MP4 audio sync problem in VideoStudio 10 Plus

[mark302]

I have a 5 minute video that I can output with great results in both .MPG (720x480 DVD quality) and .WMV, and the audio stays synchronized (as it should) for the entire video.

But when I output in .MP4 format (iPod settings) the audio is noticably out-of-sync with the video by about 3 minutes into the video! And it gets progressively worse to the point where at the end of the 5 minutes it looks like a badly dubbed foreign movie.

I have tried (1) installing Service Pack 1 and (2) disabling "Smart Rendering" and neither has made any difference.

I've done my searching and seen the complaints about MPG getting out of sync, but I have no problems with MPG, only MP4 is a problem.

It seems like a sub-par codec, but VS10 has been out long enough that this problem should be well documented by now, and I can't find anything on this problem.

Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks very much!

-Mark

[asjr_4584]

Try exporting your video clip on this approach: .MPG/.WMV >> .AVI >>.MP4. After converting it to AVI file, create a new project, insert the converted file and export it to MP4 file. It¡¦s suitable to make video editing in an AVI type rather than MPEG because MPEG is a highly compressed format and hard to decode and so A/V synchronization problem occurs.

[mark302]

Try exporting your video clip on this approach: .MPG/.WMV >> .AVI >>.MP4. After converting it to AVI file, create a new project, insert the converted file and export it to MP4 file. It’s suitable to make video editing in an AVI type rather than MPEG because MPEG is a highly compressed format and hard to decode and so A/V synchronization problem occurs.

Thanks for the hack suggestion, but trying the .AVI >> .MP4 conversion resulted in the same loss of audio synchronization.

This is more evidence that MP4 encoding is not trustworthy. So far only MP4 has the audio sync problem, where AVI, WMV, and even MPG all work fine.

-Mark

[asjr_4584]

May I know the original file format of your 5 minute video? If it's AVI/DV type then export it directly to MP4. It would be best if you refrain compressing MPEG files since these are already compressed media type. Please review this thread: Advice on best capture format to use.

[mark302]

May I know the original file format of your 5 minute video? If it's AVI/DV type then export it directly to MP4. It would be best if you refrain compressing MPEG files since these are already compressed media type. Please review this thread: Advice on best capture format to use.

I'm already exporting directly to MP4. How is that a solution to the problem of bad audio synchronization when exporting directly to MP4?

I'm not looking for the "best capture format to use". I'm looking for a solution to creating an MP4 video with properly synchronized audio.

Thanks anyway,
-Mark

[lancecarr]

Mark, go crazy and just take a chance. Answer the question asked by the person trying to help you...you never know!
What are the properties of the source files. Place them in the timeline or library, right click and post them here.

[asjr_4584]

As Sir Sjj1805 says, the following thread is intended as a last resort fix only to be used when all else fails: VS & MSP: Fix for Out of Synch Audio/Video.

[mark302]

Mark, go crazy and just take a chance. Answer the question asked by the person trying to help you...you never know!
What are the properties of the source files. Place them in the timeline or library, right click and post them here.

This project is the sum of:

28 .MPG files (MP2 video, 720x480, 4:3, 29.970, 9496kbps VBR)
1 .MPG file (MP2 video, 720x480, 16:9, 29.970, 8000kbps CBR)
2 .WMV files (WMV9 video, 320x240, 4:3, 30, 229kbps)
1 .WMV files (WMV9 video, 320x240, 4:3, 30, 347kbps)
(no audio used from the video files listed)
1 .WAV file in the Music Track (44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo, PCM)


Please allow me to repeat that this combination of files worked without error when exporting either .MPG, .WMV, or .AVI and produced an entire 5-minute video with perfectly synchronized audio throughout.

Exporting in .MP4 produces a video where the audio becomes more and more out of synchonization with the video as time goes on.

My requirement is to export in .MP4 and have the audio stay in sync with the video for the entire duration. (The software should work properly for .MP4 like it does/should for any other format, or Ulead should provide a technically sound solution.)

-Mark

[lancecarr]

Mark I have to tell you honest here that if you have previously successfully created an MP4 out of such a mixed bag on the timeline you should be celebrating the fact that it worked once, not bemoaning the fact that it is not working now!
The algorithmic gymnastics that VS (a consumer level NLE) would have to go through to achieve transcoding those highly to VERY highly compressed formats into another very highly compressed format would be breathtaking.
Sure you could probably get away with mixing some DV AVI with some MPEG2 on the timeline but two types of MPEG2 at different aspect ratio and bitrate then two types of WMV at different bitrates as well as two types of different frame rate I mean come on!
Where and how is VS supposed to pad or decimate the frames from to come up with a constant frame rate all the while maintaining audio sync?
You would be far better off to convert your individual video assets to one standard type, then add the audio then try to render.

[mark302]

Mark I have to tell you honest here that if you have previously successfully created an MP4 out of such a mixed bag on the timeline you should be celebrating the fact that it worked once, not bemoaning the fact that it is not working now!
The algorithmic gymnastics that VS (a consumer level NLE) would have to go through to achieve transcoding those highly to VERY highly compressed formats into another very highly compressed format would be breathtaking.
Sure you could probably get away with mixing some DV AVI with some MPEG2 on the timeline but two types of MPEG2 at different aspect ratio and bitrate then two types of WMV at different bitrates as well as two types of different frame rate I mean come on!
Where and how is VS supposed to pad or decimate the frames from to come up with a constant frame rate all the while maintaining audio sync?
You would be far better off to convert your individual video assets to one standard type, then add the audio then try to render.

Maybe you missed the part of the thread where I took the single .AVI file output and then tried to render a .MP4 from it.

To go backward (again) in the conversation, I have taken a SINGLE format, SINGLE .AVI file and attempted a simple conversion to .MP4 in VS10+ with the same result - audio out of sync! No "mixed bag", no excuses.

So I have witnessed 3 miracles in the form of .WMV, .MPG, and .AVI, all coming from the same mixed bag of formats and getting a well-synchronized and high-quality result. I should be celebrating these 3 miracles, and not complaining that the end format I really want (.MP4) doesn't work so well? Hmmm.

VS10 is overall flexible and outstanding in my opinion! It's a shame that people feel like they have to defend VS10 as being too fragile to handle all these formats. VS10 is algorithmically capable of these gymnastics. (I have 3 output files to prove it.) It is even able to do all of this playback in realtime as I do my editing and arranging. I got the whole thing together in one sitting without a single crash of VS10. I guess I should go celebrate that now!

-Mark

[mark302]

As Sir Sjj1805 says, the following thread is intended as a last resort fix only to be used when all else fails: VS & MSP: Fix for Out of Synch Audio/Video.

Thanks asjr_4584 for the link. This last resort may be my only hope now.

-Mark

[lancecarr]

Do you have G-Spot?
The reason I ask is that I, on occasion have need to output a DV AVI file of a project in preparation for converting from PAL to NTSC.
(Bear with me, I will get there!)
Anyway, before I do the conversion (in another purpose built software) I always load the file into G-Spot to check it out. Somtimes G-Spot reports that the DV AVI file has incorrect header info or some other problem. If it does I know that the conversion process will result in some sort of glitch in the conversion. Generally just by re-rendering the error goes away.

Ok, so what's the point I hear you ask?

No-one here is trying to defend VS. It's just that sometimes software does what it is supposed to do and sometimes it just doesn't. Maybe if you load the DV AVI into G-Spot it may give you an idea of what is going wrong in the render to MP4.

My idea about the conversion was not from the point of view of loading the existing assets in the timeline, rendering to DV AVI then doing the final conversion as you have done. I was thinking along the lines of individually converting each video asset to a matching format THEN loading into the timeline then rendering to MP4.
The point is YES, VS should be doing it cos' it has done it before, BUT it is not doing it now for some reason. So I have no problem sitting here agreeing with you that it should do it and it isn't doing it and that is not ok. So, did that fix it? No.

[Ken Berry]

For what it is worth, I have just spent the last couple of hours playing around with this. I am afraid I do not have any .wmv files as it is a format I simply don't use -- not through any inherent objection; it's just that I have no use for it.

Anyway, I took a 20 minute PAL DV/AVI file on which I have just completed the editing, and went to Share > Create Video File using VS10+ on an XP Pro computer. I chose the iPod default as the format. The conversion took about 25 minutes for the 20 minute file. (You will see my system details in my System button below.) I wasn't greatly impressed by the resulting quality of the mpeg-4 file, but then again, I wasn't really expecting to be. It would undoubtedly look better on a small screen. But the fact of the matter was that I was unable to detect any out of sync from beginning to end.

I also took a 6 minute PAL mpeg-2 file using Dolby dual channel stereo at 480 kbps, and almost continuous conversation by the on-screen characters. Again I converted to the default iPod format. Interestingly, by contrast to the DV file, it took over 2x real time to convert. Again, from beginning to end, there was no out of sync observable...

So I am unable to reproduce your problem -- though admittedly, without any .wmv involved in my experiments. There is nothing special about my computer set-up. No other programs apart from anti-virus were running in the background.

[mark302]

Do you have G-Spot?
The reason I ask is that I, on occasion have need to output a DV AVI file of a project in preparation for converting from PAL to NTSC.
(Bear with me, I will get there!)
Anyway, before I do the conversion (in another purpose built software) I always load the file into G-Spot to check it out. Somtimes G-Spot reports that the DV AVI file has incorrect header info or some other problem. If it does I know that the conversion process will result in some sort of glitch in the conversion. Generally just by re-rendering the error goes away.

Ok, so what's the point I hear you ask?

No-one here is trying to defend VS. It's just that sometimes software does what it is supposed to do and sometimes it just doesn't. Maybe if you load the DV AVI into G-Spot it may give you an idea of what is going wrong in the render to MP4.

My idea about the conversion was not from the point of view of loading the existing assets in the timeline, rendering to DV AVI then doing the final conversion as you have done. I was thinking along the lines of individually converting each video asset to a matching format THEN loading into the timeline then rendering to MP4.
The point is YES, VS should be doing it cos' it has done it before, BUT it is not doing it now for some reason. So I have no problem sitting here agreeing with you that it should do it and it isn't doing it and that is not ok. So, did that fix it? No.

Thanks Lance! I don't have G-Spot but this spawned the idea that maybe I should try a different player for the output MP4. For testing the other successful outputs I was always able to use Windows Media Player, but this player doesn't support MP4 (unless you pay money to some 3rd party codec vendor). I was testing MP4 output using Intervideo WinDVD 7 - a trustable commercial package right? ( ) So I just now tried a free, open source gem named VLC Media Player (available on C-net's download.com), and voila, the video plays fine with the audio in sync for the duration! Then for extra credit I dumped the MP4 to my video iPod and it played in sync there as well. Amen.

Thanks Lance and others for putting up with my impatience and helping me get through this annoyance. VideoStudio 10+ is every bit as top notch as I originally thought, MP4 output included.

RECAP AND MORAL:
1. Intervideo WinDVD 7 has a problem playing back MP4 files - audio synchronization gets progressively worse the longer the MP4 video plays.
2. Never trust a single video player as your only test platform.

Thanks and regards,
-Mark

[lancecarr]

Damn!
Didn't even think about the player!
Glad you got it going!