Editing sequences and clips

Synchronizing audio and video with Merge Clips (CS5.5 and later)

Premiere Pro CS5.5 and later and later features a new method for synchronizing audio and video called Merge Clips. This will streamline the process by which users can sync audio and video which have been recorded separately (a process sometimes called double-system recording). You’ll be able to select a video clip and synchronize it with up to 16 channels of audio by using the “Merge Clips” command. Clips which make up the merged clip are referred to as “component clips.”

Clips may be merged by group selecting them in the either the Project panel or the Timeline. The Merge Clips command may be invoked via either the Clip menu or a contextual menu. It is a contextual command, so more than one clip must be selected in order to enable it.

You may merge one or multiple audio clips to a single video or AV clip. The total number of audio tracks permissable in a merged clip is 16, including any combination of mono, stereo or surround 5.1 clips. A single mono clip counts as one track, a single stereo counts as two tracks, a 5.1 clip counts as six tracks.

Note: Creating a merged clip does not replace or alter the source clip(s).

To see how to merge clips and synchronize audio and video tracks, see this video on the Video2Brain website, and this video on the EventDV website.

In this video, Jason Levine shows how to use the Merge Clips command, as well as demonstrating a few other improvements in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 and later.

For details about merged clips and dual-system sound in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 and later, see this blog post on the Premiere Pro work area.

Luica Winters shows you how to use the new Merge Clips feature in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 and later in this video tutorial. You’ll learn how to synch audio and video ingested from different sources, as in professional DSLR-based production.

Merge clips in the Project panel

To merge clips in the Project panel, do the following:

1Select the video clip you wish to merge audio clips to. Note that you can only have one video clip in any merged clip.

2Shift or Control-click (Command-click for Mac OS) to select the audio-only clips you wish to merge with the video clip.

3Do one of the following:

•Choose Clip > Merge Clips

•Right-click (Control-click for Mac OS), and then choose Merge Clips from the shortcut menu.

The Merge Clips dialog launches. Choose from one of the following options for the point of synchronization:

•Based on the In point: For locating sync based on the In point, at the clap of the slate, for example.

•Based on the Out point: For locating sync based on the Out point, at the clap of the tail slate, for example.

•Based on matching timecode: For locating sync based on common timecode between the clips.

•Based on numbered clip markers: For locating a sync point based on a numbered clip marker in the middle of the shot. This function is disabled unless all component clips have at least one numbered marker.

Last updated 1/16/2012