without replacing the video with white? Sorry for the ignorance, any help appreciated!

 

 

Sorry I haphazardly used the term 'paste' before - I wasn't thinking it through. What you want to do is 'add' - you should see the options 'Add to Movie' and 'Add to Selection & Scale' in one of your menus.

 

Add to Movie = blends over existing audio / video, starting at the insertion point.

 

Add to Selection & Scale means that you highlight an area in the destination movie, and then the copied footage will fill exactly in that highlighted area. Audio that is resized will be distorted to some degree.

 

There's no way to see a waveform in QT Pro, but you can always open the audio track in a free program like Audacity and figure out your timing there.

[Mike_E_McGee]

Thanks man! I figured it out just a bit ago. "Add to movie" and then if the sync is off, ctrl+z, reset the insertion point, and try try again.

 

My output has some crackles in it, but I'm going to adjust the H2 to record at 48khz (I've been a 44.1/16 man for 14 years) since that seems to be the output standard. Hopefully keeping source audio in the native format of the output helps. It's a bitch; I can audition the .wav in QT and it sounds pristine, "add to movie" it in, and there's crackles.

 

Still, I'm closer than ever. I appreciate the help, and will post a vid, or ask more questions soon...

[Rohan]

Just spent a couple of hours trying to work out how to do the same thing - replace the audio in a .mov without re-encoding.

 

And then I found a free utility that just does it!!!

 

It's called Yamb - http://www.videohelp.com/tools/YAMB

 

For some reason when I use it it says "Muxing failed", but the output file is there and correctly compiled nonetheless.

 

Hope this is helpful!

[blue2blue]

It's been a long while since I've participated in a VOM. It's not for lack of effort. I'm ready to throw in the towel on my recording rig though. Here's my woes: I started using my still camera in movie mode to create a .mov file. I'd also capture the audio on my Zoom H4. I used Windows Movie Maker to replace the audio from the camera with that from the zoom. Everything worked just fine. Then I wanted more. I bought a cheap Aiptek HD camcorder. The HD .mov fies crash Windows Movie Maker though. So I started messing around with video editing software. None of it ran well on my PC. I was able to get Adobe Premiere to do what I wanted, but the process was PAINFULL!. It'd take me a good hour to render 3 minutes of video only to find out that the audio wasn't in sync... That's okay, at least it worked. It worked until my PC crashed. After the rebuild, I decided to simplify and go back to the old still camera. Since rebuilding, Windows Movie Maker no longer imports .mov files. FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've tried every codec pack I can find and I'm having no luck. Since every camera pretty much outputs a .mov, you'd think it'd be an easy task to find a way to edit that in a Windows Vista (home) environment. You'd be sorely mistaken though. I'm thinking about getting a Zoom Q3 (handy cam with half decent mics built in). While this would alleviate a lot of my software issues, I'd be stuck recording my PA. I really get the best sound with the H4 putting an LDC (large diaphragm condensor) on my voice and SDC on my guitar. I'd really like to continue to do that, but not being able to easily mate that audio to the video is killing me. Without a way to do that, the Q3 sounds like my next best compromise. This kills me as I hate throwing money at a problem. I really hate throwing money at a lesser solution to a problem. And I'm a computer tech by trade. I'm sure there's a fix to my issues and I bet there's a free fix. So far I haven't figured it out though. Killing me. So the big question: Does anyone have a simple solution to replacing audio in a .mov (in a windows environment)???

Did you try Sony Vegas? (There's a free demo.)

 

I had similarly toured a lot of solutions (mostly free and giveaway, the kinds of vid editing software that comes with hardware, NeroVision, Super8 [i think it was], Avid Free, some other stuff -- but I also got suckered into QuickTime Pro -- but which I had to stop using when they issued a dire security alert and told people to uninstall it or upgrade to QTP 7.x. When I went to upgrade -- I saw there was no upgrade path -- I had to pay full price all over again. Unbelievable to me, as I'd never dealt with Apple before. I guess you get used to it. I elected not to.)

 

And, of course, I was hugely dissatisfied with each. Most were unintuitive and when you finally sussed it all out, you'd find it didn't work well or crashed (I have an old Pentium 2.8 gHz; it was no hot rod when I bought it refurbed for under $400 in '2006 and it hasn't got much faster ).

 

But then I tried Sony Vegas and not only did it work, it was really intutive for me (seems very similar to basic DAW use, much more so than anything else I tried). I barely had to do any reading at all, just referring to the docs on a couple questions.

 

Video preview (partial screen) is real-time, no waiting (some frames may be dropped if you're using a complex plug in set up. While rendering is always going to take some time, it's much faster than other softwares (like the molasses-like NeroVision), and it comes with a bunch of codecs.

 

Now, I do have to say that I started with Vegas Platinum 8 (they have a pro package, around $600, and then two consumer tiers around $70 and $100 (sometimes $30 or so cheaper), I recently upgraded to version 10 and when I use that, everything works well except realtime preview working directly with the AVI files my cam produces. I suspect it's just some codec setting. For now I've just been using my old Vegas 8 (I typically save the old copy of complex programs like a DAW or VLE when upgrading if they let you and glad I did this time), and since the new plug ins (there are a good slug of free ones from Sony and others but I don't know how it compares to something like Final Cut Pro -- but then it costs under $100). And, of course, I could probably just do a bulk convert on my video clips before dumping them into Vegas if all else failed. (And, no, I haven't contacted Sony tech support or even looked for the answer online; I've had others stuff on my agenda.)

 

Anyhow, it may not be for you but, for me, it was love at first click. () And I had to overcome some anti-Sony attitude on my part (due to some disappointing consumer entertainment hardware purchases). The demo helped get me past that.

 

 

By the way, Vegas allows you to stretch/shrink video and audio files to fit a given area. (Obviously, that's not going to always be something that is completely artifact free, but I've had pretty good luck stretching and shrinking video.)

 

Dropping alternate sound tracks in is super easy. There are up to 10 video and 10 stereo audio 'lanes' (channels) available in the consumer versions in Vegas 10. (Vegas 8 only had 4 each but I never ran out in my projects.)

 

And, of course, it's got all the typical snap-to, auto-crossfade on drop and other typical DAW-style editing options.

 

 

PS... I gotta start looking at the OP date before I launch into a long answer...