Final Cut Pro, 32KHz audio, and YOU

A customer came in with some very severe syncing problems in her Final Cut Pro footage. Though the timeline did not indicate that the clips were shifted, the audio was completely out of sync (10-30 seconds). After checking the playback of the original tape, we discovered that the camera (one of our Canon ZR-500s) was set to record in 12-bit (32KHz) sound. This meant that, when captured in DV NTSC 48 KHz, the audio was sampled at the wrong frequency. The solution was simple: recapture using 32 KHz audio in the capture settings and establishing a 32 KHz timeline. So if a customer's footage seems out of sync, play it back and look for a "12-bit" signal. If you see that, recapture in 32 KHz!

-DAL