More iMovie and Audio

[Steve Robertson]

Thought I would report on some of the things I've learned while trying 
to push iMovie 3's audio capabilities to the limit. In the last 
message, I was wishing we could apply Audio Hijack Pro's effects to the 
audio BEFORE capture- so I wouldn't have to worry about correcting the 
sync between audio and video.

Well, I decided to try it the hard way- extract the audio from a clip, 
play it through Audio Hijack and correct the problems with the Audio 
Hijack Pro effects, record the improved audio as an AIFF file, then add 
the improved file to iMovie 3's third audio track and attempt to sync 
it with the video.

First discovery: when recording the improved audio, first set iTunes so 
that it's ready to play your original audio, but don't start it. Then 
go to Audio Hijack and click on "Record." Then go back to iTunes and 
click on "Play." Apparently, Audio Hijack is smart enough to wait to 
actually start recording until there's something to record. In other 
words, your improved audio file will usually start exactly where the 
original did.

Second discovery: when you drag the improved file into iMovie 3, it's 
smart enough to allow the audio file to "Snap to" either the starting 
point of the clip it's under, or the ending point of the previous audio 
file- whichever is closer. For sync purposes, you want the improved 
audio file to snap to the starting point of the associated video clip.

Third discovery: if you still need to make minor corrections to the 
sync between audio and video, just click on the improved audio file to 
select it, then use the left and right arrow keys to "nudge" the audio 
file in the smallest possible increments.

All things considered, syncing audio and video in iMovie 3 isn't nearly 
as difficult as I thought it would be!

Steve Robertson