Track in Sound Mixer mode suddenly plays at full volume or is completely silent

[mgmax666]

As with the first error I mentioned in my post from two days ago, this one is happening on both of my computers with VS2023. The project has the main video track and two overlay tracks. The main video track and overlay track 2 have sound while track 1 is muted. I have the properties of the main video track to have the audio at 120 and the audio of overlay track 2 at 35. When I switch to sound mixer and I hit play, I can only hear overlay track 2 and at full volume. The only way I can hear playback correctly is if I click the video track on and off in the sound mixer and then select track 2 from the sound mixer dropdown. Then I can hear both tracks at their intended volumes. I can do a little editing and then, at random moments, track 2 starts playing at full volume instead of 35 again. I do not see a pattern to this.

Another related thing: I have a clip in track 2 that has its volume set to 35. I hit play and I hear everything fine. I move the clip to overlay track 3, because I intend to place something else in 2. Now it plays for me at full volume, no matter what I do.

None of these issues happened with VS2021. The clips played at whatever volume that was assigned to them.

What gives?

I am immensely frustrated.

[Ken Berry]

Are you varying the choice between Project and Clip when these things happen? The Project and Clip buttons are immediately below the preview screen. When in Project mode, you should get the audio playing at the adjusted settings you have made. But in Clip, it will play the audio of the selected clip at 100%.

[mgmax666]

Are you varying the choice between Project and Clip when these things happen? The Project and Clip buttons are immediately below the preview screen. When in Project mode, you should get the audio playing at the adjusted settings you have made. But in Clip, it will play the audio of the selected clip at 100%.

Project mode. It varies between playing at 100% and the selected mode. Furthermore, randomly audio from the main track either doesn't play or plays mono from either the right or left side. I used the cleanup tool and reinstalled the software on one of the PCs. That had no effect.

[mgmax666]

Update: This occurred just now: After some editing (deleting clips, changing volume, etc), one track started playing at 100% volume while another track went to mono right only, but only for a section of the clip. After playing back the section a couple of times, the application froze. It did not close completely, but just stopped responding.

[mgmax666]

Attached is a screen recording I just made with MultiCam Capture. In this example, the software randomly switches a section of a track to mono and then back to stereo, and then back to mono again. I have already used the cleanup tool and reinstalled the software.

When playing the same section in regular edit mode and not sound mixer, it does not go to mono, but the volume is inconsistent - it fades out at the end of a couple of sections, even though audio is not set to fade out. When rendered, the final result does not have the audio issue. Editing like this is nearly impossible. If there is no easy fix, I would like to go back to VS2021 and receive a refund on the license for 2023.

[mgmax666]

Update: Support chat were unable to help as they said that nobody from the specialized team was available. While playing back the video in various ways, I found that if you play the actual clip by itself in clip mode, it plays fine, and if you load the source file into another project all by itself, it plays fine. After playing the project back a couple of times, I received a message about an "improper argument."

I am including the smart package that I saved immediately after. It is uploaded here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... share_link

[Ken Berry]

I have downloaded your rather large Smart Package (13GB+). I've played it through several times. Well, I saw no reason to play either part, let alone all, of the 3 hour timer you have added to the end of the top main track. So I have played the first 6 minutes several times, and I have not once heard any variation in the sound levels from either track 1 or overlay track 2. In fact, I think the balance mostly works out pretty well. Overlay Track 2 maintains a much lower level, as you have set, than the main track.

I eventually totally removed the timer footage, which made things easier for me. But since that was an edit, I was also hoping for an improper argument message, or indeed any message. But I never received anything. As I say, the footage played in a properly balanced way throughout. There were some minor glitches at cuts between clips on the main track, but that could be easily fixed in later editing, and were just related to the cuts in the women commentators' words, rather than anything more.

From my own point of view, this footage is ready to move on to final editing, or whatever you plan to do with the 3 hour timer!

[mgmax666]

From my own point of view, this footage is ready to move on to final editing, or whatever you plan to do with the 3 hour timer!

I add the 3 hour timer at the end to get around the software jumping to the end of the clip whenever you make a cut. It is the only way I found of preventing that without disabling "Automatically Scroll Timeline."

I have since recreated the project with the MTS files converted to Mpeg. The issue is now less severe, but it is still happening. Check out the screen recording I posted earlier to see what happens.

[mgmax666]

Here is another instance that happened right after I posted my reply above. This time it decided to play a track mono when in sound mixing mode. I am attaching a screen recording.

It plays fine when playing the track by itself in Clip mode, but goes mono on the right side only in Project mode.

[Ken Berry]

I can certainly see your problem in that earlier small recording, though am at a loss to explain it. To test things a bit further, I just rendered your project in VS2023 -- or at least the first 6 minutes minus the timer -- to an mp4 with the same properties as your main track. I had SmartRender on and Hardware Acceleration switched as I normally do to AMD (that's for the GPU in my computer; no on board Intel GPU). And it came out exactly as I had watched it playing in the project and described above. No variations or dropouts, and good balance between main track and overlay 2.

EDIT: You provided that second screen video while I was writing the above. Having now looked at it, I am not sure what it is meant to prove. It shows the video in Project mode throughout, and in the second play of the same part, you show the mixer. But to me, all I hear is stereo both times, including in the top track.

[mgmax666]

I can certainly see your problem in that earlier small recording, though am at a loss to explain it. To test things a bit further, I just rendered your project in VS2023 -- or at least the first 6 minutes minus the timer -- to an mp4 with the same properties as your main track. I had SmartRender on and Hardware Acceleration switched as I normally do to AMD (that's for the GPU in my computer; no on board Intel GPU). And it came out exactly as I had watched it playing in the project and described above. No variations or dropouts, and good balance between main track and overlay 2.

To test things, I clicked on Normalize Audio and the track started sounding OK. I am continuing to edit and it has been fine for the past few minutes...

[mgmax666]

Update. Nothing that I do has any effect. The issue persists. I received this reply from Corel support:

"Enabling your VideoStudio's smart proxy may help with your problem.

1. Go to the "Settings" menu.
2. Click on "Preferences".
3. Click "Smart Proxy Manager".
4. Click the "Enable Smart Proxy" setting.
5. Then re-launch your VideoStudio.

Enable both the "Hardware Decoder acceleration" in the "Editing Process" and the "Hardware Encoder acceleration" in the "File Creation".

Then open your project file. Then click on the Video timeline and select all the clips by clicking Cntrl+A.

Then right click on it and select "Create smart proxy file". Wait for few seconds and play again."

There was no effect.

[Ken Berry]

I wouldn't have thought your computer would require you to use SmartProxy anyway...

The only other thing I can think of which you might want to try would be to switch your graphics setting for the computer. As I understand it, your CPU has integrated Intel graphics, and that is of course additional to your separated dedicated GeForce GPU. This is fairly simple and can be easily undone if it doesn't work.

. Open the NVIDIA Control Panel.
. Under 3D Settings select Manage 3D Settings.
. Click the Program Settings tab.
. Select the program you want to choose a graphics card for from the drop-down list.
. Select the preferred graphics processor in the drop-down list.

This should allow you to choose between your NVidia and the integrated Intel graphics. Try one, and if that doesn't work, try the other. I assume that under Preferences > Performance in VS you have chosen NVidia under Hardware Acceleration. When you switch to integrated Intel graphics, you would need to change this to Intel.

[mgmax666]

I wouldn't have thought your computer would require you to use SmartProxy anyway...

The only other thing I can think of which you might want to try would be to switch your graphics setting for the computer. As I understand it, your CPU has integrated Intel graphics, and that is of course additional to your separated dedicated GeForce GPU. This is fairly simple and can be easily undone if it doesn't work.

Thanks for the advice. My system has an AMD Ryzen CPU. I have already done the nVidia graphics selections earlier. I have tried switching Hardware Acceleration in Video Studio between nVidia and AMD. In VS2021 when rendering under nVidia, the rendered video colors are messed up. In 2023 there is no such issue, but the rest does not change regardless of whether I have AMD or nVidia selected.

[Ken Berry]

Did you look in the NVidia control panel to see which GPU was being used: the Intel integrated one or your NVidia one. Setting hardware acceleration to AMD would achieve nothing positive since you don't have an AMD GPU. Your AMD hardware is a CPU not GPU. So it is a choice between Intel and NVidia, and you'll only know which one is being used if you look at the NVidia control panel as I described...

The other things you could try are once you have moved to render the project: try turning off or on Smart Render and Hardware Acceleration there. This may make the render rather longer, but it would be interesting to see if it eradicated your problems with the audio chopping and changing.