Different results based on which track (new or old) the source is located in

Matchbox
#1

All,

We are trying to use Matchbox to conform mixed show dialogue against promo dialogue stems. We can then use the resulting edit list to conform out foreign dialogue tracks for dubbing.

I have noticed a few things that I am sure are user error.

First, the matches that Matchbox finds differs depending on if I match the dialogue show to the promo (show dialogue on the top ‘old sequence’) vs if I match the promo dialogue to the show dialogue(show dialogue on the bottom or ‘New sequence’) with the latter method giving more matches.

Ideally, I would like to work with the former method as the workflow is pretty straight forward. What can I do to get the matches to be more consistent between the two? In the few 30 second spots, it is matching at least one more line of dialogue doing it in the latter than the former.

Second, I am seeing that MB does a great job matching audio only, but there are lines in our promos that are edited from longer lines from the show. MB will generally match the beginning of the line in the promo, but not the back half if it was edited, even if it is within 10 frames or so.

Is there a way that I can make MB match that better?

Again, what I have seen so far is fantastic and I can see a number of areas where this will be useful. I am sure that much of the issues i have outlined are user errors.

Any help would be appreciated.

Randall

#2

Screen Shot 2022-10-25 at 11.17.24 AM
Screen Shot 2022-10-25 at 11.17.24 AM784×406 20.4 KB
Screen Shot 2022-10-25 at 11.18.38 AM
Screen Shot 2022-10-25 at 11.18.38 AM691×513 29.6 KB

Here is an example. The first picture is matching dialogue stems to a promo, I got 7 matches. When I swapped them and matched the promo to the dialogue stem I got 18 matches. I love that it got better results, but since I am ultimately going to be conforming foreign tracks of the shows to the promo, would like the 18 matches when matching the show dialogue to the promo.

What can I do to improve my results?

Thanks,
Randall

#3

So I think the 18 matches is a red-herring. The image shows that the same lines in the promo are being matched against multiple different lines in the main show dialog (which is much longer).

When you switch them around (long-form in OLD, and short promo in new), Matchbox is just looking for a single match for every line in the promo. It might find more than one instance of that line in the OLD (long cut) but it will just choose the best match for that line.

As for your question about it matching part of a line only… very hard to say what’s going on there without looking at the specific audio files. You could maybe try changing the preference for Audio Matching Tolerance… but honestly, the standard setting is best 99.9% of the time - the other two options are just there as a fall-back in case someone has a really strange situation. Try it, but remember to switch back to Standard

#4

Thank you. The 18 results, are in fact, valid. When I do a re-conform based on the 18 matches, they all mostly match up. The one thing that surprised me most was that the lines in the promo were time compressed, heavily in some cases and MB found them.

Randall

#5

Oh, that’s really interesting… and probably explains the difference between the 2 cases- and also the overlapping matches.