When Linked Clips Are Moved out of Sync
When you move clip items in the Timeline, Final Cut Pro checks to see if the
relationship between linked items is still correct. If the relationship does not match,
Final Cut Pro displays out-of-sync indicators in the Timeline. Out-of-sync indicators show
the offset between the linked clip items.
The underlined clip name
indicates the link between
audio and video items.
Click the Linked
Selection button to
turn linked selection
on and off.
Out-of-sync indicator
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Even when clip items are unlinked, Final Cut Pro keeps track of the relationship
between clip items that come from the same media file. This means that you can move
those items out of sync at any time, without worrying that you won’t be able to
resynchronize them later if you change your mind. Since merged clips contain clip
items that do not come from the same media file, out-of-sync indicators are not shown
when you unlink and move merged clip items. (For more information, see Chapter 3,
“
Merging Clips from Dual System Video and Audio
,” on page 45.
An out-of-sync indicator appears whenever the following conditions occur:
 Audio and video clip items from the same media file are out of sync. Because they
come from the same media file, these items always show out-of-sync indicators, even
if they are not currently linked.
 Audio and video clip items belonging to a merged clip have been moved out of sync.
Because they come from different media files, these items only show out-of-sync
indicators if they are linked.
 Audio and video clip items have been linked together in the Timeline, and then
moved out of sync.
Audio and video clip items that have a sync relationship must be vertically overlapping
in the Timeline for out-of-sync indicators to appear when the items are moved out of
sync. No indicator appears if linked audio and video clip items are so far apart that they
no longer overlap.
If you move these items back together so that they overlap, the indicators appear again.
Audio moved away
from video clip
Audio moved back
under video clip
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This also works with multiple instances of clips from the same media file on disk. For
example, suppose you have three items in your sequence, all from different parts of the
same media file.
If you move the audio item to the left, so that it overlaps the first video item, out-of-sync
indicators appear. The same happens if you move the audio item to the right.
What if you move all three items so that they overlap, but all are out of sync with one
another? The first two items show out-of-sync indicators relative to one another, and
the third item shows an out-of-sync indicator relative to the item it overlaps.
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