Mulitple file formats create sound sync issues?

[swjtx]

Hi,

I am trying to create a video using mpg's, wmv's, and avi's. I also inserted mp3's as background music on audio 2. and I time stretched one clip.

Everything looked great, for transitions I only used simple crossfades. Problem is that after rendering the finished product I had some serious sound sync problems.

The clips I used were pieces of the above file types, I loaded the entire clip into MSP8 and cut out the pieces I wanted. I've been searching all over the net and at the Ulead site to get some advice. Many say that wmv's are not editable because they are highly compressed yada yada... mpg's are also compressed no? Should I convert all the files to DV AVI's first and start over? This would create some really huge files. Would mpg files work? They would be smaller but will I have sync problems if I cut clips out of them? The final output is to be mpeg2 which I probably won't make into a DVD.

As an example, I have a 200MB wmv. When converted to mpg, it grows to 1Gig, when converted to AVI, it grows to 5Gig.

One last phenomenon......when I convert the wmv to either mpg or avi, the fast motion in the video "ghosts"....I can't think of any other way to describe it. It's like the frame rate isn't keeping up with the motion. I tried playing with bitrates but so far, same results. If I play the original wmv using windows media player, it looks fine. The converted files exhibit this phenomenon.

Any help would be appreciated.

swjtx

[Devil]

Your problem is probably due to using mp3s on the timeline. This is not recommended.

Convert MP3s to wavs at your default settings BEFORE opening them on your timeline.

[Downstairs Video]

Hi,
For the sound sync issues, firstly try Devil's suggestion of converting the MP3's to wav. MP3's are highly compressed, and canb be compressed at different ratios in different ways depending on the software originally used. (mp3pro is best if you must you this format). I also had problems in MSP7 with mp3's, so I ALWAYS convert to .wav first for two reasons.
1. to help solve little glitches
2. to ensure the best possible sound quality

[One last phenomenon......when I convert the wmv to either mpg or avi, the fast motion in the video "ghosts"....I can't think of any other way to describe it. It's like the frame rate isn't keeping up with the motion. I tried playing with bitrates but so far, same results. If I play the original wmv using windows media player, it looks fine. The converted files exhibit this phenomenon.]
Have you tried de-interlacing the converted video file?

Please let us know how you get on, we would be interested in the results.

[swjtx]

Hi,

Thank you much for the suggestions. It's going to take a while to replace the mp3's with WAV's so it will probably be tomorrow before I can see if this works to fix the sound sync problems and post a follow-up.

I did recreate one file from a wmv as frame-based mpg per your suggestion. Hard to tell if there are any improvements. It's not really bad to start with, I just noticed that it's not as good as the original file. If I hadn't already seen the original, I might not be so picky....but I did

I'm pretty sure I don't have a hardware issue. I just built this system:

Mid-Tower Case: Thermaltake Viking VA4000BWS RT
Power Supply: Antec Truepower II 480W
Motherboard: Abit AW8-Max Third-eye
Hard drives: (2) Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 250 Ghz SATA II
Processor: Intel Pentium D 830 Smithfield 800Mhz FSB Dual Core LGA775
RAM: 2GB RAM PQI Turbo 240 pin DDR2 667 (PC2 5400)
Processor Heat sync: Thermalright SI-120 Heatsink
Video Card: LeadTek Winfast PX7800 GTX TDH myVIVO Extreme 256 MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16

I set up the hard drives in a double RAID configuration. One 50 Gb Raid 0 (striped) partition for the OS and programs and the rest (~200 KHz) in a RAID 1 (mirrored) partition.

swjtx

[swjtx]

Hi,

Well I didn't have time to replace all the mp3's with WAV's so I just deleted all extra sound from the time line and re-created the video using just the audio track from the video (to just eliminate the possibility that mp3's are causing the audio sync issue).

Results: The sync problem is still there. It's not consistent though, some clips have it and some don't. Strangely it's also not just one file type. The first clip, which is an AVI, has the problem. Is it possible when I cut out the part I wanted I cut only video and not the associated audio? Is that even possible? I know at one point I was playing with the ripple editing settings but I didn't consider I could chop up video without effecting that clip's audio. Maybe that's what I did? After further investigation I found that when I preview it in the timeline, it has the problem but it's clearly not there if I play the original clip in Windows Media Player.

Thanks,

[Terry Stetler]

Hmmm.....

Try putting a blank audio file as the first one played in the project. Could be it'll work like a blank color clip sometimes helps with problem video clips being first up to bat.