Visual QuickStart Guide [Electronic resources] : Final Cut Express HD for Mac OS X

Correcting Out-of-Sync Clips

When you insert a sync clip into a sequence, the audio and video are automatically linked. That means you'll have to go out of your way to knock them out of sync, because linked items are selected and moved together. However, if you have turned linked selection off, it's possible to knock a sync clip out of sync.

Boxes appear on the clips that are out of sync. These indicators display the number of frames that the audio and video portions of the clip are out of sync in relation to each other.

Final Cut Express offers two options for correcting a sync problem:

• You can move a clip into sync, which repositions the selected portion of the clip so that the sync is corrected.

• You can slip a clip into sync, which corrects the sync problem by performing a Slip edit on the selected portion of the clip (keeping the clip in the same position and shifting the contents of the clip).

Occasionally, you'll want to move a clip out of sync intentionallyfor example, when you combine the video from one take with substitute audio from another take.

In that case, you might want to mark the video and the substitute audio as being in sync if you don't want to be warned of a sync problem.

To move a clip into sync:

Figure 11.57 ); then choose Move into Sync from the shortcut menu (Figure 11.58 ).

Figure 11.57. Control-click the out-of-sync indicator on the part of the clip you wish to reposition.

Figure 11.58. Choose Move into Sync from the shortcut menu.