# Red Giant PluralEyes 3.5

## Preparing Files for the Sync

This page discusses our recommendations for when you should synchronize clips and when you can edit them.

### When should you synchronize?

In general, you should synchronize clips in PluralEyes as early as possible in your post-production workflow. PluralEyes typically works best with the raw files recorded by your camera or audio recording device.

We highly recommend that you do NOT edit your footage before using PluralEyes. This includes setting In/Out points and adding markers. You want to sync in PluralEyes BEFORE you edit the clips.

### Keep things as simple as possible

Keep your PluralEyes project as simple as possible. Technically, there is no limit to the length of the footage or number of clips that you can sync. In practice, will get unexpected behavior if you have really long projects.

Length of project. There isn't a set limit on the length of a PluralEyes project. However, performance can suffer when you are dealing with large numbers of clips and/or extremely long sequences.

Number of clips. A good guideline for sequence length is around 30 minutes or less. For the number of clips, stay around 50 clips or less of audio and video. For best results, 30 clips is a good maximum. If you run into problems during the sync, make sure that your PluralEyes project follows these suggestions, and reduce the content if the project is too big.

Break into multiple projects. Synchronization will generally be faster if you create multiple small projects each covering a short amount of time, rather than one very long project for an entire production.

For examples of organization, see How to Organize a Project and Working with Media Clips.

### Always sync with unedited footage!

PluralEyes was designed for, and works best with, unedited footage.

Syncing is what PluralEyes 3.5 does. Syncing should come before editing because PluralEyes will want to move clips around and analyze them as much as possible in order to get the best sync. If there are edits like transitions, titles, effects or In/Out markers, PluralEyes 3.5 will be prevented from properly analyzing the clips.

Other than the situations listed below, editing or cutting footage will not improve their sync quality or speed, and might make the sync more difficult. An edit can take longer to sync, or just not sync at all.

Once PluralEyes has synced your files and you've brought them into your NLE, you are free to go about editing your project. PluralEyes is no longer involved!

### Exceptions for editing before the sync

Now that we’ve told you not to edit your footage before syncing... There are a few situations in which you might want to edit the media files before importing them into PluralEyes.

- If you want to give media files more meaningful names. You should do this before bringing the files into PluralEyes. References in PluralEyes projects, and in most of the file formats that you export from PluralEyes, will break if you rename files after importing them.
- If you need to cut clips to ensure that each clip corresponds to one continuous stretch of recording. Clips might contain discontinuous recordings from the following situations:
  - If a still picture was snapped with a DSLR camera while it was recording video.
  - If the Pause button was pressed on an audio recorder while it was recording.
  - If several clips were combined into one media file. If clips are captured from tape, be sure to use an option in the capture software to create a new media file whenever the camera was stopped and started.
  - If some of the content dropped out when it was captured from tape.
  Any of these issues will cause a disruption in the audio content of a clip, making it impossible to automatically pair with the corresponding clip from another device. The solution is to use an editing application (like Premiere Pro) to split the clip near the discontinuity, usually with the razor tool. Learn more