VideoStudio 11.5 Out of Sync Video / Audio

ghuber · Post by **ghuber** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:22 pm

First of all.. I am new to this forum and new to Ulead VideoStudio 11.5.

I have a JVC GZHD7 high def camcorder that records in MPEG2 format (though natively it is called ".TOD") and is specifically mentioned as being supported by the product. I have created a video with several transitions, title overlays, etc. using Video Studio. When I attempt to use the "create video file" functionality and use the MPEG Optimizer template for the video format, I get out of sync issues. The video project is approximately 30 minutes, and the problem is easily noticable after about 15 minutes. However, I was able to successfully render a "DVD" quality file with the exact same project and had no sync issues at all. That leads me to believe there is an issue with the "smart render" functionality as the later required a much lengthier full render process.

After doing some web research and searching this forum it seems that this is a common problem. I believe my solution may be to disable the "smart render" functionality though I'm not completely sure how to do that, or if it is going to work. I'd rather wait hours for a proper render than have a quicker render that is out of sync.

One other gripe- I can't figure out how to submit a tech support issue on the Ulead site, nor can I find a phone number. Being in software development I understand why they want to keep this information hidden... but I'm trying to follow the process (go through knowledgebase, go to "my questions" tab) and I still don't get an e-mail link.

If anyone has any insight I'd appreciate it.

Post by **Ron P.** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:47 pm

Welcome to the forums,

Yes VS does have the OOS issue when it comes to rendering some MPEG files, and that SmartRender tends to increase that risk. I think that disabling Smart Render is the best solution in your case.

To disable Smart Render, instead of choosing the MPEG optimizer, choose one of the HD formats, then in the "Save As" dialog press the Options button, and clear the checkmark in the box beside Perform Smart Render.

To get to the Email Corel tab, you must first select one of the FAQ questions/answers. Selecting anyone of them will make that tab available. They want people to at least read some of their solutions..

Corel do list their phone numbers, Corel Phone Numbers

rguthrie · Post by **rguthrie** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:49 pm

ghuber,

Welcome to the board! You're in the right place.

As far as your out of sync problem goes, I don't believe that you can actually "disable" the smart render functionality. It sounds like you may have to just stay away from using the optimizer. Did you try Same As Project Settings to see how that worked for you? Hang in there, there are a lot of people on this board who can offer help, especially the admin/moderator/senior members. And they're quick to post a reply too. I personally haven't had this problem, but I'm sure someone else has.

Also, did your render for a 30 min. video actually take hours to finish? It should not take that long. I have an older HP MCE that has a P4 3.2GHz HT computer and my render times average about 1 to 1, that is for every minute of video it takes about a minute to render.

Here's the link to the Ulead System Support Center. As everything is switching over to Corel (they just purchased Ulead) I can't vouch for tech support right now.

Ronald Guthrie

ghuber · Post by **ghuber** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:06 pm

Thanks for the info Vidoman and rGuthrie.

It sounds like I need to try something other than the MPEG optimizer. I did try it with an HD format and got the same result before, though I didn't uncheck the smart render box. I'll see if that makes a difference, definitely sounds promising.

rguthrie: to answer your question about render time, I have a core 2 duo 1.8 ghz, 3gb ram, 3850 ATI graphics card running under Vista. I want to say it was around 15-20 minutes to do render the 30 minutes. However, the DVD (doing a full render) took over an hour- probably closer to 2 hours but I wasn't really keeping track.

vidoman wrote:Welcome to the forums,

Yes VS does have the OOS issue when it comes to rendering some MPEG files, and that SmartRender tends to increase that risk. I think that disabling Smart Render is the best solution in your case.

To disable Smart Render, instead of choosing the MPEG optimizer, choose one of the HD formats, then in the "Save As" dialog press the Options button, and clear the checkmark in the box beside Perform Smart Render.

To get to the Email Corel tab, you must first select one of the FAQ questions/answers. Selecting anyone of them will make that tab available. They want people to at least read some of their solutions..

Corel do list their phone numbers, Corel Phone Numbers

rguthrie · Post by **rguthrie** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 5:52 pm

ghuber,

Does that include writing to the DVD? 'Cause that still sounds too long to me. The method that used to be preached was to:

1. Edit and render your project to MPEG2. (If done right, you won't have to re-render when making the DVD)

2. Start a new project and go straight to Create Disc. You'll have to add your rendered video at this step. If you rendered correctly, you should only have a short rendering time for your menu(s).

I know some folks are still doing this (like Ken, one of the Moderators). It's funny, but VS (somehow) acts differently on many different systems. Some systems seem to have no problem whatsoever and others seem to be plagued with a specific problem, i.e. freeze-ups, out-of-sync audio. Stick with it, VS is a great program, and the help you'll find on this board is invaluable.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:59 pm

I know you say you have VS11.5, but can you check in ? > About Video Studio to ensure that your version number is 11.5.0157.2. If it isn't exactly that, then you have not loaded the relevant updates available on the Ulead.com website using the Download button. Ignore the 'hot fix'. You only need the update patch of 6 November 2007 and the 'Power Pack' of 8 November. VS11 when it first came out had various problems with .TOD files, but either one or both of those updates apparently fixed it.

ghuber · Post by **ghuber** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 1:20 pm

Ken, I checked my version number and it was exactly what you typed in below. Just to be sure I re-installed the entire thing and re-applied the patch and power pack.

I tried unchecking the smart render and creating the file using the HD DVD 1920 option. it did fix the out of sync. However, that seemed to introduce a new problem. When I play it back using Windows Media Player the audio is distorted- it sounds very mechanized. However, if I play it using Video Studio it is fine. I also tried playing the video through a Media Center extender (my Xbox 360) and no audio plays at all. I have no idea what it is going to do if I try to burn it to an HD DVD or Blu-Ray, but don't really want to waste media to find out. Any thoughts??

I did not split out the audio from any of the clips in my project. Does it make a difference if I do that?

Ken Berry wrote:I know you say you have VS11.5, but can you check in ? > About Video Studio to ensure that your version number is 11.5.0157.2. If it isn't exactly that, then you have not loaded the relevant updates available on the Ulead.com website using the Download button. Ignore the 'hot fix'. You only need the update patch of 6 November 2007 and the 'Power Pack' of 8 November. VS11 when it first came out had various problems with .TOD files, but either one or both of those updates apparently fixed it.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 1:41 pm

Others may not agree with me, but I do not find Windows Media Player particularly stable when it comes to playing back HD video. I normally use PowerDVD 7, recently upgrade to PowerDVD 8 DeLuxe (or, indeed, the VS11.5+ preview screen)... Others have also had problems with WMP, particularly when it comes to audio. I am assuming that your HD video would have used Dolby though it could also be mpeg 1 layer 2. But with either, I have found that players other than WMP do a much better job...

As for splitting the audio, I cannot think of any reason why that would give you a different result. I capture my mpeg layer 2 audio direct from my Canon HV20 HD camera and play back the audio in VS11.5+ with no problem. Quite the contrary...

I confess, though, that I have never tried playing it back in WMP because I never thought to do so. At the same time I should add that in fact I do use WMP for playing back some SD video clips, plus of course my audio collection. So don't take it as though I am against WMP for any purpose...

ghuber · Post by **ghuber** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 1:59 pm

Thanks for the info, Ken. I've never had a problem with my original source clips playing back on Windows Media Player, which is why I was curious. And since I'm primarily viewing videos in my living room via the Xbox extender through Media Center, this is an issue for me. I may try splitting the audio out to see if that helps. I didn't see any options when creating the video file to change audio. Also, the audio plays back fine when viewing it under the "DVD quality" rendered file in both Windows media player and on the extender using Media Center.

I wonder if there is something happening in the render that is forcing an audio conversion due to the HD DVD format?

I checked the audio properties of the original clip:
MPEG Audio Layer 2
1,800,200 samples total
48000 hz, 16 bit, stereo
Layer 2
Bit rate 384 Kbps

I just checked the audio properties on the final rendered clip- it converted the audio to LPCM Audio, 87,218,418 samples, 48000 Hz, 16 bit, stereo. Could that be an issue? Or is that the expected format for HD?

Ken Berry wrote:Others may not agree with me, but I do not find Windows Media Player particularly stable when it comes to playing back HD video. I normally use PowerDVD 7, recently upgrade to PowerDVD 8 DeLuxe (or, indeed, the VS11.5+ preview screen)... Others have also had problems with WMP, particularly when it comes to audio. I am assuming that your HD video would have used Dolby though it could also be mpeg 1 layer 2. But with either, I have found that players other than WMP do a much better job...

As for splitting the audio, I cannot think of any reason why that would give you a different result. I capture my mpeg layer 2 audio direct from my Canon HV20 HD camera and play back the audio in VS11.5+ with no problem. Quite the contrary... I confess, though, that I have never tried playing it back in WMP because I never thought to do so. At the same time I should add that in fact I do use WMP for playing back some SD video clips, plus of course my audio collection. So don't take it as though I am against WMP for any purpose...

ghuber · Post by **ghuber** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 2:10 pm

It looks like I can create a movie template that will output the audio in 384K, Mpeg2, stereo per my original clip. I'm going to give this a shot and see if it fixes the probl.

Ken Berry wrote:Others may not agree with me, but I do not find Windows Media Player particularly stable when it comes to playing back HD video. I normally use PowerDVD 7, recently upgrade to PowerDVD 8 DeLuxe (or, indeed, the VS11.5+ preview screen)... Others have also had problems with WMP, particularly when it comes to audio. I am assuming that your HD video would have used Dolby though it could also be mpeg 1 layer 2. But with either, I have found that players other than WMP do a much better job...

As for splitting the audio, I cannot think of any reason why that would give you a different result. I capture my mpeg layer 2 audio direct from my Canon HV20 HD camera and play back the audio in VS11.5+ with no problem. Quite the contrary... I confess, though, that I have never tried playing it back in WMP because I never thought to do so. At the same time I should add that in fact I do use WMP for playing back some SD video clips, plus of course my audio collection. So don't take it as though I am against WMP for any purpose...

[/quote]

ghuber · Post by **ghuber** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 5:31 pm

Thanks to everyone for all your help in pointing me in the right direction. This forum is invaluable!

Creating the movie template that was the exact format of my original clip and removing "smart render" fixed my problem. I have no more audio issues, the out of sync and distortion are both gone. It took 90 mins to create 30 minutes of footage, so that's about a 1:3 ratio- doesn't seem unreasonable. My core duo 1.8 is the bottle neck.

Now I'm checking out the quality of the final render- I set the video quality in the template to 100. I notice a slight bit of artifacting when title overlays appear. If you look very closely you can see a difference when comparing to the original clip, but I'm happy with the result especially considering the price for the software. The quality is sufficient to give to family/friends (I am an ameteur / hobbyist). Once there is a version of Ulead MediaStudio Pro for Vista I may upgrade to that.

ghuber wrote:It looks like I can create a movie template that will output the audio in 384K, Mpeg2, stereo per my original clip. I'm going to give this a shot and see if it fixes the probl.

Ken Berry wrote:Others may not agree with me, but I do not find Windows Media Player particularly stable when it comes to playing back HD video. I normally use PowerDVD 7, recently upgrade to PowerDVD 8 DeLuxe (or, indeed, the VS11.5+ preview screen)... Others have also had problems with WMP, particularly when it comes to audio. I am assuming that your HD video would have used Dolby though it could also be mpeg 1 layer 2. But with either, I have found that players other than WMP do a much better job...

As for splitting the audio, I cannot think of any reason why that would give you a different result. I capture my mpeg layer 2 audio direct from my Canon HV20 HD camera and play back the audio in VS11.5+ with no problem. Quite the contrary... I confess, though, that I have never tried playing it back in WMP because I never thought to do so. At the same time I should add that in fact I do use WMP for playing back some SD video clips, plus of course my audio collection. So don't take it as though I am against WMP for any purpose...

[/quote]

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 12:18 am

Sorry I wasn't here with any more suggestions, but being on the other side of the world means that I will often be asleep when you are wide awake!!

But I am glad that you seem to have got it worked out now.

That conversion/burning time still seems a bit excessive, but it could be down to your computer, as you say...

As for LPCM audio, it is the rock standard 'pure' audio for DVDs -- very high quality but large files. My own Canon HV-20 uses mpeg layer 2 audio in the same format as yours and I simply maintain that throughout, as you have discovered -- though again I wouldn't have thought that its being changed to LPCM would have caused your problem...