Sometimes it takes a while before you realize that the image and sound of a movie are not quite the same. From then on, the annoyance only increases until your movie turns off, because little is as disastrous for the movie experience as audio desynchronization. With an app like VLC you can synchronize the sound with the image again.
Step 1: Audio Sync
This happens regularly when the video file got corrupted in some way. If you’re lucky, the sound sync will restore itself after a few moments. If not, you can still fix that problem with the free VideoLAN Client Media Player. Open VLC and go through Additional nasty Track synchronization. In the window, open the Synchronization tab. After that you can use the Audio track synchronization adjust and below that also the Subtitle track sync. If you have the impression that the sound is ahead of the image, then you should Audio track synchronization enter a negative value. When the sound lags, use a positive value.
Step 2: 50 ms increments
Even more convenient is using keyboard shortcuts. Press the Windowsversion press the J key to delay 50 milliseconds or press k to accelerate this 50 milliseconds. On the Mac you use the keyboard shortcuts G and f to adjust the audio delay during playback. In the top right corner of the screen you can see how many Audio Delay you entered. This message will disappear very quickly. If you keep pressing continuously, the number of milliseconds will also continuously increase. Choosing to use 50 millisecond steps is a good decision. It is very difficult to tell the difference between an offset of say 50 and 30 milliseconds and between 50 and 70 milliseconds.
Step 3: Preferences
You can also adjust the audio desynchronization in VLC’s preferences. For that you go to the menu Additional and from there to the Preferences. The preference pane has two views: Simple and Everything. You’ll find that choice in the bottom-left corner. Use the mode Everything. In the extended view, click the button in the left column audio, so that you right the General audio settings sees. In the middle you will find the function Compensate for audio desynchronization. Again, you can increase and decrease the number of milliseconds with the arrows to solve the delay problem. Then click Save. This does not mean that the sync setting is permanent, it only affects the current view.
